Meg Barbour spent seven years looking after her husband Cedric as he slowly deteriorated from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

She was his full-time carer, feeding, clothing and bathing him, and her one consistent break was for one hour, once a week when a carer would take over.

She has backed our campaign to get Oxfordshire residents to give their time to help the elderly so their carers can get a well deserved break.

She said: “I think it’s wonderful. That hour off was very, very precious to me, and I encourage everyone to take part in The Oxford Times’ scheme.

“We’ve all got an hour we could give.”

We launched the Give An Hour campaign last week with charity Age UK Oxfordshire. In the coming weeks we hope to gather enough volunteers to complete 10,000 hours of voluntary work.

That could be helping out in a community club to becoming a befriender or leafleting for Age UK Oxfordshire.

Mrs Barbour, 67, of Wheatley became the full-time carer to her husband in 1997.

It was just a year after he retired from Oxford University, where he worked as an accountant at the department of nuclear physics. He died in 2004 aged 72.

She said: “Forty years ago I made a promise to love my husband until death do us part. I think I could make a case now for: until death do us part, unless either of us has dementia.

“It was very, very hard. My best friend, my lover, my support, turned into a mumbling stranger.

“It was very distressing because things were not going to get better, it was going to get worse.”

She said she also felt “cheated” from their retirement together, when they planned to travel. In 1999 she contacted Age UK Oxfordshire — formerly Age Concern — which helped arrange for a carer for an hour a week. The carer would read a book with her husband or take him for a walk or a drive to give Mrs Barbour a break.

She said: “Age UK was instrumental in giving me an hour on my own once a week. A break. But I can’t tell you how quickly that hour went.”

Before her husband’s death, Mrs Barbour began to volunteer herself, organising regular lunches for dementia sufferers and their carers at The Quarry, Headington.

Sessions now attract more than 70, and have had to move to larger premises at Collinwood Road United Reform Church, Risinghurst.

How you can help

Anyone interested in joining our campaign by giving an hour should contact 01235 849407 or email giveanhour@ageukoxfordshire.org.uk

Readers may also visit the website at www.ageukoxfordshire.org.uk

There are many ways that you can support our Give An Hour campaign. The choice of what you could do with your hour of voluntary work is wide.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Help at a community club and make a real difference to an older person’s day
  • Share some of your computer skills with an older person by tutoring IT lessons
  • Volunteer for a morning or afternoon in one of Age UK Oxfordshire shops
  • Give an hour to an information and advice helpline by making a donation through the website www.ageukoxfordshire.org.uk
  • Leaflet for an Age UK Oxfordshire event in your local area or on one of the open days
  • Volunteer for an hour to help at the charity’s café in Banbury
  • Spend a morning or afternoon on reception at one of the charity’s county offices
  • Join in on one of the fundraising events, such as a tea tent or tin shake
  • Work on the one-link service by making informal, sociable calls to lonely and isolated older people
  • Become a Local Link for Age UK Oxfordshire, keeping elderly people up to date with information and services available to them
  • Join the Health and Social Care Panel, which meets on a monthly basis
  • Become a befriender and support someone with a life-threatening illness.