Love is art. Hospice supporter Roz is channelling her love for late husband Paddy through painting
Published on: 31/07/2026
Roz in the hospice gardens with her painting ‘Vibrant Harmony’
Vincent Van Gogh said,
“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people”.
Roz Tranfield loves people. She knows an awful lot of them. She’s not ‘gushing’ when she speaks about those family and friends who have been a big part of her life, but it is absolutely clear when you speak to her the great affection she has for them all.
So, our interpretation is;
She loves the people who worked in and attended her beauty therapy salon in Liscard, still named the Roz Tranfield Beauty Salon, from where she’s now retired (although she retains some long standing clients).
She loves the people who joined Roz’s Warriors a group she founded after her own diagnosis of breast cancer in 2014 (fellow cancer patients, families and others who went on to raise more than £170,000 for the Clatterbridge Cancer Charity through fashion shows over several years).
Roz and Paddy
She loves the people who nominated and chose her for Merseyside Woman of the Year in 2016.
She loves her family, her brothers, Paddy’s brother, John, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces and stepchildren, Claire and Christopher (who sadly succumbed himself to bone cancer in 2004*).
She loves the professionals who have been part of her journey through cancer and other neurological diseases she now lives with.
She loves the people at Wirral Hospice St John’s who cared for her husband, Paddy, on the inpatients ward at the hospice and at home.
She loved Paddy. Profoundly.
Paddy on Windermere
Paddy was first diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2013. With radiotherapy and hormone injections he was able to manage the following few years very well. However, in early 2018 it was discovered that he was now also living with bowel and liver cancer. It was a rollercoaster journey thereafter, from his operation in July of that year and then, around eight and a half years of treatment and long periods of recovery.
Paddy was determined to live life, his life with Roz and everyone they knew, as fully as possible.
By late November 2025, Paddy’s advanced cancer was giving him the kind of pain that requires specialist hospice care and support, and he was admitted onto our inpatients ward. The plan was to get Paddy well enough to go home for Christmas and beyond.
Roz told us,
“When we first spoke about him entering the hospice as an inpatient he said to me ‘I’m going there to get better’.
There were many wonderful things about Paddy’s hospice experience.
The staff were so attentive. Once he started to feel a little like his old self he loved nothing more than a nice warm bath.
The hospice ward bathroom is a shrine to relaxation where patients can sit or lie facing a whole, wall-wide, evocative and colourful photograph of the New Brighton lighthouse.
Paddy told me that 15 minutes is usually the allotted time for patients, but he would often ask for ‘just another fifteen minutes…? Pleeeeaaasssseee?’
Roz with Paddy at the hospice
His cheeky smile couldn’t be refused. He requested his favourite music and songs and totally relaxed.
The nurses dubbed him ‘Aquaman’ and he loved it.
I’d also had a conversation with some of the staff about our upcoming anniversary. We always had a special celebration, including at The Savoy Hotel in recent years, but Paddy wasn’t going to be quite well enough for that.
However, he conspired with the ward team to arrange an afternoon tea, as a surprise for me, in his room.
Paddy and Roz
It was amazing. Fairy lights, sandwiches and cake on a stand, candles and some non-alcoholic champagne. Honestly, we never had a more meaningful wedding anniversary.
Paddy told us all that it was ‘better than The Savoy’.
As hoped, and we know it may not have been possible for everybody, we were so grateful, Paddy came home on 23rd December. In time for Christmas.”
For the next six weeks Paddy and Roz also welcomed our Hospice at Home team into their lives.
On 1st February this year, Paddy died in Roz’s arms.
He’d had a fulfilling life in many ways. *He was a founding trustee of the Bone Cancer Research Trust following the sad passing of son, Christopher, to osteosarcoma in 2004 and he made a massive contribution to the charity.
He loved golf, a member at our world famous Wallasey Golf Club, he was also a classic car enthusiast having had a car sales business and many friends.
His support of Roz and her fundraising was also a major part of their lives and the outpouring of love and sympathy from numerous family members and friends after he passed was testament to that.
Through a memorial website called Much Loved, where tribute dedications and donations can be made in memory of a loved one, and through direct giving, Paddy’s family and friends gave around £3,500 for the hospice.
Now, partly because it is therapy for Roz, partly because she gets inspiration from the things she and Paddy loved and also (she wouldn’t admit this) because she is really talented, Roz is spending time producing what might be defined as contemporary art.
The images and backgrounds are conjured from Roz’s unique view of things, related to real life but re-created in a uniquely quirky way.
Vibrant Harmony: 108cms wide and 86cms deep
Her first piece since Paddy passed, ‘Vibrant Harmony’, is pictured here on the left.
Roz says,
“It was created to suggest a vibrant mood of people in harmony.
The chamber jazz band, big bass, trombone, saxophone and accordion, capture the movement of a swing type melody with the musical notes emanating from their instruments swirling around a lamppost on an atmospheric night.”
The evocative artwork has been donated to the hospice in the hope it may find some interest and a buyer via our online ebay site.
There’s a link to the eBay auction here which will run until Sunday 9th August at 8pm and any proceeds from its sale will go directly to the hospice.
Roz is putting the finishing touches to a second painting with a similar theme (pictured below) and this will be available in the months ahead. Watch this space!
Our very best wishes and grateful thanks go to Roz for sharing hers and Paddy’s story and helping us to remember the great Vincent Van Gogh, ‘there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.’
