Long-serving foster carer passes away

CAROL WAS ‘A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF POSITIVE DIFFERENCE’

A DEVOTED foster mum, who stepped in to care for vulnerable babies and children for more than 40 years, has passed away suddenly.

Carol Cock was a record-breaking carer of children in the borough, fostering 219 children between 1968 and 2012, as well having three of her own.

Along with her husband, Stuart, she dedicated her life to supporting children that had no one to care for them.

She passed away suddenly but peacefully, aged 77, at home in Marsh, Huddersfield, on February 21. Her funeral will be held at Huddersfield Crematorium at 10.30am on Thursday, March 12.

Stuart said Carol would be remembered as someone who was “always happy” and “had a smile for everybody”.

The couple met in 1960 and were married at Golcar Church in 1962 when Carol was 19-years-old and Stuart 21.

He said: “I worked for a building contractor in Golcar and we started doing some maintenance work at the place where Carol worked.

“We started going out on Sundays after church. 12 months later we were engaged and we were married 12 months after that.”

Carol and Stuart, a retired quarry manager, first decided to foster when their second child was just 18-months-old.

Carol, whose family moved from Hartlepool to Golcar, said she had grown up in abject poverty and wanted to prevent as many children as possible from having to do the same.

They began fostering in 1968, which in those days meant taking ten-day-old babies from the Church of England, who handled fostering at the time, and looking after them for six weeks until they could be adopted.

They then worked with Kirklees Council for four decades, announcing their retirement in 2012, but then coming out of retirement only a few days later to take on another baby boy.

That child, who was eventually taken in by his grandmother, was their 219th and last before they finally started to enjoy their retirement for a few years, most of all going on cruises.

Following the story in the Examiner at the time, the couple’s staggering achievement saw them invited to feature on ITV daytime show, This Morning.

Speaking to the Examiner at the time, Carol explained her love of fostering.

She said: “Because I was the eldest of five children and as there was seven years between me and the next oldest, it was up to me to look after the younger ones.

“When all the other girls my age were beginning to get interested in boys I could be found pushing next door’s baby around the park. I wanted any children I had to have the best of everything and never have to go through childhood like I did – with nothing.

“After our second we thought we couldn’t afford to bring up anymore children, so we started fostering because we thought we would get a bit of help.

“At that time it was fairly straightforward to get registered, and as I had two years’ nursing experience it wasn’t long before we got our first child.

“It was a little boy, six-days-old, whose teenage mum was told by her parents that she had to give up the baby for adoption or leave the family home. There was no help nor benefits for a single mum in 1968 and if they had no support from the family then the baby had to go.

“We loved and cared for that little boy for seven weeks before the social worker brought his new parents to visit him and take him home there and then.

“I was absolutely heartbroken and said I couldn’t go through that again but Stuart reminded me of how beautiful he had looked when he went and how proud his new parents were, and if we could do that for one child how many more could we give such a good start to.

“I decided we would have one more just to see how it went.

“In 1970 we became so attached to a poorly little premature baby who went for adoption and missed him so much that we decided to have a break and we had another little girl of our own.

“However, as soon as our little girl got to the toddler stage we began looking at newborn babies in their prams again and decided we had rested long enough.”

Carol and Stuart went on foster for the rest of their working lives and beyond, and provided life-long care for one girl, who lived with them until only a year ago.

They have cared for premature babies, babies with Down’s Syndrome and others with very complex needs, including a two-year stint with one little girl with cerebral palsy who was blind, on an oxygen tube and a heart monitor.

The devoted mum of Sharon, Sarah and Adrian and grandmother to six been passed down her love of children to her daughters, who both work with babies and tots.

Sharon, their eldest, did some fostering and now works as a nanny while Sarah has become a paediatric physio working with babies.

Tom Brailsford, Kirklees Council’s Service Director for Resources, Improvement and Partnerships, said: “Carol was a perfect example of the positive difference a carer can make. Our thoughts are with Carol’s family and friends, and with our community of foster carers who will remember her fondly.”

Anybody who knew Carol is welcome to attend the funeral. Attendees are asked to wear something bright.