This week, we talk to Sister Frances Dominica, founder of Oxford’s pioneer hospice Helen & Douglas House WHAT I'M CALLED: Sister Frances Dominica/Frances Ritchie MY AGES IN YEARS: 68 and it goes on getting better WHAT I DO: Anglican nun, founder and trustee of Helen & Douglas House, adoptive mum. On a regular basis I take part in the activities and responsibilities of being a member of the religious community. When I’m at home I’m in and out of Helen & Douglas House most days and I enjoy getting to know some of the families. That also involves a lot of national and international travel to share our experience with other people interested in paediatric palliative care.

WHERE I LIVE: East Oxford, just off Cowley Road. I’ve been in Oxford since 1973.

WHO I LOVE: Too many for me to count.

HAPPIEST YEAR: Each one is better than the last. One of the exciting features of 2011 is that there is now some sort of children’s hospice care on all five continents.

DARKEST MOMENT: Telling my family I was going to be a nun. They were devastated because their dreams were shattered. Having not been much of a success at school, I had made some success at nursing and now it looked like I was throwing it all away. I was 23 and seemed to be turning my back on a future career, marriage and parenthood. In more recent years, they became my strongest supporters, but at the time it was very hard.

PROUDEST BOAST: To have been the right person in the right place at the right time in order to achieve something useful. I’ve realised that for me that’s what life is all about.

WORST WEAKNESS: Not thinking about tomorrow until it’s today. I wake up in the morning, look in my diary and discover I should be in Liverpool that day!

LESSONS LEARNED: Don’t live in the past or the future, there’s enough in today.

DULLEST JOB: Cleaning my flat. With a dog and a puppy in residence, the dirt quickly mounts up.

GREATEST SHAME: Arriving late – my mother taught me never to be early, you could be using those precious moments. I’m not very punctual.

LIFE LONG HERO: My grandfather, David Paterson, who died almost 40 years ago. Elizabeth Fry, a quaker and prison reformer and, of course, the families of the children and young people who come to Helen & Douglas House.

OLDEST FRIEND: Cathie. Our parents were at university together before either of us was a twinkle in anyone’s eye. We also have in common that we’re adoptive mums. We still regularly get together and sort the world out. She was the person who collected me from my family home and drove me to the convent on July 6, 1966. Brave woman!

WIDEST SMILE: Too many to mention. Life has been good.

FAVOURITE DREAM: My favourite dreams have a way of becoming reality. Like the creation of Helen House, the world’s first children’s respite hospice – respice as we prefer to call it – and then Douglas House 21 years later.

BIGGEST REGRET: That there are not enough hours in every day...