Woolhampton woman on Twiddlemuff mission

Lorraine Weight sets personal task to help people with dementia

A WOMAN from Woolhampton has set herself a task to help people with dementia.

Lorraine Weight has been busy knitting Twiddlemuffs; knitted woollen muffs with items attached that patients with dementia can twiddle in their hands.

The idea was started by Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as a way to provide visual, tactile and sensory stimulation for people with dementia.

Mrs Weight has knitted 340 Twiddlemuffs since September last year after seeing them advertised while she was in hospital.

The 82-year-old has set herself a target of knitting 1,000 of the muffs, at the rate of two a day.

She said: “I really am going to keep going with them.

“I can make so many people happy; they just love them when I take them in.

“It’s lovely to watch when they choose which one they want.”

Mrs Weight’s creations have been dispatched to 14 different hospitals and care homes, the farthest as far as Exmouth when she went there on holiday.

She said that one lady with dementia in Basingstoke Hospital, who loves hedgehogs, had cried when she saw a Twiddlemuff featuring her favourite animal.

Mrs Weight has worked as a classroom assistant at Woolhampton Primary School for 44 years and was appointed an MBE in 1998 for her services to education.

Impressed with her recent efforts, the school asked her to show the Twiddlemuffs to the children.

Mrs Weight said this had helped as parents had been donating materials to help her reach her target.

Mrs Weight said she would be delighted if people with spare buttons, ribbons, beads or small soft toys could donate.

Contact Woolhampton Primary School to donate materials to Mrs Weight’s cause.