Former Blackpool Victoria Hospital nurse is flying high with doves

A former Blackpool Victoria Hospital nurse has made a high flying change after taking semi-retirement - booking doves for weddings, funerals and special events.
Sue Brown with one of her belove dovesSue Brown with one of her belove doves
Sue Brown with one of her belove doves

Sue Brown always loved helping people in her role as a mental health nurse.

But now she’s helping them in a different but equally rewarding way.

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Sue worked for more than three decades at Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital. Now she works two days a week at Lancaster Royal Infirmary and runs “Doves of Life”.

Her business card carries the description “The Birds of Purity and Peace”.

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Sue takes bookings for weddings, funerals, Remembrance and special events and travels to release her birds as the climax of many events.

She was she says driven by a long term desire to run her own business and a love of the birds: “I did this when I semi-retired. I wanted to do my own business and after 30 odd years of being in nursing I thought this would be fun.”

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Sue added: “I had never realised how rewarding it would be. I find it as rewarding as nursing.”

It was through her partner Alan that she became interested in the doves. “He raced pigeons and I used to like the white ones.”

She has a spacious bird loft and the doves come and go throughout the day. Sue, who lives in Whittingham, near Preston, said: “I got more used to handling them them when I go my own birds three years ago. We had been talking about if for quite a few years that that might be a nice thing to do.”

She says funerals are particularly special because of the comfort she can bring to people at their saddest of times releasing doves.

Big release

Sometimes people choose to hold a single white dove in their hands themselves before releasing it.

Flight of fancy

Sue worked at Blackpool Victoria Hospital in a 30-year career