Publish date: 18 August 2022
This week one of the most familiar and enthusiastic members of the team in Whalley retires after nearly 40 years on site. Tony Livesey is well respected by service users and is a regular at events, activities in St Luke’s, leading walks and since 2014, one of the team in Our Shared College.
After completing an upholstery apprenticeship, Tony joined what was then Calderstones Upholstery Department, based at Brockhall in 1986. Tony tells us he remembers his first day and feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of the department.
In 1999, after the reorganisation of the hospital, Tony starting working for the fondly remembered Day Services team. There he had the opportunity to do a good deal of community work with service users, including supporting a group to go out doing gardening jobs for local companies.
With the modernisation of Day Services and the shift to Occupational Therapy, Tony continued to work over at our Pendlecroft Industrial Therapy Unit, where he worked with service users in the upholstery, needlecraft and printing departments, and developing his skills and qualifications.
As an OT Assistant Practitioner Tony was a founder member of Our Shared College where since 2014 he’s continued to support service users to develop their upholstery skills and more recently taking a lead role on a variety of community based activities.
Tony says that his most lasting memory of the almost 40 years that he has worked at Whalley will be the friends he made and the support he was given by his colleagues. Service users and staff across site and especially in the college all say how much Tony will be missed when he retires on Friday.
Good luck with your exciting future plans Tony.
