Activities at Sutton Valence Care Home

One of our favourite trips is to Headcorn Aerodrome, where we can often have our own Air Show. Coffee and Snacks are on board, the doors are flung open and we all enjoy the fresh air and just time out. For one of our residents, we had invited her to join us on several trips and today she said yes. “What a lovely trip, thank you so much for taking me”. That’s what life in our home is about, taking the time and listening to our lovely residents. We made lots of noises watching the planes going up and down and of course and are now all experts on their plane positions when landing. Fun was had by all.

There is nothing so nice as “simply messing about in boats” famous words from Kenneth Grahame describe our mini bus outing to the kingfisher trust boat at Wateringbury. The trip was quite nostalgic for one of our ladies as the boat trip we were on was actually started by her husband many years ago. After a trip on another boat they had explained how it had only catered for 60 people in a year of various, disabilities funds were raised and a new boat was put on the river to enable to benefit from this. Thank you to the captain of the Kingfisher and his enthusiastic team, together it has enabled the trust to invite approximately 2000 people a year.

Here at Barchester’s Sutton Valence care home in Maidstone, we held our Annual Beach Day. We took this opportunity to invite the Mayor of Maidstone, Derek Mortimer to open our event, meet the residents and plant a tree to support the Queens Jubilee Tree Canopy Appeal.

Our rooms were full of seashells, sand buckets and spades, old fashioned sweets, the smell of fish and chips, coconuts and penny machines, which all helped the residents to remember those fond family days. Our resident Adele made a lovely character board for our photo booth, which we had a lot of fun with.

In our home, we like to encourage community engagement where ever possible, during this event it was lovely to see so many guests and family members enjoy the day together.

For Ruth, Lil and Joan they were fascinated by the weight and age of the Mayors chain, which dated back to 1548. For Robert Dura May the General Manager it was a very wet day, when he was ambushed by wet sponges thrown by the Mayor. Our resident Peggy and the children said it was great fun and they look forward to our next open day.

Here in Sutton Valence Care Home, near Maidstone, we say Good Morning every day to someone who has lived over 106 years and was born during the First World War in 1915. Samuel is one of our residents that we have the privilege to care for. Over the last few weeks, we have been noting some of his life’s high lights. His life story is so very different to those that we live.  He lived in London when it was nothing like today. He lived in the Kings Cross area not far from Holloway Prison. Samuel remembers the family having a cat that helped to catch the rats, rather than a Pet.

At 14 and 2 days he left school and recalls looking for a job. Not like today, on the internet or a case of who you know. He marched down Fleet Street, London which would have been a hub of activity, as our Newspapers were printed there. He walked into the offices and asked “Do you have any jobs Mate?” Reuters did and he started as a Messenger Boy. So hard to believe that anyone would stay with a company for 50 years. I would imagine security was so important then. There would not have been any Social Services for emergency family support.

Like so many Samuel, went off to war and served his country in the Navy. He became a Wireless Operator on board the HMS Ramillies a Battle Ship.  This is a ship that Prince Philip had served on. Sam at 106 politely spells out the name of ship, so I do not make a mistake. War took him to Madagascar and the Battle of Bardia in the Cape. The ship took a hit by a Japanese Midget Submarine in 1942, luckily they had a huge hole in the boat but it just missed the ammunition lock up. The Battleship had to be towed into docks and go under 6 weeks of repairs. No holiday in those days everyone was put on other duties. Have a feeling this is when Sam started a courtship with his to be Algiers wife and a new chapter of his life which lead to 4 children, 11 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and 1 great great grandchild. The family said it was easy to lose count so everyone was know as “Oscar”

Once up and running the Ramillies Ship was back to war, supporting the DD bombardments.

So here at Sutton Valence the family is very happy to share this story and his great achievements. How proud are we to care for someone so precious to those he loves. In a couple of months Samuel will be 107, one of a kind.

Well done to our residents Peter and Brian who have been working all week together as the dream team to complete a beautiful 500 piece puzzle. Its been an absolute joy to watch them and there friendship blossom.

What a fantastic day our residents and there families have had celebrating our annual sports day at Sutton Valence.

We kicked off the day with residents competing in the Egg and Spoon race, Tin Can Alley and Darts with medals for each of the winners. Residents and families especially enjoyed playing Tin Can Alley and the Egg and Spoon race always goes down a treat.

We had a BBQ for lunch were families joined their loved ones in the garden, the atmosphere was amazing.

In the afternoon we had tug of War and the Sack race between staff members with Manager, Robert Dura-May, winning the Sack race.