Fond recollections of Howard House

It may have been the weekend for New Year celebrations, but readers of our edition of December 30 were clearly still paying attention.

A number contacted us following our appeal for information about the former nursing home, Howard House, in Fant.

Frank Ward knew of it in its latter years, when it was a KCC children’s home. He said: “I went to school at Westborough, and there were a number of pupils there who lived there.”

Margaret Bray has lived in Upper Fant Road for 24 years and Howard House was a KCC home when she moved in.

She said: “It was right at the bottom of our garden, but it was pulled down about 15 to 18 years ago to make way for the new homes in Poppy Close.”

Mrs Bray managed to find a neighbour who had a photograph of the rear.

Jill Hinde, of The Boatyard, Tovil, recalled her mother Winifred Thorogoode was a house mother at the home in the 1970s.

She said: “The senior house parents were a Mr and Mrs Banks. There was also a cook and a gardener employed there.

“As I recall, most of the children were runaways or came from broken homes.

“Later when I was at Mid Kent College, one of my students came from Howard House.

“The lad came from a big and troublesome family and he had profound learning difficulties.”

Valerie Gooding, from Friars Court, Queen Anne Road, Maidstone, was born in the nursing home on October 2, 1933.

Her parents, Denys Gooding and his wife Catherine (nee Hughes) lived in Farleigh Lane at the time.

Sadly Catherine died in 1942. Mr Gooding remarried to Edith Jenner from Staplehurst

Valerie Gooding said: “Howard House was still a nursing home when my half- sister Heather was born there on June 2, 1948.”

A second half sister had to be delivered by caesarian section and so was born in West Kent Hospital.

The family later moved to a bigger house in Curzon Road so they could also accommodate Mrs Gooding’s grandmother.

Noreen Wood, from Chatham, said: “I was also born there – on August 1, 1949.

“It was a private nursing home and I remember my mum continually saying how expensive it was to give birth to me there.

“But she always said she couldn’t fault the care at the home.

“My mum was disabled, although she refused to be called that.

“She was only 4ft 5in and had a bad hip, so she had a long and bad labour when she had me, but throughout the labour, the staff never left on her own.

“Howard House is on my birth certificate.”