Crafty Irchester crochet fan hooks £1,000 boost for Kettering General Hospital's hardworking ICU staff

An creative crocheter from Irchester who spent her lockdown stitching teddies to sell to fundraise for NHS workers has presented ICU staff at Kettering General Hospital with a generous gift.

Crochet fan Tina Hebbes, a self-employed cleaner and volunteer for the Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance, had time on her hands and decided to crochet and sell twenty hospital scrubs-wearing teddies to sell to raise money.

She set a target of £150 and began to create the teddies the the second week after lockdown began. Fifteen weeks and 100 teddies later, she has raised £1,000 to buy shopping vouchers as a thank you for staff.

Tina, 55, said: "They are angels. I wanted to do something to thank them for their hard work and it's nice to be able to do something."

Each teddy takes Tina a painstaking six hours to complete. She estimates that she has used over 1000g of wool and spent 600 hours with her crochet hook.

As well as donating £1,000 of Morrison's shopping vouchers to the ICU, Tina arranged for food hampers to be donated by Morrisons' Wellingborough store manager Chris Webb.

She said: "People have been so generous. I've sold to friends and family. My husband has been cooking tea while I've been busy crocheting.

"As well as the teddies I made four Captain Toms, but they are very fiddly to do."

Tina visited the hospital on Friday July 3 to hand over the vouchers and hampers.

She added: "They loved the gifts and were chuffed with the hampers."

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