Our mother Elaine passed away peacefully on 10th August 2023, at the age of 93.

The most rewarding years of Elaine's career were in the 1960s, where she worked in the London offices of Group Captain Leonard Cheshire's charity.

A highly decorated Second World War RAF pilot, Cheshire at the end of the war took a dying man, who had nowhere else to go, into his own home. His act of kindness prompted others to come forward and by 1949, there were 24 residents with complex needs, illnesses and impairments living in Cheshire's Hampshire home.

Cheshire founded the charity to support disabled people to live, learn and work as independently as they choose – values the charity upholds to this day.

By 1955, there were five Cheshire homes in the UK. In the 1960s, when our mother, then Elaine Mayes, worked at the charity's headquarters in Market Mews, there was a period of rapid expansion with over 50 services in the UK, 5 in India and 21 in other countries around the world.

Led by people with experience of disability, the Leonard Cheshire charity today is at the heart of local life – opening doors to opportunity, choice and support in communities around the globe.

Leading by example, the charity does everything humanly possible to empower people to live their lives a freely and as fully as they choose.

"We need to set our sights high, to be satisfied with nothing less than the best, and to commit ourselves totally and unreservedly to participate in the struggle to build a more liveable world." Leonard Cheshire (1917-1992)