“We were paying their rents to make sure they wouldn’t be evicted”

What Steven asked Penny Keevil, founder of Second Chance Medway, and (checks notes) his mum.

For his 50th Local Authority interview, Steven sat down in Cafenetics with his mum, Penny Keevil, and spoke to her about growing up on the Isle of Grain, why she set up a local crisis support charity and when is she going to retire.

As usual, our Sunday interviews are paywalled about halfway. There’s a lot to get stuck into for free readers, but if you want to keep going and support our work, please consider upgrading your subscription.

---

Penny Keevil. Photo by Caitlin Webb

Where were you born?
I was born on the Isle of Grain.

Were your parents from the Isle of Grain?
My parents were from Gillingham. They moved out to Grain on the day I was born.

What was childhood like on the Isle of Grain?
Being one of seven, it was pretty lean, with homemade toys and hand-me-down clothes. My mother was a brilliant dressmaker so she could go to all the jumble sales, pick up any piece of clothing and within a day or two, me or one of my sisters had a new dress. There was always plenty to do because it was in the days when you went out first thing in the morning with a jam sandwich and a bottle of water and you came back in when the lights came on and your parents knew you were safe. We used to go down the fort, down the beach, all over the place, over the fields, all sorts of games and never get into trouble and never be at risk. That's gone. That's completely gone in any area, in any community. Though my childhood was pretty lean in potential possessions, it was fun. We had a good time climbing trees and scuffing our knees.

Would you have any occasion to visit the other villages on the peninsula?
As kids, we often would walk from Grain to Allhallows along the road. We'd go in small groups. Or we'd go to Stoke, or we'd walk along the beach. We would often walk to the other villages in little groups for no particular reason other than ‘Lets go to Stoke.’ Can't do that anymore. Can't walk that amount of different distance on the road unaccompanied. Far too dangerous.

What jobs did your parents do growing up?
My father worked at the Metal Box, which made the tins and the packaging for baked beans and corned beef and all sorts of things like that. My mum was a dressmaker and cleaner.

Where was the Metal Box?
Metal Box was in Strood in Knight Road when there were loads of businesses along there where everybody worked. My father worked at BP at the Isle of Grain for many years. Then when he was made redundant from it, he went to Metal Box. If you didn't work at BP, the power station, or the dockyard, then you worked in that complex.

How did you find school?
I loved school, did well, passed my 11-plus, went to Rochester Grammar School but due to family issues didn't take any formal qualifications until later in life when I went to MidKent College.

What was your first full-time job?
My first full-time job was at Morgan's Timber Yard in Strood, where I was an admin assistant and ended up as an office manager assistant.

What led you to go back to MidKent College as an adult learner?
I went back as my youngest went off to university. I didn't want the empty-nest syndrome, I wanted to do something. I'd always wanted to go to college to see what I would have been able to do had I had the opportunity when I was 15, 16. It was a rarity for anybody to leave grammar school at that age and a rarity to leave at that age with no qualifications. My headmistress offered me a grant to enable me to stay on at school, do my qualifications and go on to college and or university. But to have a grant to finish your education was unheard of at that time unless you were at the upper end of going to university. It was definitely not something somebody with my family background did. Starting work knowing that I owed lots of money to somebody wasn't something I could get my head around and not something my parents wanted me to do.
When I left school, my head of year happened to be going out with the office manager at a local company, she had a word with him, and he took me under his wing, he gave me a job and took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew. How to run an office, bookkeeping, admin. Sent me to MidKent College to do typing and all that sort of thing. I was very pleased with myself because three years later I came out with a HND with distinctions in Computer Science.

What is your official occupation?
I'm the founder of a local charity, Second Chance Medway.

What additional roles, paid or unpaid, do you do?
I'm also Managing Director of a letting agents, although I have a general manager that runs the day-to-day of that. I just stick my nose in when it's not wanted.

What does your average day entail?
Today I got into work at seven o'clock. I try not to get into work at seven o'clock too often as it makes for an exceedingly long day. Got in, did my emails, answer everybody that needs answering straight away, put those on the back burner that can wait. Do any immediate admin jobs that need doing. Look at the finances, check the bank accounts. Pay any bills that need paying. Chase any payments that need chasing. Discuss with staff what they're doing, what they need to do, what order they need to do it in. Generally assist in running of the shop. Just help with the day-to-day running of things, answering queries, steering them in the right direction, discussing with outside organisations and trustees and anything that needs working on.

What led to the creation of the Second Child Charity?
I went to work at Medway Council in the Housing Department, and I worked there off and on. I worked there as a permanent temp for quite a while, and I learned a lot. I did a lot of courses in housing. One of the things I learnt about housing was there were too many people in temporary accommodation and the council could never get enough agents or landlords on board. Then I got together with a couple of colleagues from Medway Council and in our wisdom, we decided to set up an estate agency, MRS Lettings. I always wanted to house those who couldn't get a house anywhere else and help those people who struggled to get family homes. There were two of us and then after two or three more years myself and the last director had a parting of the ways and then I stayed with MRS Lettings. I was the one that kept MRS Lettings and I kept that going for a little bit longer. Then I realised that I couldn't do it all on my own. It was costing us an awful lot to secure people's housing because we were paying their rents to make sure they wouldn’t be evicted. We would work with them, to hopefully teach them the right way of running a tenancy but it was costing a lot of money.
Through research and one thing or another I decided that perhaps it would be better to open a charity and get funding for homelessness so that we could help these tenants that were struggling, which is what I did. In 2015 we started the charity, and it was a crisis support charity. Any crisis, people could come to us for help. Because of my background, my own personal circumstances, I either knew somebody that had been through it, or I'd been through it. And I took on further training in different aspects of what I needed to do. Anybody can walk through our front door with a crisis, be it financial, be it domestic violence, be it mental health, be it housing, and say, ‘I need help’, and normally somebody or I will sit down with them, find out the whole backstory, and then work out the best route for them. It's either through an outside organisation, referring them onwards, or helping them ourselves. We help everybody in all matters of things. Homelessness was one of the first things we did, which was on the back of running the letting agency.
Then in 2018, we were offered a food bank. I said, ‘No, I didn't want a food bank’ because there's enough food banks out there. I want to be able to give people a plate from the food, a dinner, a meat and three veg. With some further research and one thing another, we got alongside Fairshare, who agreed to serve us, and we got our stock from there, and we created a community supermarket. We have helped in excess of 5,000 people through the crisis support and we are feeding or have fed over 6,500 people, and both are still growing.

What are the biggest challenges in running a local charity?