John Ho “didn’t grow up with much”, says his daughter Kasha Ho, 35, a freight forwarder from Ashford in Surrey. John’s father was a waiter and his mother a homemaker. He grew up in the Wah Fu estate, a public housing development in the Southern district of Hong Kong. The estate was close-knit and John remained friends with his neighbours all his life – but his aim was always to come to the UK and open a Chinese restaurant.
In 1984, John met UK-born Kay Wells in a nightclub in Hong Kong – he was the DJ and Kay requested a song. “Dad said she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen,” Kasha says. They married and moved to Sunbury-on-Thames in London; they had Kasha and her sister, Sophie, before divorcing amicably in 1997. “They were good friends until he passed away,” says Kasha. “Right before he died, we went for a meal with Mum, and Dad thanked her for raising his girls so well. They had a lot of respect for each other.”
After a decade of working in other people’s kitchens and saving relentlessly, John opened a restaurant on Commercial Road in east London in 2007. It was successful, but John fell out with his business partner, so they closed after a few years and he retrained as a black-cab driver. “He loved being a cabbie,” says Kasha. “He liked talking to people and hearing their stories.” Kasha spoke to him on the phone every day. “If I had any problems, I could always call him and he’d make me feel all right about stuff,” she says. “He always made me feel better. He gave good advice.”
John was fit. He was training for his third dan in karate. He often went on holiday with his girlfriend of 23 years, Cindy. He was a positive person. “I never heard him say anything bad about anyone,” Kasha says. “I’d complain and moan and Dad would tell me to stop.” He used to tell his daughters that, given the chance to go back in time, he would not change anything about his life, but do it all over, the same as before.
On 22 March, John started to feel unwell. He was admitted to the Whittington hospital in north London on 4 April, from where he rang Kasha and Sophie. “He was finding it hard to talk, but he told us not to worry, that Daddy would be OK,” Kasha says. At the hospital, John dragged his oxygen tank around with him, determined to stay mobile. On 17 April, doctors put him on a ventilator. In the early hours of 18 April, Kasha received a phone call: her father was going to die soon. She woke up Sophie and they ran to the car. “It was an hour and a half drive to the hospital,” she says. “It was the worst drive of my life.”
They got to the hospital and were taken to the intensive care unit. “People were all around, on ventilators, unconscious,” Kasha remembers. “They looked like they were about to die. Dad was unconscious. His chest was moving mechanically. I’d never even seen him ill before. Normally he was clean shaven, but he had a bit of a beard and his eyes were half open. It wasn’t nice to see.” Kasha and Sophie took a hand each. John was ice cold. They said their goodbyes. “We told him how much we loved him and how we would always think of him,” Kasha says.
John died shortly after the girls left. “We think he held out until me and my sister got there to see him,” Kasha says.
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