A restaurateur and London cabbie, he relished his life and everything he had achieved
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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.”
