GNARLED hands shaky with age had obviously been responsible for the petition which arrived at the BEN.

Anguished residents of Laburnum Lodge in Breightmet stopped trembling long enough to sign their names on a plea for help to fight the closure plans.

Their heartbreaking letter read: "This is our home, please take a look. We have nowhere else to go.

"We are used to the staff and the surroundings. Please don't close our home. This is our cry for help."

Bill Braithwaite is responsible for one of the spidery signatures on the petition.

The former policeman believed he had made his last move when he packed his belongings and moved into Laburnum Lodge OAP home four years ago.

Bill, now 94, had just left hospital after an operation for cancer of the colon and was finding it difficult coping with wife Nellie's mild dementia.

He reluctantly agreed that residential care was the best option for them.

But now Bill and Nellie, aged 87, have settled down in their comfortable double room and the thought of moving to another home fills them with dread. "The staff here are wonderful," said Bill. "They have made it a real home from home for us.

"It is very upsetting to think we might have to move to a strange place.

"I think it will be fatal for my wife. If anything like that happens it will send her proper demented."

The couple's two sons live in Australia and they rely on visits from neighbours and friends from their former home at nearby Singleton Avenue.

Bill said: "We have friends who come to see us two or three times a week. They get us anything we need. I'm afraid they will not be able to come if they move us further away.

Bill was just 12 when he started his first job at an engineering factory, but now wants to end his days in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

He said: "I worked all my life believing we would be provided for in our old age.

"Me and my wife do not want this upset at our age. We want to stay here. We think it is wonderful."

A care worker summed up the mood of residents in all four homes when she said: "They are all very upset about the thought of moving somewhere strange.

"They thought they would be able to stay here for life."

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