Popular piano teacher and horticulturist dies aged 87

A piano teacher who taught hundreds of people to play has died aged 87.

Joan Hosking, of Westwell Lane, Charing, died at Ashminster House care home in Hythe Road, Ashford, on Sunday following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

She met her husband John when she was studying horticulture at Wye College from 1948 to 1951. They married in 1953.

Mr Hosking said: “Joan taught herself how to play the piano and it meant teaching others just came naturally to her.

“She didn’t think she was a good player herself and didn’t enjoy performing in front of other people, but she was a very good teacher.

“Her way of teaching was widely admired and t hey weren’t j ust any ordinary pianos – she taught on baby grands.”

Mrs Hosking completed an apprenticeship at a nursery in Guernsey before joining Wye College, where she won the Franklin Award for best student and got a degree. She went on to work as a plant science research student under Prof Louis Wain at Wye.

Mr and Mrs Hosking lived at Pett Place, near Charing, where she supervised the commercial glasshouses and gardens until the first of her two sons was born in 1957.

When they moved to nearby Pett House in 1969, she created a new one-acre garden and started studying piano playing.

Mr Hosking said: “Hundreds of young and adult pupils benefited from her inspired teaching on the Blüthner and Broadwood pianos at Pett House, while the garden outside continued to benefit from her green fingers. She taught the piano until about 2010, but as she became unwell in recent years, she had to give it up.”

Mrs Hosking’s funeral, which will be for family only, is yet to be arranged, but a commemoration will be arranged at a later date for all to attend.

Joan Hosking of Charing who taught hundreds of people to play the piano