To celebrate Age Without Limits Day this Wednesday 10 June, we’re sharing the story of one of our inspiring community members, Nell.

Nell was born near Ballinrobe, County Mayo, and came over to Leeds in 1959. ‘I came over on the 6 February and I started work two days later,’ she says, laughing. She recalls sending money home to her mother in Ireland. ‘There were ten of us in the family and there was never enough money,’ she says. ‘I’d send her a good tenner a week before I had the girls.’

Later, Nell’s family moved east of the Shannon and their dairy herd increased from 50 to 80. ‘By the mid-60s, they had a much better living. If they’d had that in the mid-50s, I might never have come to England.’

After 12 months, Nell moved on from her job at a tailoring factory to begin a new role as a bus conductress with Leeds City Transport. She met her husband-to-be Martin on the buses and they married after two years. 18 months later, their first daughter arrived.

Motherhood didn’t end Nell’s drive for work, though. Although she left Leeds City Transport - ‘the hours just didn’t fit’ - she took on catering and cleaning work: ‘anything that brought a few pound in and I could work around my husband’s job.’ Nell’s sisters were also living in Leeds, and they took turns mornings and afternoons to look after each others’ children so the other could go out to work.

However, in 1975, Nell took a job at St James’; Hospital as a nursing auxiliary and began what she didn’t realise would become a 50-year chapter of her life. She loved working at Jimmy’s. ‘The nurses were always rushed off their feet, but I was able to chat to the patients while I washed them or made up the bed,’ she says. ‘I was blessed to do that job for so long.’

In 2002, Nell was about to turn 60. Still at Jimmy’s, she found herself working alongside a man whose wife was diagnosed with blood cancer. When he decided to do a marathon to raise money for a related charity, it piqued Nell’s interest. ‘I thought, I’d love to do that,’ she says. ‘But I wondered, am I a bit long in the tooth?’ Nell decided to give it a go and signed up for the Leeds Marathon.

Her training, she admits, was a bit unconventional: ‘At the time, one of my daughters lived in Bridlington and the other one in Ossett. So I walked to Brid and had a cup of tea with one daughter…then went to Ossett and did the same again!’ She decided to take it steady on race day but managed to complete the course in six and a half hours.

Nell was bitten by the long-distance bug. Since that first triumph in Leeds, she’s completed marathons in Blackpool, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, Edinburgh and London. She’s taken part in the New York marathon three times as well as going back to Ireland to do the Dublin marathon. ‘Oh, and I did a trek in the Sahara desert,’ she adds, almost absent-mindedly. ‘That was for St Gemma’s Hospice. I’ve done the odd one for charity - although I don’t like to be asking people to sponsor me all the time.’

*29 marathons later, Nell is aiming to complete her 30th*

In total, Nell has done 29 marathons and 29 half marathons - ‘plus the odd 5k and 10k.’ She is grateful to her husband Martin for facilitating her hobby. ‘If he hadn’t been doing everything at home after he retired, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. He always had the dinner on the table for me,’ she says. When Martin passed away eight years ago, she says she ‘didn’t know how to put up the ironing board.’ He was a ‘lovely man’, she says.

Nell has faced her fair share of difficulties. The year Martin passed away, she was also diagnosed with bowel cancer. ‘I was very lucky,’ she says. ‘I had keyhole surgery and I was back cycling in six weeks.’ She has also endured the untimely loss of a daughter and grandson. ’They’re with me all the time,’ she says. Nell has a strong Catholic faith and says she gets ‘a lot out of Mass’. Recently, she had both knees replaced, which she described as ‘very hard’ - although staying fit and healthy helps, she reckons.

In August 2025 at the age of 82, Nell retired from St James’. Her 50 year commitment was honoured at a special ceremony for long-time employees. But Nell doesn’t intend to slow down – now aged 83, she has her sights set on another marathon. ‘I’d like to get that 29 up to 30,’ she admits. ‘Just like the job at St James’, doing marathons is just something I’ve enjoyed. It’s brought me a lot of joy.’

‘I’d feel very blessed and honoured if I was able to do that.’

Age without limits: Nell’s story

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