Middlesbrough Council - News Forum - Setting a light to the News

St Hilda's homes battle dad Henry Woodier dies
by Andy Passant, Evening Gazette
Jun 2 2011
ONE of the last remaining residents of Middlesbrough's St Hilda's clearance area has died.
Henry “Dando” Woodier passed away peacefully in hospital surrounded by his family.
The 75-year-old great-granddad had been battling illness for many years.
He and wife Maureen’s home is one of only a handful left in St Hilda’s which is undergoing massive redevelopment.
The once-thriving area has mostly been demolished under regeneration plans.
But the Woodiers, along with their daughter next door, have defied the bulldozers.
The couple have lived in their four-bedroom home in Richmond Street for 36 years.
And - despite years of wrangling with Middlesbrough Council - they couldn’t be persuaded to move out.
Dando once said: “I was born here and I want to die here. Why should people come along and tell us how to run our lives?”
He had been battling cancer for the past ten years and had also suffered a stroke.
But Maureen said he carried on in spite of his health problems.
The 71-year-old said: “He fought cancer for ten years. He just wouldn’t give up.
“He had been through so much. He shouldn’t have had to go through what he did go through.”
Maureen said her husband had previously had a replacement valve in his heart. He then suffered from various cancers and tumours, and also had a stroke.
She added: “I thought how much more of this can we take?.
“He still wouldn’t give in. He had faith in the doctors, he went along with them.
“Then, when we thought we were just getting over that, he was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Dando - a Gas Board worker for 23 years - finally lost his health battle in James Cook University Hospital on May 25.
And Maureen said his death had devastated the family.
“Everybody in Middlesbrough knew him,” she added. “The kids loved him.
“Everyone called him Dando. I think he has had that name from being a kid.”
The couple had been married for 55 years and have eight children and 71 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.