EIGHTEEN months ago Lily Sandiford believed she would be sitting out the rest of her life in a nursing home chair.

But next week the 68-year-old stroke victim is flying out to Benidorm for a knees up in sunny Spain.

And just a week after she gets back, brave Lily will be jetting off to the other side of the world to spend six months in Australia.

The determined pensioner has battled her way back to health from a crippling stroke which left her unable to walk or talk.

Lily was admitted to the Lyngates Nursing Home in Deane needing round-the-clock care when her husband Arthur died just two weeks after she was discharged from hospital.

There she met staff worker Marjorie Greenough who joined forces with daughter Janet, of Manchester Road, Westhoughton, to introduce a tough recovery regime.

The pensioner said: "I could not do anything but they gently bullied me until I eventually started using the zimmer frame.

"It was really hard work at the beginning but since then I have never looked back. Once I thought I would never get out of a chair and now I am going to Australia."

Lily will be staying with daughter Susan, who lives in Sydney, and is looking forward to seeing great, granddaughter Myvanwy for the first time.

And when she returns to Bolton in six months time, the pensioner will be living independently in her own flat.

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