Brooke care home workers celebrate 70 years of service

Marian Hanner and Tracey Fairman have chalked up 70 years of service between them at Brooke House Care Home at Brooke, near Loddon.

However, there has been a poignant parting of the ways for the work friends as Mrs Hanner, 65 and a support worker, has chosen the start of summer to retire after 30 years.

Meanwhile her kitchen assistant friend has no intention of retiring after celebrating 40 years of service.

Mrs Hanner, who has worked at Brooke House as a kitchen assistant, cook and domestic as well as a support worker, was presented with retirement gifts from Kingsley Healthcare as well as colleagues at the home.

Tracey Fairman and Marian Hanner have clocked up 70 years of service at the care home Picture: Kingsley Healthcare (Image: Kingsley Healthcare)

In their early years at Brooke House, formerly the home of the Mackintosh chocolate makers family, the care home was run by a Miss Williamson and Miss Knight who also owned Scole Lodge in Scole near Diss, now also run by Kingsley and renamed Oaklands Care Home.

Mrs Hanner and Mrs Fairman, 57, recalled that in the early days they cooked on an Arga cooker and in those days there were big bedrooms with no en-suites housing three or four residents.

As regulations and people’s expectations changed, the owners retired and sold to new owners who could make the changes Brooke House needed.

Kingsley then took over 18 years ago.

Mrs Hanner, who never had Covid and worked throughout the outbreaks, has a passion for gardening and said retirement means she will be able to garden when she wants to.

She has many fond memories of Brooke House, including the sense of camaraderie when the Beast from the East descended at the end of February 2018, when staff were snowed in and carried on regardless.