Elderly get free tech for another year
Hundreds of elderly and vulnerable Kent residents will continue to benefit from a video device used to contact relatives for another year.
Kent County Council (KCC) will sign a 12-month extension for a “life-changing” digital support package for isolated and lonely adults from April. Around 1,100 tablets have been issued to disadvantaged older people and those with a learning disability. They can be used to book health consultations and contact friends and family.
The devices have been distributed across the county in the last eight months after a £1.5m contract was signed with care technology provider, Alcove. Cllr Ida Linfield (Lib Dem), who is a member of KCC’s adult social care committee, said: “I hope this can continue beyond April 2022. What is stopping them from being permanent?”
That you can read this newspaper today might be said to be the result of the work of one man - William Caxton. It was Caxton who brought the first printing press to England in 1476. The first book he published was Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
We can be proud that Caxton wasasonofKent-hesaidin a preface to his first book that he had been born in the Weald of Kent. But where? Annoyingly his exact place of birth is uncertain. Three places in Kent claim the honour: Tenterden, Hadlow and Sevenoaks Weald.
Hadlow has an ancient seat, Caustons Manor, which is known to have been owned by the Caxton family, and until 1936, when it was pulled down, locals would even point out to you the house where they say William Caxton was born. Tenterden on the other hand has court records of one Thomas Caxton and his wife Joan, who they claim are William’s parents. To cement their claim, Tenterden has named a pub there The William Caxton.
Sevenoaks Weald, however, also has an old house called the Long Barn, where they say William Caxton lived.