“I DO what I do because I enjoy helping people in any way I can.” The words of Florencecourt woman, Viola Mary Alicia Wiggins (nee Crozier), who has been nominated as one of the Fermanagh Trust’s 20 Community Heroes.

Now in her 80s, Mrs Wiggins has spent a lifetime helping others. As well as raising money for a variety of worthy causes from an early age, she is also a noted local historian who has helped people across the world uncover their Fermanagh roots.

Speaking to The Impartial Reporter this week, Mrs Wiggins said it was with “complete shock and amazement” that she found out that she had been nominated for one of the prestigious awards, which are being presented in honour of the Fermanagh Trust’s 20th anniversary.

Looking back over a long and fruitful life, Mrs Wiggins said she learnt her philosophy from her parents, Jack and Alice Crozier, of Marlbank House, Florencecourt. The youngest of three children, her charity work started during World War II - at the tender age of six years old!

“Every Saturday I rode our farm horse, Molly, to collect for the Red Cross visiting all the houses up Marlbank. I’d leave home at about 9am and not get home until perhaps 7pm,” she said.

Her late husband, Ken, a Yorkshire man, was serving at RAF Castle Archdale when she met and married him. Their daughter, Margaret Addrienne Yvonne (Addy) Wiggins, was born in July 1955 in the Erne Hospital and, when Ken was demobbed in December 1955, they moved to live in Leeds.

She became the third generation of her family to work on the railways when she joined British Railways in 1959 as a telephonist and teleprinter operator at Leeds City station, where she worked for a number of years before taking the post of train announcer at that station.

“I was voted ‘The Golden Voice’ in April of 1972 with national newspaper coverage in the Daily Express, The Sun and The Mirror. It amused me, when, back home on holiday in August of that year, I would be stopped at a checkpoint and a soldier would recognise me because my photograph had also been in The Impartial Reporter after Mervyn Dane, who was at the Tech with me, picked up the story and contacted me,” she recalled.

After retiring, the couple moved back to Florencecourt and decided to build a ‘Christmas Santa’s Grotto’, which was open to the public, in memory of their late daughter, who was tragically killed in a road traffic accident in Morocco on Friday, August 13, 1976.

Each Christmas until Ken’s death in 2002, their house was lit up inside and outside from December 18 until January 5 at midnight. Charities that benefited from the ‘Grotto’ included Cancer Research, Salvation Army, old people’s clubs and homes. Money was also given to churches on both sides of the community, stipulating that it was spent within the local community from which it had come.

Being a third generation ‘Railwayite’, it was only natural that Viola and her husband joined the Erne Model Railway Club as founder members. For the EMRC’s first exhibition, the couple decided to build a portable layout dedicated to the popular children’s TV programme, Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

They subsequently exhibited the ever-expanding ‘Thomas and Friends’ layout at Bangor, Greystones, Dun Laoghaire, Blackrock and Dublin over the years. Viola continued to exhibit Thomas after the death of her husband, until a couple of years ago when it became difficult to assemble and dismantle it on her own.

Family history has always been a feature in her life since early childhood. This passion was nurtured while listening to stories from the past told by her parents and neighbours who visited.

As well as being a long-serving member of Killesher Historical Society, with whom she served as treasurer, Mrs Wiggins has belonged to the Fermanagh-Gold genealogical forum for about seven years.

She explained: “That is a forum with members worldwide who are trying to trace their Fermanagh ancestors. Any member visiting Fermanagh who lets me know beforehand I would try and meet with and if necessary drive them to where their ancestor had lived if they know the townland.” Still very much involved in her local community, the sprightly octogenarian is also secretary of the Hot Potato Club, a luncheon club for older people, run by volunteers to help combat and alleviate the rural isolation of older people living on their own.