THE proud stepdaughter of an 84-year-old woman who knits hats for Willowbrook Hospice after discovering the joy of helping others after making hats for premature babies is praising her.

More than 15 years ago, former M&S dressmaker Elsie Howard from Sutton was inspired to make hats for premature babies born at Whiston Hospital after her grandson was born premature.

After years of doing that she moved on to bigger hats and makes upwards of 50 before donating them in bulk to Willowbrook Hospice in a bid to help the hospice raise funds for their crucial work.

This work has gone largely unnoticed, but her proud stepdaughter Elaine Burrows has shared Elsie’s story in the hopes of showing others how small gestures can make a big difference.

Elaine, from Eccleston said: “When her grandson was born premature in Whiston she felt inspired to make those tiny little hats and did it for years, she enjoys knitting anyway and she loved doing it with a purpose.

“As she’s got older the tiny hats are abit hard for her so she’s now making adult sized ones for Willowbrook, consciously making some with and without the bobbles on the top so in her opinion men will want to buy them too.

“She loves working with the Aran wool and she gets so much joy out of it, last time we took a bag of 50 hats to Willowbrook and when she gets to that number again we’ll take them again, she’s so fast with them.

“I just feel like it’s a really lovely thing for her to do and she’s never got any credit for it as that’s not why she does it but it’s lovely to get a bit of praise too.

“I was also hoping that if anyone has any Aran wool they don’t need anymore if they could donate it to her so she can make more hats as currently she pays out for the wool herself.”

Anyone who would like to get in touch please email Elaine on epburrows@icloud.co.uk