Local News

The manager of an Exeter care home has rejected media reports that residents are being isolated in their rooms during the pandemic.

Kerry Dempsey, who leads the team at The Old Rectory Nursing Home, says staff are working very hard to ensure that residents are enjoying a programme of stimulating activities, despite the constraints of the virus.

She says: “it is simply not true that residents are stuck in their rooms. If they are well and want to socialise, our staff are being very creative in finding entertaining things to do. For example, we recently celebrated...

Country star Dolly Parton is urging people to have a covid vaccination with an adaptation of her hit Jolene, but Dolly isn’t the only person to find artistic inspiration in the vaccine.

Nurse Chris Gibson, who works at the vaccination centre at Sherborne House in Newton Abbot, has written a poem to reassure patients.

“We see the people behind the statistics. Everybody has a story to tell,” said Chris, who has worked for the NHS for over 40 years.

“People come, we see them in a queue and then they come to the table and they tell us things; personal things, sad...

Romantic Exeter bus driver Chris Oakley proposed to his partner of two years, fellow driver Fiona Smith, on Tuesday 2nd March 2021 with a special bus bearing a ‘Will You Marry Me? display.

Chris and Fiona met driving buses for Stagecoach in Exeter; Chris had joined the company in 2016, whilst Fiona started with Stagecoach in 2019. The couple began their relationship not long after Fiona became a driver at the Exeter depot.

When asked how they first met, they explained that Fiona had been assigned a shift on the Exeter City E and F routes, which are operated by Optare...

Choirs from across Devon are currently singing to thier own phone or laptop, filimg themselves, ready to be montaged together with Dartmoor based multi award-winning folk singer Seth Lakeman.

Dartmoor based Seth Lakeman’s new Song for Devon, How We Remember, will be premiered on asongforus.org from 12.30pm on 23 March 2021, the first anniversary of lockdown 1. A nationwide project, A Song for Us commissions leading music creators across genres to write new songs inspired by the people of their county. A Song for Devon – How We Remember by Seth Lakeman is commissioned by Sound UK,...