Eric’s poem for St Luke’s

After losing his wife Gwyneth following a 25-year battle with cancer, Eric Willis wrote a heartfelt poem to thank the St Luke’s nurses who cared for them both.

For Eric Willis, St Luke’s Hospice brought comfort during the final chapter of the love story he shared with his wife Gwyneth for almost 60 years.

“I think I have found out the secret of St Luke’s that you all try to hide away,” Eric wrote in a poem dedicated to the nurses who cared for her. “For you are all angels dressed up as nurses.”

When Eric first met Gwyneth in the late 1960s, they were both just starting out in life.

Eric was a 21-year-old plumber from Barrow-in-Furness. Gwyneth, just 17, worked as a secretary at the factory where Eric had been sent to do some work. They quickly fell in love and, within a year, packed their belongings into a small Hillman Imp car and drove to London with just £83 in their pocket to build a new life together.

Over the years, they built that life side by side through work, marriage and eventually a home in Queensbury.

Then came cancer.

First diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, Gwyneth spent more than 25 years fighting the disease as it spread through her body.

There were chemotherapy sessions, radiotherapy, spinal surgery, operations and painful treatments that would have overwhelmed many people.

But Gwyneth carried on.

“I don’t know how she went through all of these treatments,” Eric said. “Strongest person I’ve ever known.”

By the end of 2025, the fight was becoming too much.

Their living room slowly transformed into a hospital room. Oxygen machines stood beside Gwyneth’s chair. A hospital bed filled the space where they had once relaxed together. Eric slept on the couch nearby every night, listening for her voice in the darkness.

“I was getting up three or four times a night,” he said. “I hadn’t slept properly for weeks and weeks.”

Still, Gwyneth wanted to stay at home for as long as she could.

That was when St Luke’s Hospice entered their lives.

Nurses visited regularly, arranging oxygen, equipment and specialist support. But Eric says what mattered most was not just the medical care, but the comfort they brought with them every time they walked through the door.

“Having the nurses come to the home was such a tremendous relief,” he said. “They arranged everything. It was absolutely superb.”

Eventually, Gwyneth herself quietly admitted she needed more help.

“She finally said, ‘I think I need specialist care.’”

She went to St Luke’s Hospice at Kenton Grange on 4 February 2026 and died peacefully there 11 days later, with Eric beside her.

For Eric, creativity has become part of healing. Since the COVID lockdowns, he has spent much of his time crafting wooden gifts, painting and writing poetry. Over the years, he created personalised wooden plaques for many of the nurses and carers who looked after Gwyneth as a way of saying thank you.

Now he wants to use those same talents to give something back. Eric is working with St Luke’s retail shops to create handcrafted wooden gifts and decorations that can be sold to help fund care for future patients and families facing experiences like his and Gwyneth’s.

For Eric, it is a way of turning grief into something meaningful, using the creativity that helped carry him through pain to support the hospice that cared not just for Gwyneth, but for him too.

In the poem he wrote for the hospice team, Eric tried to capture something many families feel but often struggle to put into words: that in the middle of fear, exhaustion and heartbreak, small acts of kindness can mean everything.

St Luke’s

By Eric Willis

I think I have found out the secret of St Luke’s
That you all try to hide away.
But some of you let your guard slip
And give the game away.

For you are all angels dressed up as nurses
To administer your special care.
And we are all so pleased that you are always there.

To hear your voices and feel the touch your caring hands convey
Can help ease any worries and soothe the pain away.
For sometimes medicines are not needed
When so much love comes through your touch.

And that is why we as patients and families
Just love St Luke’s hospice so much ……..