So I came back from Russia and got a job in London. Actually, when I returned, I wanted to get a different experience. So I got a job at the Royal Marsden in London and I was going to do a year of oncology. I had been in palliative care in Russia, and before, but I knew it would be a difficult transition from Russia to an English hospice, so I thought I'll go somewhere totally different, related, but different. And six months into that experience, my granddaughter was born. So I headed up to Leeds, all excited. Things weren't totally straightforward. The baby was really high, not descending at all, breach, so they decided to give her a caesarean.

I was at their home waiting and I kept ringing the ward to be told she wasn’t back from theatre yet. So in the end I asked to be put through to recovery and the nurse who answered said, Oh, I'll go and get Chris for you - my son-in-law. I know there is something but he won’t say. So I just go up.

My granddaughter has Down Syndrome, which was unexpected so the poor little thing is getting stabbed with all sorts of needles and being tested. And I said, Has she fed at all?

No. So let's give that a go then. So I helped them to get her fed. She didn't feed for long, but she did feed. She was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, a little angel just, gorgeous.

Eventually, my grand-daughter got transferred down to the Prem unit. The nurses on the Prem unit told us they loved looking after my granddaughter because being normal sized, not Prem she slept while all the other babies were wailing. So she was their favourite.

But it was a shock. Because although I knew what Down Syndrome was, I had no idea how this was going to affect my family. What does this mean? In Russia, one of the friends had worked for a Downs Association in Moscow. So I rang her and told her and she said,

Well, that's going to be interesting for you. And I said I feel like I need to know a lot more than I do. I don't know anything. So she told me to get on a train and go down to Portsmouth because the Down Syndrome Association have their headquarters in Portsmouth. So off I went. I sort of fetched up on the doorstep knocked on the door. My granddaughter's got Down syndrome, just been born. I don't have any information coming in, and they said come on in and have a cup of tea. You know, they were they were lovely. Where is she? She's in Leeds. Oh, well, you're really lucky there. And I said, Oh, why is that? Because they've got a lovely Mencap nursery in Leeds, and she would get referred to there that will be really helpful. So I thought, Well, that's good. That's a really good start. They gave me some books on babies, you know, a baby's a baby. I mean, it's really not until later on that you have to start really getting involved with nurturing in a different way.

So I came back and I said, Beth, you need to get her referred to the Hawthorn Nursery, the Mencap nursery, and she said, Oh, she's already been referred, its automatic when you're in LGI, the midwife referred her. She went there from being about three or four months old. It was fabulous and I can't praise them enough. And I’d already said to Beth when she was still in hospital, I think you might need some help, might need me to give you a hand. I don't know what kind of a hand, whatever help you might need to have. So I came back to Leeds.