Green-fingered Marion Ward is saying thanks to Tameside Hospital in a way she thinks is the best.

Caring Marion is donating cash from selling the tomato plants she grows in her allotment which resembles a mini market garden. 

Marion, who was 80 on Sunday, said: “I have been doing it for years, I enjoy doing it.

“They (the hospital) benefit from the money and I get pleasure from growing things.”

Marion, who lives in High Street East, Glossop, with husband Arthur, thinks she has raised hundreds of pounds for the hospital over the years.

Every summer she harvests plants from the allotment, puts them in a box by her front door with a sign asking passers-by to buy them and to pop their donation through the letter box.

This year’s crop came up with £121 and, as Marion says, it’s her way of thanking the hospital for the care and compassion the staff have shown to her and Arthur.

She said: “I send the money and the hospital decide how to use it.”

Marion has been working on her allotment for more than 40 years, many of them with Arthur, but more recently due to her husband’s illnesses, it has been a one-woman job.

She’s now growing enough stock to fill a  greengrocer’s shop!

Marion’s current crops include quince, five varieties of lettuce, cabbages, beans, peas, beetroot, potatoes, marrows, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, kale, courgettes, flowers and of course tomato plants.

She said: “I enjoy it and the money from the tomato plants is my way of paying back the hospital.”

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