AT the age of 73 most people look forward to spending the rest of  their life in retirement. But for inspirational Dorothy McGregor that couldn’t be further from her mind. The pensioner sleeps just three hours a night to run Accrington-based charity Maundy Relief.

The charity, which helps the needy, currently operates from Maundy Grange in Abbey Street — once a hostel for men with general meeting and counselling rooms as well as a chapel and kitchens which are manned by volunteers.

Up to 200 people a day drop into Maundy Grange where they can get food and drinks as well as physical and emotional support from the former nurse and her team of more than 40 volunteers seven days a week. Here Dorothy talks about spending all her time helping others with the celebrity assistance of a Church-born Coronation Street star.

Q. What time do you get up?

A. I’m up at 3am every morning for prayers. Prayer is my life blood, it gives me my energy. I would have very low energy without it and I repeat them at 9.30pm and at midnight. I don’t need much sleep. I usually get between two or three hours and that’s enough for me, it’s just the way I am.

Q. What’s your daily routine?

A. I’m the manager here. I helped set it up in 1998 with the Reverend Len Singleton who has been in three wars and is such a lovely man. I don’t have a desk or an office. I, along with four deputy managers and more than 40 wonderful and dedicated volunteers see people right throughout the day, every day, seven days a week. It’s a continuous surgery for anyone who needs help.

I have to get up so early to get all the administration work done before opening at 9am. We deal with so much in a day it’s impossible to do any admin work when people are coming in throughout the day. People who have written in are desperate so we write back the same day and send a reply in the first class post.

It’s constantly busy. No one day is ever the same. We help anyone, whether they are homeless, need help sorting out their benefits or have post-natal depression.

Q. What do you love about the role?

A. I know it might sound strange but I don’t really know. Some people might say it’s the satisfaction but I can’t say that it is because at times it’s rather harrowing. It’s a mystery really. There are times when you say you’re never coming back again but you always end up coming back. We work at the coal face of need, responding immediately to poverty within the community and providing all the basic needs for living. We deal with anyone who falls beneath the net of social policy and before other services kick in. It is nice to know that we are helping in a small way.

Q. What’s the oddest thing that has ever happened to you?

A. I have been in nursing and midwifery, then became a health visitor and social worker and then spent 25 years in the probation service before I retired and during that time I was kidnapped twice and held against my will but both times I managed to talk my way out of it. I was on home visits before the procedures that are used today were brought in so I went in on my own. That would not be allowed today. I suppose I was put in some dangerous predicaments but that’s the way it was back then.

Q. What has been you proudest moment?

A. The opening of the new extension across the road called Maundy Manna named after the bread. On the first floor we have a new conference room for groups to meet and above that we have two extra counselling rooms. One is called the Martha room after Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh’s daughter Martha because Julie is the charity’s patron. We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for her help and support. She has been wonderful. It costs £400 a day to keep the charity running because we provide everything from food to clothing. We received a £10,000 donation recently thanks to Julie (who plays Hayley Cropper) after she wrote to British Airways and they donated money from its Community Relations Fund.

Q. What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

A. Just be yourself. I remember meeting four complete strangers who told me to just be myself. I was a chronic depressive until I was 65 years old. I’m not anymore. I don’t know what changed but that made a lot of sense to me at the time. I always used to hide my depression underneath a smile so I can understand how a lot of these people feel who we try to help to a certain extent.