Queen Elizabeth Park's busiest resident steams ahead with train model

31st January 2012

Frank started the train project in late 2009 and completed a fully working train set and model village by the beginning of 2011. Frank has assembled the train and model village in his suite at Queen Elizabeth Park, attracting his fellow residents to come and see his fantastic achievement.

The train and model village contains a school, a church. houses and two train stations.

Frank, who has been living at Queen Elizabeth Park Care home since August 2005, is very popular amongst the staff and residents, not least for his energy, community spirit and helpful nature.

Frank loves getting into the spirit of things to help bring joy to fellow residents. In December 2005 Frank dressed up as Santa Claus and in April 2006 he dressed up as the Easter Bunny. To help the staff, Frank delivers the newspapers to the ground floor residents every day and during the summer Frank prepared and varnished the garden furniture and helped out in the garden. Frank loves getting involved and says: “I am very happy here and couldn’t have chosen a better place to live.”

Frank’s desire to keep himself busy reflects the interesting life he led prior to coming to Queen Elizabeth Park. He worked for many years at British Telecom supplying parts to engineers and in his spare time was part of the Holy Trinity Church Choir in Guildford. In 1936 Frank sung for the choir at the Guildford Cathedral for the ‘laying of the foundations’ ceremony. He was recently invited back to the cathedral for the Royals Honor Jubilee Service, which was held on Friday 18 November 2011. This was a very special occasion for Frank as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh attended it. Frank was interviewed by BBC and ITV following the event.