It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Peggy Fray on 24th April 2014 at the age of ninety. Born in 1923, she was the older sister to Kathleen – who arrived just one week before her fourth birthday and was born with Down’s syndrome.

In June 1943, at just 20 years old, Peggy joined the Women’s Royal Air Force as a Wireless Operator and was eventually trained in Morse Code. Her fiancé served and was killed in action serving as a pilot in the RAF. She attended the Guildford Secretarial College and in the 1940’s and 50’s, she was Secretary to the Trust Officer in the Lloyds Executor and Trustee Department at Threadneedle Street in London.

Peggy cared for her sister for 40 years until she sadly passed away in 1997, but this gave Peggy the motivation to support everyone with a learning disability. She was an advocate of Personal Health Action Plans and for people with Down’s syndrome to have regular sensitively administered assessments. Peggy also wrote a book entitled ‘Caring for Kathleen’, published in 1999, on Down’s syndrome and dementia.

Before joining The Ormerod Group in 2004, Peggy had vast experience of working within organisations that supported people with learning disabilities across the world. She was a Specialist Advisor on Family Matters to the Chief Executive on the Council for the British Institute of Learning Disabilities. Peggy was also a carer representative on the Steering Group of the Palliative Care of People with Learning Disabilities Network.

Close to her heart, she was elected as a Trustee onto the Executive Committee of the Down’s Syndrome Association and was a member of the Lancashire Alzheimer’s Research and Interest Group at Lytham Hospital. Peggy regularly attended the bi-monthly Trustee meetings until the end of 2013 when her health began to decline. She was an elegant and endearing lady who kept her sense of humour and fun and she always had ‘a good tale to tell’. Peggy has left the Trustees and staff who knew her with many fond memories and her contribution to the Ormerod Trustee Group was highly valued and will live on. Opened in 2012, by Peggy herself, The Peggy Fray Dementia Unit will continue to uphold her memory and legacy at the Ormerod for future service users and staff.