Points of Light award for volunteer Nita
‘It has given me a lot of satisfaction’
THRINGSTONE resident Nita Pearson recently received a Points of Light award, presented by North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen on behalf Prime Minister Theresa May. The award recognises outstanding volunteers making a difference in their communities.
Here she is interviewed by John Brindley about her life and work.
VOLUNTEERING comes very naturally to Nita Pearson.
Her mother was a very keen volunteer who helped out at mother and baby classes and she says: “I was brought up to think volunteering is what you do. A lot of people don’t think about it until they have given up their jobs.
“I recommend it because it has given me a lot of satisfaction.”
Nita’s varied career included being journalist of the year for Up Country in 2000 and writing 14 books in the 1990s for a national book publisher on what they called ‘new age’ subjects.
And she has put her consuming interest in people to great effect since moving to the village in 1983.
She is best known as the driving force behind the Friends of Thringstone, who meet monthly on the first Thursday at the Charles Booth Centre.
She adds: “I went to the first meeting in 2005 and have been the chairman ever since.
“We are non-political and insist that our committee is not made up of councillors.
“We get involved in all aspects of village life and, for me, the main interest is not the pubs, schools or businesses but the people themselves.
“I think I’m still regarded as an outsider because I wasn’t born in Thringstone and people ask me why I’m so interested in the history of the village.
“That’s because it is all about people and how their lives have contributed to where we are today.”
The Friends have won a string of awards including the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and an award from Keep Britain Tidy, but Nita is reluctant to put herself in the limelight.
“The Points of Light award was a surprise really because I’ve always hidden behind the Friends of Thringstone,” she says.
Nita’s talent for research and writing has again been put to very good use as she has produced a number of village publications covering war stories, poems, memories of the past and ‘Thringstone and its People,’ a blockbuster look back at the village between 1800 and 1950.
Although she had previously been asked to produce books inside three weeks, the latter was a three-year task.
Her desire to uncover history is something she likes to share with others rather than purely for her personal satisfaction.
An excellent example was when she was asked by Bellway Homes to provide four names from soldiers from World War One for roads on a new housing development in the village.
The result was than more than 80 people with links to the soldiers attended the official opening, with some being reunited with folk they hadn’t seen for decades.