John King obituary

Other lives: Champion of the homeless whose work on mental health provision won a national award

My husband, John King, who has died aged 68 of a stroke, worked for Newcastle social services for 30 years, first with children and then leading a team of mental health social workers in the west end of the city.

By 1994 John had realised that homeless people frequently suffered from mental illness but rarely received useful treatment, because NHS systems require an address. Without that address, homeless people remained on the outside, treated at A&E but without joined-up care plans. He therefore based a mental health social worker at Hill Court in Pitt Street, where the old brewery flats intended for night-shift workers were being used to house homeless people.

Before long, Hill Court became a model of good practice. Housing officers were on duty 24 hours a day; a GP ran sessions there; a health visitor was on call; and the social worker was able to build up a mental health record, enabling a care plan to be implemented. The work at Hill Court won national recognition when, in 1997, the Sainsbury prize for Inter-agency Co-operation in Mental Health was awarded to Newcastle city council.

John was born in London, the son of Alfred, a miller, and Lily (nee Flack). Brought up in Wood Green, north London, he went to Glendale grammar school, which became Wood Green comprehensive, and trained as a social worker at Ipswich City College. His first job was as a social worker in Wolverhampton.

In 1975 he left for Nairobi to work for a children’s charity, the Child Welfare Society of Kenya. It was in Kenya that we met. We made a surprising pair: I was a prim teacher of English in a girls’ boarding school, while he was enjoying his hippy phase, sporting shoulder-length golden ringlets and riding everywhere on a motorbike in a cloud of dust., We married in 1977.

When John was 45 he was diagnosed with polycythaemia rubra vera, a rare blood disease, and told that he would live for 10 years. In fact, he lived for another 23, thanks partly to progress in treatment of the disease but also to his determination to keep fit by cycling to work and participating in the Great North Run.

After retirement in 2013 John continued to support services for vulnerable people by volunteering, first at the east end food bank and more recently at the People’s Kitchen, a support centre for homeless and disadvantaged people in Newcastle. Four days before his death he cycled to Tweed Street allotments as usual, to harvest the remaining vegetables for the People’s Kitchen. He delighted in the shared pleasure of gardening and the companionship of breaks in the allotment shed. He was an avid Guardian reader, proud to be thrice winner of its prize crossword.

He is survived by me, our sons, Aidan, Thomas and Barnabas, and a grandson, Finlay.

Sue King

The GuardianTramp

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