Take a trip down memory lane with us

John and Wendy Kneller decided to leave Ascot, Berkshire and move near to John’s childhood home of Bradford. They bought St Margaret’s residential care home, in Harrogate, in 1988. The home housed 25 residents and was the start of their 30 year journey in the industry. This was a new venture for them, as they had spent the previous year’s owning a wholesale business and supermarkets.

They understood that to offer the best product in care they needed to have first-hand knowledge and experience. Wendy immediately undertook training, whilst a temporary manager ran the nursing home.

In 1991 Wendy officially qualified as our registered manager for the Care home. Wendy has a passion for nursing and care. It has become her true vocation. She remains the registered manager for our Harrogate branch to this very day.

Over the course of the early 90’s we built up a strong reliable team of exceptional carers. We also built some very strong relationships with local GP’s who very often recommended many of their patients to St Margaret’s, when a nursing home became the best option for them.

Christmas’s in the care home were always fun. John, Wendy and Ross always spent Christmas morning together at St Margaret’s, with the residents, their families, and the incredible staff on duty. They would all dress up and John would play Santa Claus as they handed out presents to the residents.

When Ross was young, he used to come in and hand out gifts to residents, he would sit and draw with them and play games. On occasions such as Red Nose day we would all dress up and take residents, who wanted to be involved, out and collect money for charity.

Regular trips to the Valley Gardens and the Stray were the norm for all who wanted to do so. It can be hard work pushing wheelchairs, but the residents having some outdoor fun and having the ability to do everyday things was so rewarding. Wendy and John would also organise trips away to the seaside.

At times we would take residents to Harrogate Theatre and various shows, and we would even sing with them, until we were told to stop! Thankfully most of the time our voices were drowned out.

Late 90’s, after the recommendation of a local GP, we started to undertake homecare jobs in Harrogate. We had built up an exceptional team of carers and reputation. We therefore began to offer our exceptional care to those living in their own home.

In 2001, during Ross’s year out, Ross went through all of the required training to enable him to work as a carer in the Nursing Home, and also worked for the Homecare team.

Ross went to University in 2002 but continued to work, part-time, at the care home and on homecare runs. Many of the clients would request Ross, as they used to enjoy talking to Ross about sport, music and generally putting the world to rights.

We decided to sell the Care Home and focus solely on the Homecare side of the business. We had grown a strong passion for what Homecare did in enabling our clients to stay at home and continue to live the best life they could without the major disruption to their life of moving to somewhere strange and unknown.

Over the years we built the business up organically to ensure that we continued to offer the best care, from the best carers whilst also meeting the ever-growing demand for our services.

We decided to branch out of Harrogate district to provide care to other surrounding areas. One of our carers, Abby, was living and based in the Selby area. She identified that Selby and York were short in supply of excellent homecare. Abby took on the challenge of setting up our Selby office. She later brought in Sharon to look after the York side of things. Abby qualified to be our registered manager for York and Selby in 2019.

We tragically lost our Co-founder, John, after a short illness. The news devastated the entire St Margaret’s family, and he will forever be a massive part of what we are. Ross decided to get involved more with the business and help Wendy continue with the legacy she and John had built over the last 30 years. He had spent the last 15 years working overseas and domestically in the finance industry, after qualifying as a chartered accountant with KPMG.

After the tragic loss of John, and the unprecedented times of COVID, we took a step back to re-evaluate the business. We decided that our passion is as strong as ever and the legacy will continue indefinitely. We decided to re-brand the business and launch a new website and introduce Birdie, an app based care management system, to demonstrate our commitment to carry on providing exceptional care. In the background we have made some big changes to benefit our clients and staff, but rest assured there will be no changes in the quality of care and high standards that have set St Margaret’s apart from the rest for over 30 years.