A WOMAN who worked as a nurse in a burns unit and set up a club to support sufferers was surprised with a television garden makeover to say thank you.

Pat Wade MBE, 72, from Basildon was chosen by television bosses to get a brand new garden thanks to show Love Your Garden with television gardener Alan Titchmarsh.

Pat said: “I honestly had no idea at all, I have watched the show before and wondered if people knew but it was such a nice surprise.

“I said that I wanted something with a bit of colour and somewhere to sit and enjoy the outdoors.

“My neighbours were amazing and I want to thank them as there were issues with parking due to the lorries and vehicles.

“When they unveiled it I was so nervous and had this awful feeling that I wouldn’t like it, but I love it.”

She was nominated by an admirer who works with burns victims and had a surprise when the famous gardener knocked on her door.

She has helped turn around the fortunes of hundreds of young burns victims over the past two decades after setting up The Burned Children’s Club.

The charity helps young burn survivors and their families to come to terms with their altered body image

Following a surprise appearance at her house in February with the film crews, Alan Titchmarsh and the gardeners carried out works for five days in May.

The show was filmed in parts and aired this week on ITV One.

She said she can’t believe it’s her garden as it is such a transformation.

For a while afterwards she kept checking it was still there.

During the show Alan Titchmarsh said she had saved lives and given children a better future. A big group of guests joined Pat for the garden unveiling at her home in Basildon.

The mum-of-three, who is now 68, set up the charity in 1995 while she was working as a nurse at St Andrew’s Hospital, in Billericay, a specialist burns unit which later moved to Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford. The idea came about after a brief conversation with a doctor when two badly burnt children were brought into the unit. She watched the airing with the club at Fairplay House Outdoor Education Centre in Wickham Bishops.