Isabel’s story

I’m a retired librarian.  Five years ago Mo ‘press ganged’ me in to setting up our Honesty Library.  Since then I’ve kept it functioning, filing regularly donated new books.  I help at our knitting group, making sure everything is set up, supplies available, welcoming new participants and when necessary showing people basic knitting skills to get them started – I suppose general troubleshooting.  The Mill Knitters gets involved in a variety of projects including the Wetlands Swift project; Twiddle Cuffs for dementia patients and for Age UK, little hats for smoothie bottles. 

I’m on the Events team and often man a knitters table at events. Also I’m part of The Mill Gardening Group.   I’m no expert and the group welcomes anyone that can advise us and take a proactive role.

An unexpected bonus of volunteering has been the human warmth that I’ve received – this has in turn I feel increased my love for other people. It’s difficult to explain the joy that I receive. Just today, in a local street I bumped into someone I knew from The Mill. The woman spoke quite poor English but she flung her arms around me and gave me a big hug, she was so pleased to see me. That would never have happened if I hadn’t volunteered here. I’m surrounded by casual acquaintances and close friends and I’m so grateful that Mo persuaded me to come aboard.  

My rule of life is be kind and smile a lot and love my fellow humans – at the Mill I get plenty to smile about and there is a lot of love!