Scotsman Obituaries: Nancy Blaik MBE, charity volunteer who helped found first children’s hospice in Scotland

Nancy died from pneumonia, after living her final years with the progressive neurodegenerative disorder, Lewy Body Dementia.

Born in Wallyford, East Lothian, to Agnes and Angus Geekie, Nancy had two siblings, Christina and James, both of whom predeceased her.

Growing up near Canonmills, Edinburgh, where she went to school, Nancy entered employment at 15, working as an office assistant in the National Farmers Union. She later became a highly skilled audio typist in the Medical Microbiology Dept of Edinburgh University.

Despite a difficult start in life due to deprivation and wartime family stress, Nancy, who was blind from childhood, achieved so much in working for others.

In 1977 Nancy welcomed her son Daniel into the world. Unfortunately, at the age of two Daniel was diagnosed with, and profoundly disabled by, the metabolic disease Leighs Encephalopathy, a severe, progressive, neurological disorder which meant he could move only his eyes and mouth.

As a result, Nancy took on the role of Daniel’s full-time carer throughout his childhood.

Shortly after Daniel’s diagnosis Nancy became involved with, and actively raised funds for, a small charity called Children Living with Inherited Metabolic Diseases (CLIMB). It was through CLIMB that she became aware of Martin House children’s hospice in Yorkshire, which she started visiting with Daniel and her husband Jack for respite.

In 1988, Nancy and Jack got together with other parents who regularly travelled the hundreds of miles from Scotland to Martin House for care and respite for their seriously ill children to discuss the logistics of opening such a facility closer to home.

So passionate were Nancy and her group to achieve this that in September 1991 they held their first public meeting in Edinburgh University and less than six months later a group was formally incorporated, becoming the registered charity that is known today as Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS).

Nancy never let herself be held back by her vision loss, and her dedication and commitment to the charitable causes close to her heart led to her being named Disabled Scot of the Year in 1991.

In the years that followed Nancy played a key role in raising the £10 million needed to build the first CHAS children’s hospice.

Thanks to a major appeal from the Daily Record which attracted many generous donations from the Scottish public and other sources, the dream of Nancy and many others for a children’s hospice in Scotland was eventually realised in 1996 when Rachel House opened its doors in Kinross.

Daniel enjoyed 13 wonderful years of visiting Rachel House with Nancy and Jack before he sadly died in 2009, aged 31, long outliving the prognosis of a few years given when he was aged two. Before and after his death, Nancy remained active in raising funds for CHAS and she received an MBE for her work as a Founding Director of CHAS in 1997.

Over the last three decades Nancy’s legacy has helped CHAS to ensure no family faces the death of their child alone, providing unwavering care and support to thousands of families in its two hospices, Rachel House in Kinross and Robin House in Balloch (which opened in 2005), in hospitals or at home – giving children and families the gift of choice in their palliative care journeys.

Alongside her work at CHAS, Nancy inspired the creation of Leith Home Start, a support service in Edinburgh, and she was also an active and dedicated fundraiser for RNIB and Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Other notable achievements of Nancy’s included being a participant in the Lothian Birth Cohorts 1936 research group study run by the University of Edinburgh. She also featured in a BBC Scotland programme in the Focal Point series in 1988 entitled “Nancy’s Story”, which was about her life as a fundraising powerhouse and about the life of Daniel also.

In her later years Nancy became profoundly disabled herself by Lewy Body Dementia and was cared for by her devoted husband Jack and a small team of personal assistants, who made her life as active and as independent as it could be, in her own home and community of 50 years.

Jack followed in Nancy’s footsteps 25 years after her good example by being awarded an OBE in the 2025 New Years Honours list for services in support of the Independent Living Fund Scotland.

Jack said: “I was 25 years well behind but in eventually catching up with Nancy she was the proof that women are invariably a good influence on men. Nancy was much loved by many, not least by Daniel and I.”

CHAS CEO Rami Okasha also paid tribute to Nancy, saying: “Nancy was a true inspiration for many staff and families at CHAS. She had a clear ambition for what CHAS should offer young people, children and their families. She showed true commitment and spoke with real passion, holding true to her values over many years.

“Nancy, along with the other founders, had the vision of what palliative care for babies and children could look like, along with strong determination, resilience and courage to turn their vision into a reality.

"With love and compassion, their mission has led to CHAS now offering unwavering care to children who may die young and to their families, at every step on this hardest of journeys, in hospices, hospitals and in their homes.”

Nancy Blaik’s legacy will forever live on in all the valuable work of CHAS in supporting children with life-shortening conditions and their families right across Scotland.

Obituaries

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