ANNE MORTON, from Dalgety Bay, dreamed big when she saw patients and relatives stuck inside a hospice ward at Queen Margaret Hospital.

The retired education professional spent time with her close friend and sister-in-law, Cynthia Martin, there in the final days of her life last summer as she lost her battle with cancer.

Remembering sitting in the stifling heat, she explained: “It was the summer so it was hot and sunny and we were sat in a lounge on the ward.

“The staff were exceptional but I watched a grandad trying to amuse his young grandchildren while their mother was dying.

“Their father was with their mother and they were just a young couple.

“That grandad haunted me, it was roasting and you just wanted a breath of fresh air.

“I asked the nursing staff if there was an open space and when they told me the story, they were so distressed that they couldn’t offer that to their patients.

“They had tried and failed in times gone past but they didn’t have a community group behind them to trigger it.”

Anne’s words to the staff that day were: “If you leave this with me it will get done.”

In less than a year, she had set up a committee group and by October this year, it’s hoped the hospice garden will be opened.

She added: “Cynthia was such an outdoors person, a hill-walker and loved being by the beach.

“She never complained but to watch her in that bed not being able to just go through the doors was heartbreaking.

“I wheeled her to the hospital entrance but there were smokers there and there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. It was so sad.

“By October, I was back in the hospice with my best friend’s husband, George.

“We were there all day, every day and we couldn’t get a breath of fresh air.”