London, New York, Paris… Heswall? Berlin born volunteer Christa’s story links all of these places, and many, many, more!

Thousands of hospice patients will have met our long time Wellbeing Centre and nowadays inpatients ward general duties volunteer, Christa Trollope.

She’s one of our army of volunteers who come in for a two- or three-hour shift on our inpatients ward, to aid our kitchen staff.

Christa’s been volunteering here for twenty years now, and we can safely say that everyone who speaks with her will be somewhat better off for the experience.

She shares her duties in a kind of round robin pattern with fellow volunteers and now great friends, Chris Taylor and hospice president, His Honour John Roberts, each Tuesday morning, and they call their triumvirate, the ‘A’ Team, they love it when a plan comes together!

Many patients will have had had their morning drinks prepared, and their breakfast dishes collected and cleaned by Christa and Co.

People, like Christa, are absolutely a key part of our overall inpatients service and all have a story to tell, even though they don’t always believe it!

So, as soon as you learn that she was born in East Berlin during World War Two and her family fled from the Russians when she was just over two years old, you have to think, now that IS a story.

The trucks they made their escape in, alongside twenty other families, were old fashioned steam trucks, powered by burning coal, the likes of which you might only see at special shows and museums today.

Dad, Emil, Mum, Frieda, and Christa’s older siblings, Wolfgang and Heidi, made it to Russelsheim, Frankfurt, in West Germany where Emil had a job at Opel (part of General Motors).

This wasn’t the end of Christa’s challenges as a very young person because, at the age of five, she contracted diphtheria. Nasty!

She spent the best part of six months on an isolation ward and told us,

“Very strange times. We didn’t have a car, and my dad took me to hospital on his bike and could only make it over every couple of weeks where he could only wave through the window at me and then be off again.

Thank goodness for penicillin*, it saved my life.”

*Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928 but only began to be mass produced as an antibiotic during WW2.

Despite experiencing complete paralysis and severe diplopia (double vision), Christa made a full recovery and was ready to start school by seven years of age.

She loved school, where she made friends for life, Gisela and Heidi. Sadly, when Christa was just 14, her mum died. It was yet another profound life changing event for Christa and her family.

Just a couple of years later on leaving school she embarked on a two-year apprenticeship, encouraged by her dad, as a secretary at Opel.

By 1961 she was ready for a new adventure and moved to England as an au pair based in Lytham St Anne’s. She looked after a young boy, George, whose mother, in truth, treated Christa more like ‘the help.’ She considered quitting but her experiences to date had given her an extra measure of resilience.

While here that first time, Christa attended college to study for an O-Level in English. Also, her school friend, Heidi, was working as an au-pair in Leeds, and they met up a couple of times during the year.

They eventually took a decision to move back to Frankfurt to study for an interpreter’s certificate. After nine months they’d qualified and soon that desire to travel took over once more and in 1963 they were off to Paris where they worked as au pairs once more, this time for nicer families.

Paris gave them both an ambition to travel more and so they applied to become cabin staff for the iconic American company, TWA Airlines.

Unfortunately, she laughs now, Christa was one and a half inches below the height that was required in those days, but Heidi was tall enough and got the job.

It wasn’t all bad though, Christa returned home to Frankfurt, working for an American finance company and she’d get the train over to Paris on many a Friday night to stay with Heidi in the posh hotels that TWA provided. Bonus!

Still searching for adventure, a friend from Paris, Dennis, sponsored Christa to emigrate to America and, in 1964, she secured a job at German company, Siemens, based in the Empire State Building. Wow!

Here, fate would intervene again as that November, through school friend, Gisela, and her fiancée, Jim, she met a handsome young Englishman, David Trollope.

By the next March, Christa and David were engaged and, in November 1965, just one year after meeting, they were married. Wow, again!

They celebrated 60 years of marriage in 2025. Treble Wow!

Trained as an engineer, David was also beginning to fulfil his calling to become a minister in the Church of England. They moved to Pinner in London, happily their flat was in Love Lane, from where David could make the five-mile journey to undertake his studies at the London College of Divinity.

In 1966, Christa was granted her British citizenship in irony of ironies, England’s football World Cup winning year, while Christa had grown up in West Germany.

Bittersweet? Looking back, probably so as, having applied for citizenship as opposed to it being bestowed by marriage, Christa lost her German citizenship. She could not have retained both.

Two children were soon on the scene, Kirsten and Stephen, born during David’s curacy at St James’ church, Bermondsey and where Christa had also secured a really well-paid job in an oil brokerage.

After three years as a curate David and Christa were assessing where the family’s next move might be. He was interested in missionary work and his previous work as an engineer could be combined to support missionary work in Africa.

By the early 1970’s they were headed to Uganda (via college in Kenya) where David began his missionary work and where they came to know the Anglican Archbishop Janani Luwum.

The countries were beautiful and they lived in Uganda for nearly five years and really did have some wonderful times, however things became increasingly perilous under brutal dictator, Idi Amin.

After the brutal assassination of Archbishop Luwum, and more frequent raids on the church houses by Amin’s henchmen, the family applied to leave Uganda and relocated to Kenya.

A second dangerous upheaval and departure had happened to Christa.

In Kenya, David continued his work helping to build CORAT Africa (Christian Organisations Research and Advisory Trust) bringing development work to countries across Africa.

Meanwhile Christa was also helping to build an organisation called AMANI (meaning peace and tranquillity in Swahili) which is a thriving organisation to this day offering counselling and mental health services across Kenya. She completed courses in counselling and social work which subsequently helped her decide on her future career in England.

By 1982 the family were ready to depart Africa for a new life in England, David had secured a vicar’s position at St Luke’s church in Great Crosby.

In August they were travelling to Nairobi when the family was held at gunpoint (a shot was actually fired over the head of Christa’s daughter, Kirsten’s head) There had been an attempted coup by the Kenyan air force, which ultimately failed.

A Land Rover of the people they were travelling with was requisitioned by the rebels and they were threatened that if it had not returned within a couple of hours they would be shot!

They did return and the rebels allowed them to leave. Thank goodness!

Christa had come through yet another unbelievably frightening situation. Incredible.

So, the eventual move to a slightly more sedate Crosby, north Liverpool, as the family was growing up was completely earned. David continued his work as a reverend and Christa became a social worker.

Her last placement before qualifying was at the Sunnybank Hospice, Woolton, which was to become Marie Curie’s Northwest headquarters. She’d lost her sister, Heidi, (not to be confused with her friend of the same name) to breast cancer and she fostered a huge appreciation for the work that hospices do.

Her career then grew into mental health social work from where she left as a manager in the community mental health team in Warrington in 2003.

After around twenty years in Crosby, David retired and settled in our Wirral community helping with the occasional service at Barnston church and St Chad’s.

Christa continued to work part time for the Ministry of Justice for another eight years, sitting on mental health review tribunals, a job she combined with volunteering at Wirral Hospice St John’s in our Wellbeing Centre right up until COVID intervened.

Nowadays, as we said at the beginning, Christa is part of the cheery team which everyone at the hospice looks forward to seeing every Tuesday morning.

Her volunteer colleague, hospice President, John told us,

“I have worked with Christa for many years now.

As well as being very, very, competent she is filled with compassion and common sense.

She is the ideal volunteer.

It is a real joy to work with her and to have her as a friend”.

Christa really is an extraordinary person, with an extraordinary life, still doing extraordinary things for our beloved hospice.

Thank You Christa, for absolutely everything you do.

If you’d like to volunteer at the hospice or in your community at one of our charity shops follow the links at www.wirralhospice.org/volunteering or email volunteering@wirralhospice.org or call 0151 334 2778 and ask for volunteer services.