Making Memories project for Macmillan Unit

Making Memories Volunteer, Hilary Boddy from Ballymena and Elma McCracken, Macmillan Volunteer Coordinator with the Northern Trust, get prepared to record patients' life stories as part of the Making Memories Project.

The ‘Making Memories’ project allows patients to meet with trained volunteers to record memories from their lives or personal messages on CD which they may keep for themselves and share with family members and friends if they wish.

The project provides people with the opportunity to review and value life experiences and to create a personal family record.

The Making Memories service is currently being offered to in patients at the Macmillan Unit and is also open to anyone with a cancer diagnosis in the Northern Trust area who might be interested in meeting with a volunteer to record part of their life story.

To find out more about the ‘Making Memories’ service please contact Elma McCracken, Macmillan Volunteer Coordinator at the Macmillan Unit on 028 9442 4394.

The project is being funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and the Macmillan Unit in Antrim is one of six sites within the UK to pilot the service.

As one participant put it – “When I look back, I’ve had some hard times but I’ve had some absolutely fantastic times and they will never ever leave me … Until you do something like this you don’t realise just what lovely memories you’ve got. And it’s nice to be able to do this and to share it with my family, if they want to listen to it, and share it with other people as well.”

There are also benefits for family members who have been given a CD recording by a loved one, particularly in the grieving process: “Every time I play it, it sounds like he’s in the room, and I get a lot of comfort from it.”