Generous garage help carer get back on the road - lighting-up social media

The feel-good story of how a garage helped a home care visitor stay on the road when his car gave him trouble has proved a heart-warming hit on social media.

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Tony Lasham has been a carer working out of the Heacham branch of the award-winning Extra Hands for the last 12 years. When his car was in need of urgent repairs at short notice, to enable him to carry on visiting service users during lockdown, he rang around trying to find someone to help, with no joy until he contacted Silver Service in South Raynham.

Owners Ronny and Stephen Silver were more than happy to help as Extra Hands carers, including Tony, had looked after their mother in her final days, so not only did they fix the brakes, but they sorted out a long-standing heating problem and issued him with a courtesy car in the meantime – and did not charge him for the repair.

“You hear about these things that people do to say thank you to health workers and carers, but you never expect it to happen to you, so it's lovely that they said thank you in this way to all of our carers who did such a good job looking after their mum,” said Tony, from Fakenham. “Fixing the heating was hugely useful too as I’ve got metal rods in my femurs, so being in the warm is massively important for me, that made a real difference.

“The courtesy car was the first time in two years that I’d had a car with heating, so I told them to take their time – it made me realise I needed a better car because of the effect the cold was having,  I didn’t want to give theirs back!”

Stephen Silver said he was more than happy to have been able to help Tony.  “We saw at first hand what a great job all the Extra Hands carers did for mum, they do an amazing job and always go the extra mile, so it was only fair that we did the same for them,” he said.  

“They’re a great company, who are incredibly professional, I really can’t fault them at all. We do our best to provide service to everyone, and he was so appreciative that we enabled him to carry on doing his job.”

Jo Tier, Extra Hands’ director of care services, was full of praise for both Tony and Silver Service. “Tony is a dedicated and compassionate carer and for someone to do something so nice for him is such a lovely gesture,” she said.

Tony admitted to having been quite emotional when he realised what the garage had done to help him, and when he told his bosses, they wanted to say thank you to Silver Service for their kindness, so Tony posted the story on the Fakenham community Facebook Page, where it has taken off in spectacular fashion.

“I told them I was going to post something and it's now got nearly 2000 likes, hundreds of shares and comments, and all of them are positive and appreciative,” said Tony.

“A lot of the comments are from customers who've used Silver Service before and they’ve also found that they were just as helpful, so clearly they've got a great reputation.”

Stephen too was taken aback by the response. “I was amazed by how many people have commented on and shared the post, hundreds of shares, comments and likes,” he said. “It’s been such a rough year for everyone, it just shows how much people appreciate it when you do something good. I think we all need to try and be a little bit more positive, because it can make a big difference.”