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News & Sport
mojatu .com
So it’s lovely to have you Rose Thompson…
finally we’ve got to do this! So to start, can
you just tell me about yourself?
Well my name is Rose
Thompson. I was the first
person in my family to be
born in the UK. Like most
Caribbeans, my parents
came here to help with
the post war effort but
also to give their families
a better life financially. My
father came over in the
fifties, he was one of the first to come here and I was born
in 1956 (I celebrated my sixth decade last year!). I was
born one of twins (7 minutes before my sister), my oldest
sister getting to the UK aged just 15 months old, shortly
before we were arrived. Our family came to the country
whe n a lot of Caribbeans in Nottingham were living in St
Anns, so that was the first place we went to.
Upon arrival to the UK my father became a bus conductor.
My mother initially worked in a sewing factory and was an
expert seamstress - previously she had trained in Kingston
as a seamstress and set up a cooperative of six women
in the Clarendon. Jamaica where she lived. - she’d always
wanted to do that here. So once she’d started having
children, when people didn’t have the child care, she
decided to start sewing at home. My father would help
her to get the materials she needed and gradually word
spread of how good she was as her work was of couture
standard. She made most of the wedding and dresses
for Nottingham people. My aunts then came over to the
UK and two of them became nurses, some of the first
NHS nurses. The NHS was launched in 1948 so they were
struggling basically to deliver what they wanted to with a
lot of people having been killed and injured in the war, so
they made an appeal to the commonwealth. When they
came here they thought they would see the country like it
was in films. I remember people thinking that the housing
was factories, being surprised that toilets were outdoors
and bathing facilities were the kitchen sink.
I realised the difficulties those nurses had in actually
progressing in the UK. My aunt Jean Fairman’s name is on
a plaque in the main corridors of city hospital for passing
her nursing exam to a high standard. There were barriers
at that time regarding career progression - initially
Caribbean nurses could only progress as far as State
Enrolled as opposed to State Registered nurses. In the
end both my aunt Jean and my aunt Olga moved from
this country to progress because they were not really able
to progress in the way that they wanted to.
My twin sis Maureen with Prime Minister of Jamaica when
he visited Robin Hood Chase in St Ann’s to see how the
Jamaicans who came to UK were getting on. Wanted to
pick me up, but I was too shy to go to him.
That’s my kind of history, but i didn’t want to be a nurse. I
had aspired to be a doctor. So it all changed at secondary
school, - you had to take an exam to pass your 11 plus.
If you passed it you went to a grammar school and of
you didn’t you went to a comprehensive school. My
twin sister had spent her days riding on bikes with the
boys and climbing trees, so i passed and she didn’t and
that was devastating. For us it would be the first time
we’d been separated. Some are trying to reintroduce
grammar schools but I believe we all ought to have equal
opportunities because i saw the impact of me going to
a grammar school and her going to a comprehensive
school on even just the kinds of jobs you could get,
the exams you were allowed to take and your earning
power afterwards. So i think everybody should have the
opportunity because I think we have some very bright
people who may not have the opportunities.
I was interested in a career in health but was put off
being a nurse having witnessed the challenges my aunts
aunts faced in career progression. It was whilst I was at
grammar school (there was no careers support service
at that time) that I picked up a leaflet on occupational
therapy, radiography and physiotherapy.
After, I decided that I wanted to be a doctor but seven
years was a long time to do training and you know, we