Pride and Prejudice dramatised reading raises over £2,400 for Hospice Ethiopia

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Mr Darcy helped a Norfolk-based charity raise nearly £2,500 for desperate patients in Ethiopia.  Templewood, the privately-owned Palladian-style shooting lodge near Cromer, was the venue for a dramatic reading of Pride and Prejudice on July 27th 2025.  The cast was a combination of professional actors and amateurs, and the audience was treated to live classical music and a cream tea as well as the drama. 

Sue Mumford is chair of Hospice Ethiopia UK, the charity based in Aldborough, North Norfolk.  She said, “What a fabulous venue Templewood is!  We are so grateful to the owners, Eddie and Tina Anderson, for letting us use their beautiful home.” 

This was the third annual Jane Austen event by Hospice Ethiopia, the previous ones being held at Little Barningham Hall and Cromer Hall, and it was another sell-out.  Next year the team hopes to take on Sense and Sensibility – with the venue yet to be decided.    

“The readings are a snapshot from a section of the books,” Sue says.  “Our script writer, Margy Seale, delights in using the original language to create a truly authentic piece of theatre.  They really are great fun – and it’s a brilliant cause.”

Jane Austen Event, Sunday 27th July, 3pm

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Our annual Jane Austen event will be held at Templewood by kind permission of Eddie and Tina Anderson. This year’s dramatized readings will be from Austen’s most famous novel, Pride and Prejudice. 

Constructed in 1938 in a Palladian style, Templewood house is set in parkland and approached down a long tree-lined avenue. It is an ideal venue for dramatic readings from this much-loved novel – and the guests will be treated to live music from the brilliant Emma Nuule and a sumptuous cream tea along with a themed raffle.

Book your tickets now for this fabulous event – previous Jane Austen events have sold out!

Address: Templewood, Frogshall, Northrepps, Cromer. NR27 0LJ

Tickets cost £25 each: please contact info@hospiceethiopia.org.uk or ring Sue 01263 768699 (after June 1st 2025).

Freddie Collins attends Palliative Care Congress

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Hospice Ethiopia UK is delighted that our trustee, Freddie Collins, attended this year’s Palliative Care Congress in Belfast. This is the UK’s annual conference for palliative care practitioners and researchers. Here is her feedback:

“I was presenting an audit I completed while I lived in Ethiopia in 2024. For this audit, I went through the records of 100 patient notes to find out what symptoms they experienced and what medications the Hospice Ethiopia (HE) team used to manage their symptoms.

The main symptom that patients experienced was pain. 95% of cancer patients, and 91% of patients with HIV, experienced pain. On the first visit made by the HE team, only 5% of patients had their pain controlled. By their last visit, this proportion had increased to 60%. Most importantly, only 33% of patients had access to morphine, which is an essential medication to treat pain in patients at the end of their lives.

This audit shows two things. Firstly, how brilliant the HE nurses are! Even though they have a limited selection of tablet pain relief medications, they are still able to drastically improve pain in their patients. This is because, with your ongoing support, they are able to provide psychological, spiritual and economic support which helps to soothe pain in multi-dimensional ways.

Secondly, this audit highlights how an unmet need for pain control still does exist, as 40% of patients remain with uncontrolled pain at the end of their lives, but two thirds do not have access to oral morphine. If this study was repeated now on patients currently registered with Hospice Ethiopia, the access to oral morphine would probably be even more limited.

This inequitable access to morphine is a global problem. We can read in the 2018 Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief, how half of the global population receives less than 1% of global morphine supply. This audit therefore supports the urgent need for a reliable supply of oral morphine in Ethiopia and we hope that the Ethiopian government’s plan to develop a national morphine production unit will advance soon.”

An evening with General the Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL

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Hospice Ethiopia UK is enormously grateful to Richard Dannatt for giving a fascinating talk about Churchill and his role in the D-Day landings of Normandy. Through documents and letters from the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, Richard gave the audience a vivid sense of the huge risks involved in the planning and execution of Operation Overlord, the largest land, sea and air operation ever staged. It proved to be a major turning point in the Second World War.

Thank you also to the enormously supportive audience, who enabled us to raise £1,730 through ticket sales and a raffle to support the work of Hospice Ethiopia.

Successful Jane Austen event raises £1560

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We had a fantastic event on Sunday 28th July with the dramatized reading from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey at Cromer Hall. The actors/readers were brilliant, the musicians fabulous and the high tea scrumptious. As for the setting – it was simply glorious, and we were lucky to have such wonderful weather. Huge thanks to Benjie and Dido Cabbell Manners for letting us use their beautiful home (and for providing a superb lunch for the workers). Massive kudos to script writer Margy Seale and the fabulous cast. Soprano Emma Nuule and her accompanist John Farmer were a delight, as was Jamie Mumford playing incidental music on his recorder. And then, as ever, there were all the background folk who contributed so much hard work – including the bakers, Kate, Rosie, Elizabeth and Julie and Sue, and the very hardworking tea folk, Claire, Julie, Rebecca, Steph and Rachael. And, of course, many thanks to the wonderful people who came and supported the event – raising £1560 in the process, which will make a huge contribution to support Hospice Ethiopia. The money raised is enough to pay for a specialist nurse looking after 100 patients for three months in Ethiopia.

The 2024 Jane Austen event sold out, as did the 2023 one… if you’d like to know about the 2025 event in time to grab a ticket or two, sign up to the newsletter at the bottom of this page.

Successful event at Stody Lodge, Norfolk

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We were delighted to be invited by Kate MacNicol to provide the teas at their Open Garden at the end of May. Alongside 200 varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, this open garden in North Norfolk also has some wonderful magnolias, camellias, expansive lawns, woodland walkways and vast carpets of spring bulbs. Its 4-acre Azalea Water Gardens holds 2,000 Azalea mollis plants which is believed to be the largest single planting in the UK. 

We are extremely grateful to all of the many volunteers who helped with baking cakes, serving teas, setting up, clearing up, parking and more. Thanks also to the Blakemore foundation who donated some cakes.

We were extremely lucky with the weather, the sun shone down and it was a glorious spring afternoon. Overall we made a fantastic £684 for Hospice Ethiopia!

Successful Glitterati Ball held at Wolterton in June

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A fabulous time was had by all who attended our Glitterati Ball last month at the stunning Wolterton Hall. We were extremely grateful to Peter Sheppard and Keith Day for lending us their fabulous home as a venue.

The beautiful Wolterton Hall in Norfolk

The evening started in style with a champagne reception accompanied by Soprano Emma Nuule, followed by a classical duet.

Soprano Emma Nuule

Later on guests danced the night away to rock music from the Norfolk band the Spice Gits. Guests also enjoyed a delicious three course meal with food kindly donated by various local suppliers.

Dancing to the Spice Gits

We held a varied Auction of Promises, with lots including a weeks’ holiday in Tintagel, a tour of Wolterton Hall, various fine jewellery and a painting by Norfolk artist Andy King.

Auction of Promises

In total we raised an amazing £10,972 to support the work of Hospice Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, which will go a long way towards easing people’s suffering.

Guests enjoying the ball

The event has even featured in the Norfolk magazine – see issue August 2022, pages 96-97 including lots of photos of attendees!

Very many thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers for making this event possible.

Lots of washing up afterwards!

The Wolterton Hall Glitterati Ball

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We are excited to announce that Wolterton Hall will open its doors this summer for a sparkling event called The Glitterati Ball. The Ball is on Saturday, June 11th and takes place in the main state rooms of the Hall, including the Venetian Room, the Saloon and the Portrait Room. A dazzling selection of entertainments is promised and guests will be treated to a champagne reception and a three course buffet dinner – all for just £65.

The Glitterati Ball is being held at Wolterton Hall by kind permission of owners Peter Sheppard and Keith Day. Rt Hon Sir Norman Lamb is the patron of the event.

Glitterati Ball at Wolterton Hall image
Photograph courtesy Christopher Horwood

The evening will begin at 7.30pm with a glass or two of champagne or cordial. The entertainments include live music, with both a classical recital and a dance band, along with an auction of promises, a raffle, a photo booth and a wine bar. There’s also the chance for visitors to see some of the fascinating reconstruction work that Peter and Keith are undertaking in the building and grounds of this magnificent country mansion, once the home of the Walpole family.

“Glitter is the name of the game and we hope people will dress to impress,” says Sue Mumford, chair of Hospice Ethiopia UK. “The most sparkling outfit will win the wearer a bottle of bubbly!

Tickets are available online through Eventbrite.

Buy Tickets

Aylsham Rotary club donation

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Aylsham Rotary club has raised an amazing £3000 to pay for Yohanna, a nurse at Hospice Ethiopia, to go to Hospice Africa Uganda in Kampala to study for her diploma in Palliative care.

Yohanna has said the following about this fantastic opportunity:

“My role as a palliative care nurse is to take greater responsibility for patient care and to become a specialist in areas such as pain management, symptom management and psychosocial support. In studying this diploma course in palliative care nursing, I hope that l will be able to make the most of these opportunities as my career develops. I anticipate that this diploma course in palliative care nursing will be the beginning of my lifelong career that will really make a difference in Hospice Ethiopia.”

Sue and Jamie attended a Rotary Club dinner in Aylsham at the Old Forge where Sue was able to update the members and guests about Hospice Ethiopia.

mum rotary talk

 

 

Masked Ball Raises £12,000 for Hospice Ethiopia!

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Everyone had a ball at the much anticipated ‘Wolterton Extravagant’ masquerade last Saturday! Plenty of eating, drinking, dancing, and fundraising went on and we raised an astounding £12,000 for Hospice Ethiopia. Very many thanks to all those who so generously gave their time and money – it couldn’t have happened without you.

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