Tributes paid to holiday star Sheila

Mick Grewcock and Sheila Chick of Burbage Holiday Lodge and Queens Mansions.

Sheila Chick, who had battled cancer three times during her life, passed away on Friday May 12, aged 71.

She and her partner Mick Grewcock built up their businesses in Bispham to become the resort’s first five-star self-catering holiday accommodation.

They moved to Blackpool in 1990 from Leicestershire and went on to open Burbage Lodge and Queens Mansions.

The couple married at Blackpool Victoria Hospital on April 18.

Mick said: “We knew Sheila was very poorly and I wanted to make an honest woman of her.

“We had been due to be the first couple to marry at the new Wedding Chapel on the Promenade when it opened, but we were so busy running our businesses we never got round to it.

“We got married on ward 15a, with family and friends there and it was a happy occasion, but obviously sad at the same time.

“Sheila loved Blackpool and always put money into the Illuminations.

“She also loved the Opera House, and she paid £4,000 at an auction in aid of the Winter Gardens Trust for a set of vintage railway prints.

“I said, what are you doing Sheila? But she knew it was all for a good cause.

“They don’t make them like her any more. She was very practical and even did all the tiling at the Burbage.

“We put all our own investment into both of our properties.

“But Sheila suffered from cancer three times during her life, and in the end she couldn’t keep fighting it.”

Sheila has suffered womb, bladder and bowel cancer.

Among her achievements, Sheila was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the Blackpool Tourism Awards in 2001.

The couple named their first property after the village of Burbage in Leicestershire which Sheila came from.

They had no experience in the hospitality industry before moving to the resort, but from the start wanted to offer something different.

Mick says he intends to carry on running the businesses, which in 2015 won the Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence for the fifth year in a row.

Sheila leaves three children from her earlier marriage, and was also a grandmother and great-grandmother.

Her funeral service will take place on Friday May 26 at 1.45pm at All Hallows Church in Bispham.