12th May is International Nurses Day. This is something we should celebrate every year but this year, with the corona virus making its malign presence felt across the globe, it feels especially significant. The current pandemic has shown that a disease like covid-19 respects no borders and impacts all ethnicities (although there is emerging evidence that it impacts some more than others, black men, for instance, are far more likely to die of covid-19 than their white counterparts). The shocking death toll among our nurses, doctors and carers illustrates in stark fashion that NHS workers literally put their own lives on the line to care for their patients. We owe them all a debt of gratitude.
What the roll call of NHS staff who have lost their lives has shown is the extent to which the NHS still owes its very existence to staff who were born or whose origins were outside the UK. Currently 21% of staff in front line roles in the NHS are from ethnic minorities although they represent only 14% of the overall population.
We have featured a number of black nurses on this site and will continue to do so in the future. Without people like Edna Chavannes (pictured on the left, below) http://historycalroots.com/edna-chavannes-a-black-nurse-in-the-nhs-1951-to-1996 and Daphne Steele http://historycalroots.com/archives/1229 the NHS we know today simply would not exist.
While we were at the unveiling of the plaque honouring Daphne we were introduced to the story of Stella Benjamin and her friend Joyce Pollydore who came to England in 1946 as trainee nurses.
Stella’s story is here http://www.britishfuture.org/articles/mothers-nhs-story-1946-now/?fbclid=IwAR2LHquCo3Wf_aqKTCNDfP9cM327RbMMNfeMpHf8hBuk_VSY1Os0QCxaCu8
Of course there were many more black nurses in the UK before the NHS existed. Mary Seacole is the best known but there were others and the historian, Stephen Bourne has done work identifying some of them, people like Annie Brewster who worked at the London Hospital in Whitechapel from 1881 until her death in 1902.
In 2019 Stephen identified her final resting place in the City of London cemetery in Newham https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/south-london-memories-caribbean-nurse-annie-brewster/.
So, on this International Nurses Day, we bring you the story of four more nurses who came from the Caribbean and devoted years of service to the NHS.
All of these nurses were born in the colony of British Guiana (now the proudly independent nation of Guyana), it would be equally possible to write about nurses from Barbados, Jamaica, Nigeria or many other countries in the world. The reason we focus on Guyana is simply that we have contacts in the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Allied Professions (AGNAP) and when they got wind of our intention to write this article people came forward, eager to share their experiences. Throughout its existence the NHS has relied on nurses from across the globe and these few stories must stand as a proxy for all the other equally deserving but as yet untold histories.
Alift Allman was born in 1934. She went to the top girls’ school in Georgetown but, when the time came to leave, she realised that there were only two career options open to her, nursing or teaching. She had several cousins who were nurses and decided to follow that path. She trained in Guiana for three years and then did an additional year in midwifery. She then worked in the Georgetown Public Hospital and the separate TB clinic before the UK Government came calling with what Alift described as “an aggressive recruitment campaign, handing out literature and employing agents to scour the country for recruits.”
After nine years in the profession she left for England where, in spite of being an experienced nurse and midwife, she was obliged to retrain for a year in nursing at Harold Wood hospital in Essex and then a year in midwifery in Manchester. The Manchester area is where she chose to settle.
Alift worked in nursing for a total of an astonishing 59 years, only ‘retiring’ in 2016. In addition to many years in NHS hospitals she worked in private hospitals, in company environments in the field of occupational health (for companies such as ICI, Rank Hovis McDougall and Gallaghers) and in nursing homes. She also went to prison … working as a midwife at HMP Styal!
She made her home in Macclesfield and says they were the first black family to move there. She experienced many examples of racism and bigotry both in the community and in the working environment. As just one, early, example, she was first in her nursing exams in Essex but was asked not to accept the award as she “was not the preferred person.” She agreed to step aside. Inevitably the “preferred person” was white. Alift has come to realise that the term ‘equal opportunities’ is a hollow one, “there is always a reason not to give a job to a black person.”
Alift has contributed to her community in so many ways, as a voluntary worker, as a school governor (for 25 years), and as an elected councillor (she was first elected in 2001 and has been Mayor of Macclesfield twice). She is still on the council at the age of 86 and, perhaps inevitably, is currently the only non-white member.
Alift was awarded the MBE in 2016 for services to the community In Macclesfield.
Joycelyn (Joy) Abrams was born in the Kingston area of Georgetown. From the local primary school she transferred at twelve to the Tutorial High School. Her family always encouraged her to be caring and compassionate and so, although her father would have liked her to be a doctor, she chose nursing as a career. The uniform looked smart too!
She trained for two and a half years at Georgetown hospital. Unfortunately a crisis in her personal life meant that she didn’t complete the course. The British Government offered a way out as they were recruiting nurses for the NHS at the time and so Joy jumped at the chance to work in England, arriving in February 1965.
She started her training in June at Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport and was faced with having to do the full three year course as she hadn’t completed the course in Guiana. Joy felt that “Stockport wasn’t ready for black people” and she recalls patients telling her to “get your dirty black hands off me.”
It wasn’t just the patients who were prejudiced. Her tutor couldn’t believe how well Joy was doing in her exams and asked the two (white) girls she shared a room with to spy on her. Aware of what was going on, Joy waited until the other girls were asleep and went to study in the toilet. The tutor was even more puzzled by reports from her spies that no, Joy didn’t spend any time studying! In spite of 2 a.m. study sessions in the toilets (or maybe because of them) Joy won two first prizes (one jointly with a white nurse) at the end of the course. At the presentations event the hospital refused to call her up twice “because the Mayor would be there” and so she was only called up to receive the joint prize. She was so incensed that she never cashed in the prize, a book token, and still has it to this day.
While many nurses I have spoken to chose to go into midwifery, Joy instead did a post-graduate course in casualty (what we would now call A&E). This must be one of the most challenging roles a nurse can do and, starting out as a Junior Staff Nurse, she soon became a Senior Staff Nurse and then Sister.
Like many Guyanese nurses, Joy returned to support the, now independent, country of her birth, working in the A&E department of Georgetown hospital for two years.
Back in the UK, Joy moved south and worked in Sutton for many years both within the NHS and in the private sector. She worked for a time for the local authority and also in private nursing homes as a Sister. She worked in industry and was a nursing Sister for a company called Bailey Meters (among others) in Croydon. She also did a course in psychiatric nursing at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Welwyn Garden City, putting her qualification to good use on the psychiatric ward of St Helier hospital in Sutton – another very challenging role!
Since she retired in 2003, Joy has continued to work in her community, particularly with the elderly, something that reflects the values instilled in her by her parents back home. Joy’s husband, who was listening to our call in the background, volunteered that Joy is “a very caring person, always thinking of others.”
Although she experienced much prejudice, Joy was keen to stress when we spoke that she met many wonderful people. “I enjoyed my nursing a lot, if I had my life over again I would do the same.”
Maria Walker was born in Georgetown, British Guiana in 1944. She first came to the UK in 1960. She remembers her departure vividly “six of my classmates rode their bicycles twenty five miles to the airport to bid me farewell. My dear father, aunts and other friends were among the airport party.”
Maria completed her education at the Mary Datchelor Girls’ Grammar School in Camberwell, London, and, when she left, decided on a career in nursing. Maria started at Lambeth hospital which has since amalgamated with St Thomas’ but she wanted to move away from London and selected Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow for her midwifery training. In spite of the unfamiliar accent Maria enjoyed her time in Scotland, soon learning phrases such as ‘wee hen’(meaning ‘a small woman’).
“Delivering babies in the Gorbals was a life experience as home deliveries were the norm then. After delivery, dad would spend his last shilling to buy a packet of biscuits in appreciation of the hours spent in the safe delivery of his child. I appreciated the effort of the Glasgow City Council for the management of the safety for all staff during the night duty calls to deliver babies.”
Later on, Maria made a visit to Aberdeen arranged by the British Council. She fell in love with the area despite it having a very chilly climate and decided to return to pursue the Health Visitor’s course there. She was placed at Bucksburn, a charming place on the outskirts of the city.
After this Maria continued her tour of the Scottish Highlands by going to Braemar to understudy a Health Visitor and gain experience of the triple duties the role involved. In remote areas such as this the Health Visitor had to combine the role of nurse (including school nurse), midwife and health visitor.
In 1972 Maria returned to the newly independent country of Guyana in response to a Government request: “I felt that I had by now given service to the UK and should repay a debt to the country of my birth by working in the delivery of health services there. However within seven months, wedding bells rang.”
Maria returned to the UK in 1976. to pursue further studies and once again worked for the NHS. Her husband and sons followed later.
Maria next worked for Hackney, then Greenwich Health Authority and for Bromley as a community practice teacher in Health Visiting until she retired in 2004.
Since retirement Maria has continued to work actively in organisations such as AGNAP and The Pineapple Club which is aimed primarily but not exclusively at the retired African Caribbean community. Maria is one of the original founders of this South London club. This long running club is highly regarded, providing a relaxed fun environment for those who use it, reducing isolation and loneliness and enabling the formation of new friendships. The club organises travel abroad for the less abled.
More recently, Maria has co-authored a book about her late father and his two brothers who served as solders in World War One. It is entitled “The Walker Brothers and Their Legacy ” (you can buy a copy through this site or on Amazon). She comments that “one of the things I have learnt from English culture is the preservation of items handed down. My father’s and uncles’ medals and commendations from King George V were carefully preserved by the elders of my family and these were of immense help in writing my book.”
Lynette Richards was born in Georgetown in 1938. She excelled at school and as she was preparing to leave the Tutorial High School her head teacher suggested three career options to her, nursing, teaching or the civil service. Lynette said that she wanted to do nursing in Guyana but the waiting list was long and so she decided to work as a civil servant and obtained a post with the Ministry of Health at the Georgetown Hospital as a secretary to the Radiographer.
But her ambition to go into nursing remained strong and an opportunity soon came up. The British Government advertised in the Caribbean for nurses to train and work in the fledgling National Health Service. Recruits would be paid during their training but would have to pay their own fare to ‘the Mother Country’, £100, over £2,000 at today’s prices. Lynette saved hard and in 1959 she and her half-sister boarded a ship bound for Plymouth, England.
Lynette didn’t intend to stay in England permanently, “my main aim was to become a midwife, my father’s dream. I wanted to qualify as a nurse-midwife and return home after five years.”
Lynette completed her initial training in Taunton in 1962 (she was awarded the prize for the best practical nurse of the year) and then went to Cheltenham and to Birmingham to train as a midwife in the hospital and the community. “On successfully completing my formal training I returned home to Guyana to see my parents and if possible to work there. There were some political problems at the time and my father advised me to return to the UK and come back later.”
But the best laid plans don’t always come to fruition and “on my return, I got married and my daughter was born the following year.” Lynette remained in England and enjoyed a successful career in the NHS.
She progressed quickly, working as a district midwife; training as a clinical teacher to student midwives in the community, and as a Nursing Officer responsible for all antenatal and gynaecology services and staff at the Greenwich District Hospital. She went on to work as the Senior Nursing Officer, in charge of three hospitals, the Weir, the South London Hospital for Women, and the St George’s maternity unit.
Not long after this she was asked to apply for the post of Divisional Nursing officer, the top Midwifery post in the Wandsworth Health Authority. She got the job. She then became the adviser on midwifery services to the health authority and supervisor of all midwives working in Wandsworth in 1979.
Later Lynette was also appointed as a director for Maternity Alliance, UK, an organisation which advised the UK government’s select committee on midwifery services and care. In 1989 she became chairman for the association of supervisors of midwives for the south-east region of the UK. She was also the first nurse-midwife to be appointed to the role of general manager responsible for medical, nursing, clerical and technical staff. In so doing, she was able to introduce effective care for all general, midwifery and all children services.
After a successful career, Lynette took early retirement in 1992 but has continued to serve the community in many different ways. She was one of the founder members and chairman of the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Allied Professionals (AGNAP) that was formed in the UK in 1989. For over thirty years the Association has done much to improve the provision of healthcare services in Guyana.
In 1999 the Department of Health appointed her to represent the UK as a member of a committee of experts on adoption and healthcare services in Strasburg. Almost simultaneously she was appointed as Director for the Commonwealth Society for the Deaf (now Soundseekers).
Lynette is still very active in a wide range of initiatives and, even in her eighties, continues to provide inspirational leadership to her community in the UK and Guyana.
The contribution these ladies have made is quite literally incalculable. Speaking to them has been a humbling experience. And, the thing is, their stories are not even the tip of the iceberg, they are not even the tip of the tip, there are thousands more waiting to be told.
Finally, we know we aren’t the only people interested in this subject. If you have the time do please take a look at the work of the Young Historians Project https://www.younghistoriansproject.org/african-women-and-the-health-servic.