This year, Peace Hospice Care in Watford celebrates its 25th anniversary.

The hospice costs £5million a year to run and receives less than 25% of this amount from statutory funding. The remaining 75% comes from charitable donations.

Over the years, the people of Watford and the surrounding areas have come together many times in order to support the Peace in providing an invaluable service for the community.

The hospice began as the Peace Memorial Hospital in 1925. For many years it remained the principal hospital in south west Herts.

However, by the 1970s, its days were numbered.

The hospital had been seriously vandalised and was falling into disrepair, with no further news about its long-term future.

As a final indignity, the historic and much-loved clock was stolen from the front of the hospital in broad daylight. Passers-by saw the thieves, with weights and pulleys, removing the clock and bricking up the hole afterwards, but they thought the clock was being taken into safe custody.

Amid public outcry about the dismal state of the hospital, the South West Herts Hospice appeal was launched in 1991 from an office above the Watford Hospice Shop in the Lower High Street, with an enthusiastic backing from the Watford Observer.

After years of deliberation, the Health Authority agreed to a hospice on the Peace Memorial site. A petition with 17,000 signatures presented to the authority left no doubt about the strength of public feeling for the hospice.

Fundraising events for the hospice ranged from gala concerts and sponsored slimathons to darts marathons and pocket money donations.

By 1993, the hospice appeal had raised enough money to start a temporary day care centre in a portacabin alongside the hospital.

In November, 1994, a performance of The Wind in the Willows at Watersmeet Theatre in Rickmansworth donated 50 per cent of ticket takings to the hospice cause.

Other charity events included school sports days, sponsored bike rides, barbecues, cake sales, coffee mornings and raffles.

As part of the huge push to raise the £450,000 still needed before work could begin to convert the building into a hospice, the buy-a-brick campaign was launched. Enamel badges of red bricks bearing the words ‘Peace Hospice’ in gold went on sale in hospice shops in Watford, Chorleywood and Radlett.

In a single month, the campaign raised £8,000.

Building work began in 1995 and the new facility was officially opened by Princess Michael of Kent the following year.

Jewellers David and Dan Jackson were commissioned to build a replica of the clock stolen from the front of the hospital and an appeal was launched to fund it.

This campaign was also supported by the Watford Observer, and just six weeks after it was launched, sufficient money had been raised for the clock. Mrs Bozena Taylor of Richmond Drive, Watford, donated £1,000 after reading of the appeal in the Watford Observer. She gave the money in memory of her husband, Peter Taylor.

Graham Ball, Peace Hospice director, said, ‘The Peace and its clock will be a beacon of hope shining out for the people of south west Hertfordshire’.

Princess Michael returned five years later to open a new inpatient unit, which currently cares for about 250 patients a year.

As well as inpatient and day care, the hospice includes an outpatient service and bereavement support. Since 2005, the hospice has also provided a Hospice at Home service, enabling patients and their families to receive both treatment and support at home.

The hospice and the community come together on various special occasions, notably the annual Lights of Love ceremony and the yearly Starlight Walk for women, which has so far raised a total of £1.4million for the hospice. The tenth and final Starlight Walk, held on Saturday, July 9, will be an integral part of the anniversary celebrations in 2016. See www.peacehospicecare.org.uk for more details.