TO patients she is affectionately known as ‘Trouble’...to her colleagues she is thought of as ‘Aunty Elaine’.

But Elaine Jones thinks of her role at the Churchill Hospital as more of a ‘mum’ to the tens of thousands of cancer patients she has helped.

Mrs Jones, of Horspath Road, Cowley, retired as a healthcare assistant from the Oxford hospital yesterday after more than 33 years.

The grandmother-of-four, who also celebrated her 65th birthday yesterday, said she had enjoyed every aspect of her work at the Churchill, in Old Road, Headington.

Mrs Jones said: “There have been some really fun times when I remember doing night shifts and we all had such a laugh.

“And the big thing for me was seeing the new Oxford Cancer Centre open after almost 18 years of talking about it.

“I’ve loved making sure the patients have got everything they need. I must have seen tens of thousands of them over the years.

“I see it as being a bit of a ‘mum’ to them, making sure they’re as comfortable as they can be.”

Over the three decades she has been at the hospital, colleagues say Mrs Jones has made a real impression on the patients, who ask for her by first name when they come back years later for treatments.

Fellow healthcare assistant Yvonne Wall, from Radley, near Abingdon, said Mrs Jones regularly went shopping and got Lottery tickets in her own time for patients who did not have relatives around to help out.

Ms Wall said: “We think of her as Aunty Elaine. Whenever anyone needs to know anything, or needs any help, she will be there.

“We would have such fun with the patients, we both have been given a nickname for the practical jokes we would play.

“Elaine is ‘trouble number one’ and I am ‘trouble number two’ or both of us are ‘trouble’ for short.”

She added: “She has taught us how to be compassionate, caring but most of all, that it is okay to have a laugh.

“Elaine has managed to get a laugh from everyone she has met. And I think for a lot of the patients, that helps.

“We’re all going to miss her so much.”

Staff and former colleagues at the Churchill Hospital said goodbye, and happy birthday, to Mrs Jones with a cake and a small party in the hospital restaurant yesterday.

She said she was looking forward to retirement with her husband Trevor, and visiting her sister in New Zealand.