Dame Cicely Saunders: Five things you didn't know about the groundbreaking nurse and hospice founder

Celebrated carer would have turned 100 today

Dame Cicely Saunders, the woman who changed end-of-life care for the better, was born 100 years ago today.

Instrumental in advancing hospice care in the UK, helping people to die with dignity, Dame Cicely is commemorated with a Google Doodle to mark her centenary. It is largely thanks to her interventions that palliative care is what it is today.

Trained as a nurse and social worker and later becoming a doctor, she founded the first modern hospice, St Christopher’s, in south London.

She also co-founded a palliative care charity - Cicely Saunders International - and the Cicely Saunders Institute, which carries out research into end-of-life care.

Here are a five facts you might not know about her.

1. She started out as a nurse, to the displeasure of her parents

Coming from a well-off background her parents were not keen on getting into nursing, but it was where she found her calling, especially with the Second World War around the corner.

She soon swapped politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) at Oxford for nursing at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’s Hospital, London.

A bad back prevented her from pursuing nursing more fully, however, directing her steps towards social work.

2. It all began after she fell for a man with only weeks to live

In 1948, she fell in love with David Tasma, a Polish Jew, while he was a patient at Archway Hospital in London where she was then based.

His experience made her see that there was so much more that needed to be done for those with life-limiting illnesses.

The pair became close friends and first talked about their shared vision for a hospice providing psychological support in addition to physical care.

He left her with £500 to make the vision a reality and the message: “I will be a window in your home”.

In 1967, she would open St Christopher’s Hospice in south London in Tasma's memory.

3. St Christopher's was more than just a place of rest

St Christopher’s was dedicated to providing holistic care for the terminally ill, including social, emotional and spiritual support as well as physical care and expert pain relief.

She wanted to create a bright and breezy place, with gardens and a welcoming atmosphere.

Family and friends were encouraged to visit and patients were invited to take part in a range of activities – from gardening to art to getting their hair done. Dame Cicely understood that simply having someone to talk to could be a major relief.

The institute aimed to celebrate life till the end, as well as making passing away easier and helping families come to terms with their bereavement.

4. She fell in love with three Polish men – and two of them were patients

After David Tasma, she fell for another man without long to live, Antoni Michniewicz, who was also Polish and a patient at St Joseph’s Hospice in east London, where she worked between 1952 and 1959.

But the relationship could not happen as he died six months later, throwing Dame Cecily into a deep grief, his death coinciding with that of her father.

The third Polish love of her life would come along three years later. Marian Bohusz-Szyszko was an artist, whom she met after first contacting him about purchasing a piece of his work for display in the hospice.

He had an estranged wife in Poland, but the friendship with Dame Cicely grew as the pair began writing to one another.

He eventually moved to England and became artist in residence at St Christopher’s.

Five year’s after his wife died, Marian married Dame Cicely when he was 79 and she was 61.

He lived to 93, before passing away within the confines of St Christopher’s.

5. She was over 6ft tall and quite a character

While she was widely known for her empathy, many who knew Dame Cicely also described her as an intense person. In addition to being tall, she was described as “intimidating”, “passionate” and “strong-willed” by her biographer, Professor David Clarke, in an interview with BBC Radio 4.

Others characterised her as something an outsider. She was also a woman of faith, having discovered Christianity as an adult, which helped to steer her throughout life.

She was given many awards and titles for achievements, including the Order of Merit, being named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and receiving the coveted Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize.

She died from cancer in St Christopher’s in 2005, aged 87.