A short film festival will be held on Saturday to celebrate Bolton Pride and raise awarenes of the fight for equality by the LGBTQ+ community.

Boton Hospice  is hosting the invite only showings on Saturday which will be attended by former Corrie star Julie Hesmondhalgh. 

The short films are written, produced and directed by Rosie Adamson-Clark, someone who has experienced the care provided by Bolton Hospice, through both their inpatient care and the Wellbeing Hub support services.

She is also a supporter of the hospice and has raised funds to help people and families in the community.

Rosie worked in clinical psychology and as a lecturer and court-appointed therapist. She advised Government and helped create the EDF document on Equality and Diversity practice and law.

In 2015 she won the first Bolton Pride award from Sir Ian McKellen for her life time of equality campaigning, and work for minority groups. The work was focused on LGBTQ+ issues in healthcare settings.

Rosie said: “I am thrilled that Bolton Hospice are hosting the LGBTQ+ short film festival screening three of my short films about equality, opening up discussions around LGBTQ+ issues, and highlighting the importance of every kind of relationship being valued and recognised.”

The film festival will begin with an introduction by Rosie’s friend, Julie Hesmondhalgh, at the Wellbeing Hub at Bolton Hospice.

Rosie said: “From being a child I have been passionate about equality issues and helping others in need of whatever skills or knowledge I could offer. My body might have limited ability, but my brain and my passion to assist others could fill a room.

“Always having had the challenges of breathing problems, from chronic brittle asthma, lung fibrosis, heart murmur, life-threatening allergies, ehlers-danlos syndrome, addisons disease, rheumatoid arthritis, to name but a few of the interesting conditions or syndromes for want of a better word I carried, I had to be creative in adjusting to a life with limits.

“Every winter I would fall victim to pleurisy, pneumonia, and repeated chest infections. These became increasingly hard for medics to deal with and alleviate.

“From about 2015 I began to be extremely breathless, without a wheeze or infection, to the point of nearly passing out.”

Rosie continued: “In September 2018 my wife and I holidayed to our beloved Italy, we intended to go a few times a year as she retired that month, we had big plans. However, my serious struggles to breathe, even in the temperate climes of Italy, were so bad I knew I would probably have to re-think our future travel ideas.

“On Boxing Day morning that year, I had a heart attack and was told with a late presenting STEMI and a left ventricle which was damaged, nothing could be done.

“The GP referred me to Bolton Hospice for some help with my situation, live a little, she hoped, while I could. The cardiac surgeon at the Northwest cardiac centre had told me I would have about 4 years to live. My GP said she wasn’t going to see me sit in a chair for 4 years.”

Rosie was sceptical at what the hospice would be able to offer her, but when she went she found that it greatly helped her.

She said: “I felt suddenly at ease in that building, as if a great weight had been lifted, and the place had arms that wrapped around me, protectively, encouragingly, lovingly. I began to relax.

“The team of nursing staff, doctors, creative therapist and psychologist, all wove a safety net for me, and enticed me back to life.

“I suddenly wanted to use my skills again, to be the giver of care and not the receiver. The intuitive CEO Leigh Vallance was always a presence around the place, not some body in an office, she was involved.

“We chatted as she knew what my previous NHS role had been and that I was a hospital governor and human rights activist.

“I said I still wanted to help make changes for inclusion, so she encouraged me to offer sessions on LGBTQ+ awareness for the hospice staff. I thoroughly enjoyed doing that, hard though it was, and I gained as much from it as the staff did. I felt life was coming back to me.”

Bolton actress, writer and director, and Vice President of Bolton Hospice, Maxine Peake, is also supporting the event.

She said, "I am pleased to highlight and support the work of Rosie Adamson-Clark. The focus of her work is equality and humanitarian issues.

“Her short films continue to spotlight issues of societal roles, LGBTQ+, gender, disability, and illness. I feel Rosie's films are important in exposing the isolation felt by people from any minority group, and people with life-limiting conditions.

“Her films are moving and sharply observed. Well done Rosie!”

For information on the wellbeing hub at Bolton Hospice please visit www.boltonhospice.org.uk/wellbeing-hub.