Kemble at Home

Carly Garner-Green

Job Title: Care Assistant

Joined: 2009

Description:

The day Carly joined us we were still known as Kemble Care – run by our founders Michael and Sharon King. Carly: “I was interviewed by Sharon, I can’t believe it is that long ago already. And boy did Sharon have heart for the business, she would ring half the world if she had to so that a client could have their visits at the time they wanted. You just wouldn’t have the heart to say ‘No’ to her!”

From her very first day, Carly was thrown straight into the deep. “I remember doing my induction course, and then I shadowed a colleague for only two visits on a Friday evening, before being sent out on my own the next morning! My first visit was with a lovely man, 7am Saturday morning, to help him get ready for the day. I was incredibly nervous – but it all went well and I loved it.”

It all went swimmingly. Until one day, something happened that would change her life. On a Thursday afternoon, Carly received a phone call to ask her if she could become the legal custodian of her brother’s three-month old daughter Olivia – her brother being unable to look after her himself under the circumstances. Carly: “It was very dramatic. Either I would have to look after her, or she would be taken into foster care. And there I was, 24 years old, and suddenly I had a three-month old girl to care for.”

She immediately put her life on hold. Carly: “I started working part-time, I stopped going out, my whole life revolved around one thing – this beautiful little girl that had been placed in my care. I cared for her as if she was my own daughter.”

When Olivia was two years old, Carly met her now husband Tom – another tree surgeon and friend of her brothers'. Carly: “We met, and it was clear as day. This is the guy for me. We met in June, I got pregnant in August, and in May the next year our little boy Harry arrived.”

Olivia would stay with Carly, Tom and Harry until she was four years old, when she moved back to her father. Carly: “She has always been part of our family, and she always will be. We see her all the time and her and Harry have basically grown up as brother and sister.

We will always have this special bond – for four years she lived with me as my daughter. She will always have a special place in our hearts, for me, Tom and Harry. She will always be my girl.”

Harry is three and a half-years old, and will not have to wait long for another brother or sister – Carly and Tom are expecting a new arrival later this year. The new year will start with the joys (and sleepless nights) that come with having a little one, and then next Summer will be another big year, where she celebrates a decade with Kemble at Home.

Jin Pardoe

Job Title: Care Assistant

Joined: 2017

Description:

Meet Jin, who is not only a carer in our team but who is also one of our qualified specialists in holistic therapy and massage. Jin can do wonders in making people feel better – in both body and in spirit.

Having grown up in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia), as the single child of two dentist parents, Jin first came to the UK in her late teens. She worked as an Au Pair in London for about a year, learning all about English language and culture on the go.

She came back again for a holiday when she was 21, and this time she was to stay – she met her husband, moved to the UK, got married, and had a daughter.
Jin, “My husband lived and worked on an organic fruit farm and I joined the business, doing the bookkeeping and helping run the business. After my husband very sadly passed away, I stayed with the business for a while longer – I very much support the idea of growing organic fruit and it was a pleasure to support the company.”

She decided to develop different skills, and she completed a course in Holistic Therapies at Herefordshire and Ludlow College, working as a mobile therapist – specialising in different types of treatment like reflexology, Swedish body massage and Indian Head Massage.

In addition, she also worked for a little company called ‘Herbfarmacy’, who create their own organic skincare products – straight from the fields. Jin, “They grow their own herbs, which they turn into creams and oils and so on. They had a little kitchen with some mixing machines, and oh my word the smells were just wonderful, so lovely!

We would mix different herbs and turn them into the most wonderful creams. It is amazing to think what you can make yourself with the right ingredients. And of course we tried all of it, scraping the leftovers from the bottom of the mixers! It was a most wonderful place to work.”

“When I am not working, I spend a lot of time with our dog Riley, who is Pomeranian by breed - and she is a girl! Me being foreign, I didn't realise that Riley here and mainly in Ireland is a boy’s name. I absolutely love her and spend a lot of time with her. She's usually my main photo model.”
Because that is another one of Jin’s hobbies: photography. “I love taking photos of the sky, clouds, and nature. We have had some magnificent sunsets over the last year. The photo of the sunset is from Santorini in Greece, which I visited in April. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen.“

“I love traveling, I love seeing new parts of the world and meeting new people. I have been on a very memorable trip to South Africa. In Cape Town, I met a girl called Samantha who was HIV Positive. That meeting has made a big impression on me, it has made me feel very grateful for just meeting her. On the trip I also had the opportunity to stroke and pat a 12 month old lioness cub that was bubbling on my thumb. I felt amazingly happy to have the little queen of the jungle on my lap.”

Paul Rollinson

Job Title: Care Assistant

Joined: 2008

Description:

Meet Paul, another one of our carers – and again one with an unusual hobby. Very unusual. Quite violent, too, it has to be said. But more about that later.

Who is Paul? Paul is one of those people who – I assume – everybody gets on with. He talks easily, is very non-pretentious, and has some very interesting turn of phrase up his sleeve that are bound to make you giggle. Just a normal, nice, and funny guy really.

He is not a Herefordshire boy, Paul. But he has come to love it over the years. Paul, “I moved to Hereford from Doncaster when I was twelve, and I hated every bit of it. It was far more rural than I was used to, it felt like stepping back in time. Like everybody was still living in the fifties. Doncaster suddenly felt like a very modern, big city to me.”

It took him a while to settle in. “I remember being at school, I still had quite a strong Yorkshire accent then. This boy came up to me and said (Paul does a fair impression of a Herefordian accent here) ‘Doncaster, is that the capital of Doncastershire?’ and I thought ‘Oh my word, because Hereford is the capital of Herefordshire this guy thinks Doncaster must be in Doncastershire – where on earth did I end up now?’”

Over the years he has learned to love Herefordshire though – he lives with his wife just out of town. “I love the countryside here, I can’t see us leaving in the near future.”

Paul has been a carer with us for about ten years, and boy, did he take a massive leap in changing career paths. Paul, “I was a bit of a rebel when I was younger, I didn’t want to be part of the establishment. I guess I was a bit of a ‘weekend-hippie’ - I couldn’t live the proper hippie lifestyle, so I just did that over the weekend.” After finishing school, he made himself useful in all sorts of ways, including as a dishwasher in a hotel and as a painter and decorator, before “stumbling onto stone”.

“I got into shaping headstones for graves, and learned a lot about working with stone. This was the time that granite kitchen worktops were becoming popular, and a friend and I set up a business crafting stone kitchen worktops. We did very well, we made kitchen worktops for David Beckham, Jamie Oliver, and many others. I actually managed to break the first one I made for Jamie Oliver and had to start all over again.”

When he left his stone business, he took a year off, doing “er… not much, really. I worked on the house, but I am also very good at just drinking tea. After a year my wife saw a job ad from Kemble looking for carers, and persuaded me to apply.”

“I had never dreamed of being a carer really, and I was a bit concerned whether I would fit in. I thought that all carers must be, how do I put it, ‘very nice people’, with endless patience and who are friendly and perfect all day. I was very glad to find out that they are just normal people, although they do rather exceptional jobs. But they spill their coffee and go out for a smoke like the rest of us.”

And how did he find it, being a carer? After all, it is definitely something else than designing granite kitchen worktops. “When you have been with a client for a while, you build a relationship. I have got only male clients, and after a while you almost talk to each other like mates – it becomes very easy. I love hearing their stories, they’ve got so much to tell.”

“It always remains a bit nerve wrecking to meet a new client, even after ten years. I am very mindful that their home is their home, it is not my workplace. You and the client have to work it all out together. I often say to a new client, ‘you’ve got to tell me exactly how you like things done, it is your home. We’ll just bumble through this together’, and before you know it you’ve got a great relationship.”

And then, there it is. That unusual hobby of his.

Because at the weekend, Paul transforms into a 17th century soldier in Cromwell’s army, fighting for his life on the battlefield with some 3.000 of his mates – hacking away at one another.

Er… he does what? Yes, that’s right.

Paul is a member of The Sealed Knot, aka ‘The Society of Cavaliers and Roundheads’, which stages battles from the English Civil Wars. Serving as the Commanding Officer in John Birch’s regiment (who captured the city of Hereford in 1645), Paul leads the charge, killing any Royalist he can get his hands on.

Some fight with muskets, others with swords, and yet others – including Paul – with Pikes, 16-20 feet long wooden speers with steel points on the end. The Pikemen are often the front line of the army (and therefore pretty darn vulnerable), and their role is to fend off the charging enemy – on foot or on horseback. Paul, “my wife and two sons also go ‘Knotting’, my sons are also Pikemen. Now that they are married, they take their own family.”

Don’t be fooled, this is not just a bunch of guys darting around in someone’s back garden. These enactments are gigantic operations.

Paul, “when we stage historic battles, like Marston Moor, Edgehill, or Naseby, they can go on for days with thousands of people involved.

There are drummers, horses, musketeers, and we try to follow the historic battle as much as possible – if we can, we place our canons in exactly the same spot as 300 – 400 years ago.

Some of the battles are filmed for documentaries and there are often large crowds watching. They are big events.”

Does it really get quite violent then? Paul, “Oh yes, the adrenaline can really take over. I am the Commanding Officer, and I am responsible for my guys. Sometimes you can just see people’s eyes glaze over, they get so into it. I’ll have to drag them off the field sometimes so that they can snap out of it – things can get a bit silly sometimes.”

When sufficient numbers of Royalists have been captured, spears splintered and the dead and wounded have been dragged off the battlefield, the real fun begins. “It all revolves around the beer tent, really. You meet people of all ages, colours and religions, and you end up sharing a beer with the guy you speared earlier in the day.”

And then, again, there is one of these turns of phrases, and you can’t help but smile. “It is such good fun, these battles, every time again. It is like a curry, even a bad curry is always a good curry.”

Gill Sharp

Job Title: Receptionist

Joined: 2008

Description:

Meet Gill, our wonderful Receptionist

“When I was a policewoman in Rhodesia….”, says Gill, “I was quite confident with a gun. I am glad I never had to use it.”

Everybody knows Gill. Our clients, our staff, everybody who visits or rings our office gets to meet or at least speak to Gill, our ever so calm and gentle receptionist. But not everybody knows what an extraordinary life she has lived. So extraordinary, it is almost hard to wrap your head around.
A life that includes growing up in a home-made zoo in Zambia, starting a horse riding school in South Africa and working as a police officer in Rhodesia – today’s Zimbabwe.

Gill’s parents moved to Zambia after WWII. Her father worked as a Game Ranger in Luangwa Valley, often known as the ‘honey pot’ of Zambia because of its incredible wildlife.

"My father would bring home all the orphaned animals he found”, says Gill. “He built a zoo in our back garden. We had snakes, lions, zebras, antelopes, and all sorts of other animals around the house.”

“When I was six, I had my own baby Baboon, Belinda. I would bottle feed her, dress her up and wheel her about in the pram, followed around by the cat, the dogs and the zebra. She slept in a pram in my bedroom, and in the morning she would snuggle into bed with me.”

The animals got used to being around people, and most could not be returned into the wild. Gill: “Some of the animals went to a zoo in England. Our lions went into acting, one of them played a role in the film ‘Cleopatra’.”

When she was eight, Gill moved with her parents, two brothers and sister to the UK – which of course had never been home to her. She was used to the sun, the warmth, to African ways. It must have been quite a shock coming to cold, wet and crowded England.

“I didn’t like it at all in the UK”, says Gill, “I missed home terribly.” Fortunately for Gill her father had itchy feet too, and they moved to South Africa when she was a teenager.
Always having had a love for animals, Gill decided to set up her own horse riding school in Grahamstown, in the South East of South Africa. She bought thirteen horses and a 29-acre plot with a barn and some stables, and was ready to get started when the draught came.

“It was a very dry year, and I couldn’t afford to have the water transported to where we kept the horses, so we had to carry it all up. All the water, every day, for thirteen horses. In the end it became too much, and I had to sell almost all the horses.”

She moved to Rhodesia, where she joined the police forces as a patrol officer, obtaining her Advanced Driving license (i.e., driving at high speed through busy traffic) and her Motorbike and Heavy Duty licenses.

“I just thought I’d love being a police officer, I think I liked the idea of the action and excitement. Although I didn’t like the blood, I found it hard having to go to car accidents or violent incidents where people got seriously wounded.”

Knowing Gill, probably one of the gentlest people you’ll ever meet, it is hard to imagine her driving at full speed through town at night with a gun on her hip. But as an officer in Rhodesia, there is no doubt she must have been tough, and not easily afraid. “We always brought a handgun and a rifle,” Gill says. “But then you’d always have to keep the gun in the boot of the car, so you would basically go into a crime scene unarmed. It is just as well I never had to use it, because I would first have to go and get the gun from the boot of the car and find the ammunition.”

She met her husband, also a police officer, and because the Police Department didn’t like married couples in their workforce Gill changed jobs. To add another unusual career change to her life, she started working for Rhodesian Broadcasting, the national broadcasting company, recording and editing the radio shows before they were broadcasted. “This was well-before the era of live broadcasting, so we had to record material and then splice the tapes – cutting and pasting them by hand – to put the recorded material and the music together in a way it flowed nicely”, says Gill.

With a civil war going on, Rhodesia was a turbulent place to live. When their first daughter was born, Gill and her husband decided to move to South Africa, where Gill found a job in the offices of a large department store.

“Of course, in Rhodesia we spoke English and I couldn’t understand any Afrikaans. I couldn’t work in the shop, so I worked in the offices.” There would be three more children to come – another girl and two boys – all born and raised in South Africa. Gill: “My children are all so proud of their background, they love South Africa. It will always be home for them.”
By the time Gill lived in South Africa, Apartheid must have been in full swing. “I hated it, it was awful. The system forced everybody to follow the segregation laws, you couldn’t get out. For example, we had some wonderful black staff, and we always treated them very well. But they wouldn’t be allowed to sit in the front seat if we all went somewhere in the car, and they wouldn’t be allowed to enter the house through the front door – not even in my own house. I wasn’t even allowed to decide for myself who I invited through my front door, it was appalling.”

In her early 40s, Gill divorced her husband and moved with her children back to Zimbabwe (previously Rhodesia) – and then, after another three years, back to the UK. She found a place to live in Milton Keynes, near Bletchely. “It was dreadful, I couldn’t stand the place. It was just not a friendly place, the town, the people, the houses, it all filled me with dread. I would have taken the first plane back home if I could,” she says. She stayed in Milton Keynes for only four months, before moving to Hereford, where in the end she joined our team of carers at Kemble Care.

Now being the proud grandmother to five grandchildren, one of whom lives with her, she has not been back to Africa since she moved to the UK. Is there a chance she might go back? “One day, hopefully. I would love to visit my sister in Zimbabwe and go back for a holiday. I do miss it, Africa will always be my home.”

Peter King

Job Title: Managing Director

Joined: 2009

Description:

Sharon and Michael King established Kemble Care in 1993. They retired from day to day management in 2009 but continue to be involved with strategic issues that concern the business.
Peter King, their eldest son, has been Managing Director since July 2009. Previously an Army Officer with the Royal Engineers, he set up and ran his own business before coming to Kemble Care. He is a director of the UKHCA — our national homecare association — where he represents smaller providers of care.

Cathy Watkins

Job Title: Registered Manager

Joined: 2015

Description:

Joining us in 2015 to head up the recently formed Live-in Department, Cathy now overseas all of our care delivery. Rachel's chief competitor for the office's most physically fit member, her evenings are divided between exercise classes (including something called "tabata") and babysitting Roux and Winnie (dachshund's come children).

The role of a Registered Manager is to ensure that the service meets its legislative requirements, to lead staff, and to ensure the standard of care & support offered is not just safe & adequate, but outstanding.

If you have any questions or comments about our service then Cathy is a good port of call.