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At Durham Aged Mineworkers Homes Association, the average age of our residents is 77. As well as providing homes, we really try to enhance residents' lives.

We send them birthday cards – for some of them, it could be the only birthday card they get. We get thank-you letters from people and it's really nice to think someone has taken the trouble to thank you for sending a birthday card. When one of a couple dies, we send them a bereavement card with a note saying our staff are there if they need any help with things such as changing benefit information.

We also send our residents Christmas cards, and we get hundreds of personal ones back. They're all on first-name terms with our staff. If one of our officers has a baby, the knitting comes flooding in. It's that type of organisation.

Some of our residents never get out from one day to the next, so we organise all sorts of parties and days out. We've been on holidays to Blackpool and Scarborough.

We haven't managed to get overseas yet, but I'm sure it'll come. We have a "turkey and tinsel party" at Christmas and, last week, we had 200 residents up at one of the local social clubs for an Easter party. As well as pie and peas and bingo, there was an Easter bonnet competition.