Couple uncover 20 years of modern slavery while delivering woman cash card
Rennye and Lawrence are much like any other ordinary, retired couple in their sixties - they love growing vegetables in their back garden and reminiscing over wedding photographs from 1976.
But when the phone rings, they drop everything at home to help respond to emergency calls nearby, whether it's a house fire, flood, gas leak or a distressed local resident in crisis.
The husband and wife are part of the British Red Cross' local emergency response team in Hertfordshire, and while many mistake the charity for only helping international emergencies abroad, and with three decades of volunteering near their home under their belt, it's safe to say they've seen it all.
This World Humanitarian Day (August 19), Rennye, 67, and Lawrence, 69, are sharing the cases that have stayed with them the most - including the time they intervened to save a woman from two decades of modern slavery.
Rennye began volunteering for Red Cross around 20 years ago and is now part of the emergency response team (Elina Kuusio/British Red Cross)Rennye first joined Red Cross volunteers 20 years ago, after an unexpected incident made her want to learn more about first aid. "I was playing badminton and one of the men on court had a cardiac arrest. I ended up doing CPR on him," Rennye said. It drove her to become a qualified first aid trainer and later an emergency responder, which Lawrence signed up for too. "If we are out on a call, we split the work between us. Rennye is very good at talking to people; I'll do the driving. Between us, we'll make it work," Lawrence, who wished not to disclose their surnames, said.
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Despite having supported major emergencies from Grenfell to Ukraine evacuations, the couple expressed the cases that have stayed with them the most are the crises that rarely hit the news. "People think the Red Cross just goes abroad to international emergencies and disasters; they may not realise that a disaster could actually be in the next street," Lawrence explained.
Uncovering two decades of modern slavery
One heart-wrenching tale is that of a 74-year-old woman, from the West Indies, who didn't know that she was being subjected to modern slavery. Lawrence and Rennye were asked to go to her aid and unintentionally uncovered her horrific history. "We were asked to take her a cash card to pay for one extra night at a hotel. It turned out she had been in this country for 20 years, subjected to slavery for that entire 20-year period and it had fallen through the cracks on every occasion," Lawrence said.
"In those 20 years, she'd lived in people's homes in return for food and clothing while she worked as a maid or a nanny. She thought they'd been kind - but that's modern slavery." Two and half years after the couple's intervention, they found out that she had been granted citizenship. "But these things don't make the headlines. These are the ones that stay with you at two o'clock in the morning," Rennye added.
The retired couple dedicate their lives to selflessly helping people all around the world in crisis (Elina Kuusio/British Red Cross)Supporting victims of a Christmas house fire
Based at St Alban's fire station in Hertfordshire, the couple is used to stepping in when a fire breaks loose. Rennye recalled a particularly memorable case a few years ago on Christmas Eve. A family of five had relatives staying over from all over the country for Christmas when their house suddenly caught fire. "They'd lost everything; it was devastating. I think it had been the Christmas tree that caught fire. All the kids could think about was that they'd lost all their presents," she said.
While the local council found temporary housing for the family that lived locally, the extended family had nowhere to go. Rennye stepped in, finding everyone a place to stay for the night. "I remember the look on the face of the father when we were saying our goodbyes; he looked so relieved. He came towards me with his arms out and said, 'I'm not allowed to hug you, am I?' and I replied 'Yes, you are!' I got a big hug from him," she remembered fondly.
She recalled another case that has stayed with her, that of an elderly man living in a smallholding. "He hadn't got any family left; all he had was his two horses," she said. "He was suicidal because he'd lost the only living things he cared about. That for him was a crisis. It might've not been a tsunami, it might've not been a major fire but for him, that was a crisis that made him consider ending his life."
But when they're at home, they enjoy the simple things like growing vegetables in the back garden (Elina Kuusio/British Red Cross)Rescuing traumatised Brits fleeing war zones
Recently, the couple were a part of the Stanstead response to assist British nationals evacuated from Sudan, where Rennye came across a woman in great distress. "The medics told us that because she didn't have an NHS number, her only option was to go to A&E for help. She had seen her friends shot; she had been hiding under the table when bullets were coming through the walls before she got out. There was no way she was in a fit state to visit A&E on a Friday night," she explained. "She needed psychosocial support; she hadn't slept for three nights. I thought, 'I am not letting her fall on the wayside'. It took me two hours, speaking to various people at 111 - and finally, she was admitted."
Highlighting what seemed like an everyday occurrence, the couple were brought in to do a food shop for a woman with an autistic son. The mother wasn't a British national at that time, and the family needed specific groceries because the son was particular about his food and was used to recognising biscuits by the branded wrapper. When Rennye and Lawrence arrived at the family's flat, they realised this was only the surface of the problem.
"The flat was in a terrible state because she'd had a caesarean section less than two weeks prior, and she wasn't meant to be lifting. It was full of rubbish she couldn't take out, including dirty nappies. She couldn't take her son to the nursery," Rennye said. They also discovered that the woman's husband had been abusing her for a long time, both physically and financially. "He'd taken out credit cards in her name and ran up debts on them. She would've been taken to court to pay these debts," she explained.
He was falsely threatening her that the children could be taken away. "We got the police involved and they arrested him. I did a two-page report to them," Rennye said. "Besides the groceries, by the time we finished, all the rubbish had left the flat and she had a much better understanding of her position." Lawrence added refugee services ensured the woman was moved to an accommodation her husband didn't have the key to and arranged for her son to be taken to nursery. The couple was later told she had also received British citizenship - no longer needing to worry about being separated from her children.
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Despite supporting major emergencies, their most memorable cases are the ones that rarely hit the news (Elina Kuusio/British Red Cross)The small moments that matter most
During lockdown, the couple were out six days a week doing welfare checks. "You didn't just hand over a parcel of food or medicines. They wanted to talk; we might've been the only human face they'd seen. There was one lady, the only thing she wanted to do was to go to a pub and have a drink," Lawrence recalls. "She was 84, almost deaf, and her eyesight wasn't good so she couldn't watch telly or talk to people on the phone, and it was human company she needed. Sometimes I think that those conversations were more valuable for them than the food or the medication," Rennye added.
Another national emergency the couple worked through was Storm Eunice, when the Red Cross had been asked by a local power network to check up on their list of vulnerable people in the area. "We were doing telephone checks during Storm Eunice, and we came across a 94-year-old man who was trying to change his catheter by candlelight. By coincidence, we had got a couple of spare torches left in our car and he was only a twenty-minute drive away, so we drove up there to give him some," Rennye said.
The couple don't see themselves giving up volunteering anytime soon and agreed that helping people face-to-face is the best part of the job. "It's almost addictive; the feedback you get from the people that you've helped. Somebody said to me once 'I didn't know that there were people like you in the world'," Rennye said. Lawrence agreed: "The fact that you can make a difference to those people is what keeps me going. Also, it's nice to see my wife occasionally!"
"I never thought I'd meet any Afghans or Ukrainians. But thanks to the Red Cross, I've met both groups of people," he continued. "By supporting them, with each group having their unique needs, I've learned so much." Yet, Rennye doesn't want people to put them on a pedestal. "People sometimes say, 'You're amazing for doing this', and my response is always, 'No, we're really not. No matter what you put in in time, I feel like we get far more back.
"After helping someone through a really difficult time, you come home and think 'Wow, I actually did something worthwhile'. So how can you stop? There can be frustration and tears at times, when you meet someone who has fallen through the cracks in the system. But it feels so good to be able to help them, and you always have full backup and support from the Red Cross team. You're never left dangling." For her, it's about being a part of something much bigger. "You feel like you are a part of the international humanitarian family of the Red Cross," she finished.
The British Red Cross is constantly seeking emergency response volunteers to take up key roles supporting people at times of crisis. To find out more, visit the website.
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