WHEN Judith Bromley became chairman of Bolton Hospice in 2014 she brought not only community status and legal expertise but also a genuine love of helping older people that was honed in her childhood.

Born in Bolton in the Deane Church Lane area, Judith was the youngest of three children. The family attended St Mary’s Church nearby and it was here that young Judith joined the brownies and then the guides, which proved very influential in her life.

Her mother was also involved with Age Concern and her youngest daughter was expected to help out there in the school holidays “which is where I first started enjoying working with older people,” recalled Judith.

The work ethic was also strong in their household and Judith got her first job at 14, working on Saturdays in the pie shop across the road from her home.

She enjoyed camping with the guides at weekends and at 16 became a Queen’s Guide. By the time she took her A levels at Smithills School, she was a Ranger helping to run her local unit.

Judith wasn’t sure what career she wanted to follow but her elder sister, Marilyn, was a teacher so that seemed a good choice. When she got her A level results, particularly good although Judith insists she is not “bright but a hard worker”, her head-teacher persuaded her instead to study law.

And it was being a Queen’s Guide that gave her the edge, and a place, when she was interviewed for one of the last few available spots on a law course at what became Leeds Metropolitan University.

After getting her law degree, Judith then spent two years articled, as it then was, to Bolton solicitors Adam F Greenhalgh. They offered her a job as an assistant solicitor in the property department where she also did some probate work.

Judith later left to join Russell & Russell solicitors where she was made a junior partner in 1994 and a full equity partner in 1998 – the first female partner in the company’s very lengthy history. She is now joint managing partner.

In 2007, her interest in probate and in working with the elderly prompted her - with the firm’s full co-operation – to start its own Elderly Client Department. Judith saw this not just as an extended probate department but as a way of really helping older people, of filling gaps that the much-stretched social services’ system left.

As cuts continued to be made in social services, Judith and her now enlarged team have made this into a pro-active service that offers practical help to many of the poorer older people in the town.

“I’m proud that this is a service that no other company offers and that it really does make a difference,” added Judith. “I’ve got a great team and they are just as committed to this as I am. They give so much of their own time.”

Judith also felt that, as she had no children, she wanted to devote more of her time to working in the community. So, when in 1998, Graham Yardley, then Hospice chairman, encouraged her to get involved with the organisation she started volunteering on the wards.

“I did the 8pm to 10pm shift which wasn’t always popular with volunteers,” she explained. “I’d sit with patients and read articles from the Bolton Evening News to them and chat, do some of the ironing and help raise funds. I really enjoyed it.”

In 2007, she was invited to join the board. In 2014, after Graham Yardley stood down as chairman, she was asked to take on that role, and she did.

“I felt that if we were asking people to fundraise for the Hospice (it needs £3.4 million raised each year to continue) then we should also be seen to be fundraising,” she stated.

So, she not only re-instated the annual Christmas fair but also organised a series of tough fundraising challenges that have seen her and others tackling, for example, Kilimanjaro and Everest. Always a keen walker and sporty “I just wanted to play to my strengths,” she said.

Her days are busy, but she always pops into the Hospice on her way home and remains in awe of the “amazing” staff there. She is also full of praise for the 900 volunteers who underpin the Hospice and its busy shops.

Judith regularly attends events in her Hospice role, loves meeting people and relies on the constant and active support of husband Phil Ashcroft. “He provides the backbone of my life,” she added, smiling.

It’s plain that Judith now has the professional and personal life she always wanted. “My parents always said about any new venture ‘just give it a go’,” she said. “And that’s really what I’ve tried to do.”