A DAUGHTER has spoken movingly of her mother’s death only weeks after being forced to move out of a March care home

“I totally believe if mum had stayed at Kingswood Park she would still be with us,” said Liz Wright of Wimblington.

“She’s been blind for several years but she didn’t have dementia or anything. She was a woman with a will of iron.”

‘Paddy’ (Patricia) Beale died this week aged 89, at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn.

“She was taken to hospital two weeks ago, generally her whole body was failing,” said Ms Wright. “I know she’d lost will to live. She didn’t want to eat or drink, she just didn’t have any desire to carry on”.

Ms Wright said: “My mother never got over the shock of leaving Kingswood Park.

“She told me and the staff that she wanted to die rather than leave. She did go to a new home but never settled.

“She missed the staff and the home as indeed I did. I cannot praise social services enough, they did all they could but when you get uprooted from your home and your friends, from your community and you are 89 and in frail health, then your feelings are very strong.

“It is absolutely wrong that this much needed home was closed, a tragedy that our local MP and councillors did not push more for it to stay and my only hope is that people will watch the space and ensure that a replacement home is built for the older person in an area where home places are in deficit.”

She added: “Whatever is done though you can never put back the strong, caring community and the happy place that was Kingswood.

Mrs Beale was born in Middlesex in 1922, arriving in Fenland some years ago to live firstly in Chatteris and then, following the death of her husband, with her daughter before moving to Kingswood Park in 2007.

Kingswood Park was built in 1966 as a Cambridgeshire County Council home but later sold to Hereward Housing, although the Methodist Housing Association has run it.

Hereward says its facilities are outdated. Critics argue it is only closing because of the cancellation of a contract from the county council.

The funeral of Mrs Beale is now being arranged.

Her daughter has asked the chaplain from Kingswood Park to conduct the service.