Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu

Presenter0:01

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is Professor Dame Elizabeth Neka Anionwu. An Emeritus Professor of Nursing and Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, she spent 40 years in the profession and has been named one of the most influential nurses in the history of the NHS. Her career was distinguished by her pioneering work in the understanding of sickle cell disease, bringing better treatment and support to the thousands living with it. She was the first sickle cell specialist nurse in the UK.

Presenter1:13

Her decades of dedication, care and service are a contrast to her own disrupted and difficult childhood as a mixed-race child born out of wedlock in the 1940s, though it was the kindness of a nurse when she was just five that sparked a nascent interest in what would become her life's work. She left her day job behind in 2007, but as she puts it, it has not turned out to be a quiet retirement. As well as receiving her damehood, she spent nine years fundraising and campaigning for a statue to British Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole. Unveiled in 2016 in the grounds of St Thomas's Hospital, the statue is the first representing a named black woman in the UK. She says, despite its rocky start, my life has been extremely fulfilling. Most importantly, it has been a vindication of all that my mother had to endure.

Presenter2:04

Elizabeth Anionwu, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much, Lauren.

Presenter2:09

Thank you for being here. Now, like many who will be listening today, you're self-isolating because of your asthma. How have you been getting on?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:16

Actually got used to it now. Initially, the first few days were quite scary, I have to be um honest, but I've got into a sort of pattern and I've got a balcony.

Presenter2:22

Continue.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:25

And there are communal gardens that virtually nobody uses, which I'm delighted at.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:31

So that I can do an hour's walk out there and listen to my music.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:38

Yes, we're going to get to that. And friends and relatives, they're all in contact.

Presenter2:38

Assa. Yeah.

Speaker 12:39

To that

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:43

I have a twelve-year-old granddaughter who is FaceTiming like nothing on earth.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:50

Ah, and I think it has helped me avoid

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:53

sinking into any sort of depression?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:56

with what is going on.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu2:58

human contact is really valued now.

Presenter3:01

I wonder what you've made of the Thursday night clap for carers.

Presenter3:05

Uh

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:05

I think it's it's showing people solidarity, but I have to say I do agree with people that um

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:12

We hope that NHS staff are really being valued now and they need to continue with that in more ways than one, shall I say.

Presenter3:21

Speaking of NHS staff, obviously we know that among the NHS staff who've tragically lost their lives during the pandemic, a disproportionate number, perhaps as many as 60%, have been of black and minority ethnic heritage. Now, we know the NHS are planning to tackle this, but as someone who's spent their whole professional life in healthcare, what are your thoughts about that?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:42

Well, all the deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic here in the UK are absolutely tragic.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:50

But as a black nurse I am so scared for my colleagues.

Presenter3:54

What would you like?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:54

Like to see

Presenter3:55

happen, what needs to change?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:57

Uh

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu3:59

Oh all stuff in the NHS need to be listened to.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:01

But there's been a history of black and minority ethnic health professionals not really being valued as much as they should be.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:11

for so many to have given their lives

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:14

to this. And close to me are so many colleagues from black and minority ethnic backgrounds and I just

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:25

want them to be listened to.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:28

and paid more and valued.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:31

as all NHS stuff should be.

Presenter4:35

We're going to come back to your experiences working in the Health Service later, of course, but for now we're going to turn to your list of tracks. Let's hear the first disc, Elizabeth. What's it going to be and why have you chosen this one?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:46

Emmy Wadge singing Faith Song.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:50

And I see it as my love song to NHS professionals.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu4:56

It's very poignant, and I think if people listen to the words.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu5:01

They will understand the relevance at this critical moment in our country.

Speaker 45:07

Give you all that you need

Speaker 45:13

You cut but I'm bleeding

Speaker 45:19

All of my strength

Speaker 45:22

For I give to you.

Speaker 45:28

I love completely

Speaker 45:33

You lose, then you leave me

Speaker 15:33

You will who

Presenter5:39

All of my hope

Presenter5:42

Amy Wadge with Faith Song. Elizabeth Annie Onwu, let's go back a bit. You were born in 1947. Your mother was a promising student who had won a scholarship to Cambridge, and it was there that she met your father. He was a fellow student from Nigeria. What happened?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu5:59

Well, I happen, Dorham.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu6:01

I was the outcome of their short affair, and it was a huge shock for my mother. She came from a deeply religious Catholic family.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu6:15

And it was my maternal grandmother that realized that she was pregnant during a trip back home to Stafford.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu6:22

And all my mother would say was that the father of the baby was a fellow student.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu6:28

Nothing else. And so when my grandparents came to visit my mother,

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu6:33

and me at the mother and baby home run by the Irish nuns. Before they let them into the room the the the nun turned round to them and said, Ah, to be sure, the baby's a little dark.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu6:46

So this was obviously the first realization that the father of the baby wasn't white, as they would have assumed. So I can only imagine the waves of shocks that everybody went through, including obviously my mother.

Presenter6:52

So

Presenter6:58

What's your sense of what she would have been facing?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:02

I think the the first thing would be absolutely

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:07

Um shame and stigma.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:10

and letting people down because

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:13

There must have been such joy when she got that scholarship. She was the first one to go to university, and to go to such a prestigious university, and study classics, you know and she was doing brilliantly apparently at the university.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:26

So

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:27

It's my mother I often think of what what the fear that she must have had in revealing the news.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:34

But she chose not to go back to university and many years later she told me it was because she didn't feel that she could have the academic career that she wanted.

Presenter7:44

Uh

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:44

as a single mother.

Presenter7:46

Uh

Presenter7:47

She didn't want to give you up. She decided it was best for you to be brought up by the nuns, but was determined that you weren't to be adopted. To what extent were you aware of that, the idea that she intended to come back for you?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu7:58

I always grew up knowing that my mother wanted to make a home for me. I don't remember when she first articulated that to me.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu8:07

But I never ever had any sense of rejection from my mother.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu8:12

Even though I spent nine years in the children's home, she visited me regularly.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu8:16

So I never had a sense of rejection and I'm sh I know that that's helped me enormously through my life.

Presenter8:23

Uh

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu8:24

It's time.

Presenter8:24

Time to go to the music. Your second disc to day, Elizabeth. What's it going to be?

Presenter8:28

It's the Reich

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu8:28

of Mallow, good old Irish dance tune.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu8:32

And I did Irish dancing in the children's home up until the age of nine. I absolutely adored Irish dancing. Were you any good? I wasn't bad at all, Lauren. I used to get medals and dressing up. You know, we had our green outfit and lovely buckled shoes. We'd tap dancing. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Speaker 48:52

So

Presenter9:26

Gallow Glass Cayley Band with the Rakes of Mallow. So Elizabeth Annie Onbooth, tell me a little bit more about your experience of growing up in care as a little girl. You were moved from the first care home you lived in when you were only three, I think. What do you remember about the little girl that you were then?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu9:42

I think I've had my sense of humour from an early age.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu9:46

I seemed to get on well with people, but I also could get quite annoyed at what I would see as an injustices and poor care. I mean overall I was happy, but there were some incidents which are still seared in my brain, I have to be honest. One was because I was a bed wetter.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu10:07

They would drape over the urine soaked sheets over our bodies

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu10:10

and we'd have to put our arms up under the sheet.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu10:14

And the punishment was that we had to keep our arms stretched out. Well, of course you can't do that for very long. And if your arm dropped, there was a nun on the other side of the sheet with a ruler or something, and just whack you.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu10:24

And I just thought that is so cruel. And there were just a few that were pretty tough characters. Others were much kinder. I was taught to play the piano, just a few of us. And if we'd done our exercises okay, we'd be taken into Birmingham City Centre and have Knickerbocker glories. And you can imagine a few little kids sitting on these high stools, digging down for the last drop. You know, I've got wonderful memories of that, for example. Yes.

Presenter10:56

And what about the other kids that you were living with? Were there many other children of colour at the home?

Presenter11:01

Yeah

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu11:01

Not until I I was eight. For most of my time I was the only child of of colour. And, for example, I washed my face ten times in

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu11:12

Would have been red life voice soap. What was that about? That was obviously to be like.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu11:17

my friends. So there must have been incidents that made me feel that I was different, I was other, and I wanted to be like my friends.

Presenter11:26

I mentioned at the beginning of the programme that it was the kindness of one of the sisters that put you on the track to where you are now. What happened and how young?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu11:34

Were you? She was the most wonderful nun. She used to r the sick bay, and I had very bad eczema.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu11:41

And so I'd go for daily dressings, cold tar paste, it'd be very cool, lovely, bandage goes on. But then when I had to go back for the dressing, I would actually peep round the door to see whether it was the nun with the white habit that was there. Because the nun with the black habit, she would just tear off the bandage and it would hurt and I would cry. But if it was the nun with the white habit, she would use distraction therapy and she would use words like bottom. Well, you know, as a child, particularly brought up in the strict religious environment, I thought the word bottom was so rude and I would burst out laughing. Of course, while I laughed, she would take the bandage off. I would not feel a thing. I just thought she was the most wonderful person on earth.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu12:24

Later on, before I left the convent,

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu12:27

I realized she was something called a nurse.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu12:30

And I decide that's what I want to be.

Presenter12:33

Well, we'll hear more about how you got there in a moment. For now, it's time for your next disc today. What are we going to hear?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu12:39

It's called Mamon by Leila McCaller, who is a Haitian American singer, beautiful voice. And of course Mamon is mother in French. And this is an homage to my wonderful mother.

Speaker 412:53

Mamam Sheri Seu Tutvin

Speaker 412:56

Determination

Speaker 413:02

J'est and que tous desidation.

Speaker 413:17

Good and demoive.

Presenter13:20

Uh

Presenter13:21

Uh

Speaker 413:21

Mom mom ba

Presenter13:22

Again, Jusa Crai.

Presenter13:24

Layla McCalla with Mamo.

Presenter13:27

Elizabeth Annie Onwoo, your mother used to come and visit you at the children's home. What kind of things did you do together in the in the time you were able to have together?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu13:36

She would always take me out, come rain or shine, and uh

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu13:41

We would go to the Likki Hills, which was just up the road from where the convent was wonderful park where I had fantastic memories of rolling down the hill.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu13:53

She would take me for ice cream.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu13:57

It would be every month or so, until I left at nine, was a significant

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:02

An important part of my life then.

Presenter14:04

Uh When you were nine, your mother married a man called Ken and three years later moved to a council house in Wolverhampton with their young sons, and she decided it was time for you to leave Care and come and live with her. Such an important moment for you. How did you get on in your new home?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:24

When I arrived

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:26

at my new home in Wolverhampton.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:31

I was actually a bit disappointed because

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:34

I read a lot as a child and I I I the images of a home, there was always a fireplace and photographs hanging from the wall.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:44

And there were no photographs hanging from the wall. It didn't look like the image that that I had hoped for.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:50

On the other hand, I was welcomed by my obviously by my mother and my stepfather.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu14:56

Initially it worked out, but I only stayed there for twenty months because gradually

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:03

There was a s change in the relationship between myself and my stepfather.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:09

I later learned he was being teased by his mates in the pub about having, again, half caste child in the home, and when my mother wasn't around, he started to physically abuse me.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:22

But there was one particular instance where

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:25

I had kicked my younger brother, who was a delightful brother. I don't know why I had kicked him.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:31

I think my mother rued the day that she told my stepfather because he hit me and I went sprawling across

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:37

and hit my uh eyebrow on the wall.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:41

I blared out, it was painful. My mother was absolutely distraught because I think then was the revelation that actually

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:51

He had been physically abusing me for some time, but I'd never told her.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu15:55

So she got in touch with my maternal grandparents in the northwest of England.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:02

And uh they rescued me.

Presenter16:05

It's obviously difficult to talk about those memories, still traumatic.

Presenter16:10

How do you feel looking back? Such a a young girl and having to go through so much?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:17

That was a very traumatic period of my life.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:22

Initially I was quite angry with my mother.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:26

I was angry because I thought why didn't she protect me? But as I grew older I realized she was trying her best. She desperately wanted to make a home for me. But

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:36

Going to stay with my grandparents, it healed a lot of

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:40

issues for me. It never took away the scar of that experience.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:45

But it I think it showed me that there were good people around as well.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:50

Elizabeth, it's time for your fourth disc. What are we going to hear?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:54

Oh, this is the wonderful Andrea Bocelli.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu16:57

Singate okara from

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu17:00

Bellini's opera I Puritani, and it would just cheer me up immensely.

Speaker 417:12

Amor talor

Speaker 417:17

Amor Tano

Speaker 117:19

I don't know.

Speaker 417:20

Um

Speaker 417:23

Oh, for the taste.

Speaker 417:33

Warmie

Speaker 417:36

Behold.

Speaker 417:39

A dead half control.

Speaker 417:45

At a coming

Speaker 417:49

Come in.

Speaker 417:53

All I draw and lessen through

Presenter18:13

A Tiocara from Bellini's opera E Puritani sung by Andrea Bocelli.

Presenter18:18

So your love of opera came to you, Elizabeth Annie Onwu, during the happy time that you spent with your grandparents. Unfortunately it was to be short lived. Your grandfather died and later you went back to live with your mother, Ken, and their family.

Presenter18:32

You'd always done well at school, despite the upheaval, and you finally began nurse training in nineteen sixty five. That was at London's Paddington General Hospital. Do you remember putting on that uniform for the first time?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu18:44

Oh, I certainly do. We were kitted out and had to wear these paper caps. Yes. You know, I felt I started my nursing journey by wearing the uniform, no doubt about it.

Presenter18:57

You later trained to be a midwife in Edinburgh, and you became disillusioned with the hierarchical nature of the hospital, and you decided to retrain as a health visitor. What was it that appealed to you about the job?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu19:07

Yeah.

Presenter19:08

I didn't

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu19:08

actually complete my midwifery course, I realized that I didn't cope well with institutions where there were rules and regulations that didn't make sense.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu19:19

When I discovered this profession called health visiting, you go into people's homes.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu19:24

And I knew then that you would have to

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu19:27

Earn the respect to get into people's homes. You're not on your own territory.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu19:32

But before I started the health visiting course, I had nine months to spare, and I decided to go and get a job in Paris with a wonderful medical family. I was teaching English to their children. And I became friendly with a French Benin midwife, who was quite active politically, I think. And I told her the story about washing my face ten times to try and become white. She said, You know something? I know the very book that you should read, and it's called Black Skin White Masks by Frantz Fanon.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:03

I read this book and it really tried to explain about

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:08

why people want to be white instead of black in terms of the impact of colonialism.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:14

And it was though the scales came off my eyes in terms of look, I'm a brown skinned person and I don't know anything about my African heritage. When I came back to London, first thing I wanted to do was to get involved with black community activities, particularly health issues.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:32

And this was when I realized

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:35

that there is this condition called sickle cell anemia. I'd met families then when I was a health visitor, and there were health inequalities in the sense that there wasn't as much information about this condition.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:48

The care could

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:50

Be much better.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:51

And I was now spurred up and decided this is an area that I would like to get involved with.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu20:59

But it was also helped by the fact that

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:01

A hematologist called Dr Misha Brozevik gave a couple of lectures. I asked a lot of questions and after the second talk she came running after me and to cut a long story short, we ended up working together.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:15

and I became the first

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:16

sickle cell nurse specialist in the UK.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:20

back in 1979.

Presenter21:22

Elizabeth, let's take a break for some music. What are we going to hear and why have you chosen this next disc?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:27

Yeah.

Presenter21:27

So my next is

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:29

Missa Bilban by the Jamaican folk singers.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:33

And I love folk music and

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:36

I heard this when I first went out to Jamaica.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu21:40

in the late seventies to learn more about sickle cell.

Speaker 421:45

We said we'll then have one party.

Speaker 421:48

King and all of you ruling, come with a barrel, what you still know Harry Fingers still in a young man very pale.

Speaker 121:54

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 421:55

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Speaker 121:58

Was you make it sicky boys?

Speaker 422:06

Three times ten and thirteen, gallery boy them converting Sing me the tune of best events on May we dance best event and colour

Presenter22:17

The Jamaican Folk Singers with Missa Bilban. Elizabeth Annie Onwu. So we heard that after you became a health visitor, sickle cell became the focus of your life's work. Our understanding of sickle cell anemia is better now than it was back then, but many people still don't know much about it. Can you explain what it is?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu22:36

It's an inherited disorder of the red blood cells, the hemoglobin inside the red blood cells.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu22:42

And if you have sickle cell anemia, you will have inherited it from both your parents, who generally do not have the illness. They are silent carriers. And it's characterized by mild to incredibly severe episodes of pain, susceptibility to infections, anemia as well. It can affect virtually every organ in the body.

Presenter23:05

What kind of understanding did people in general have of sickle cell disease back then?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu23:10

Zilch. I I have to say Zilch. I mean there would be pediatricians and blood specialists, hematologists who would have known about it. But I never had any lesson about it in my nurse training or my health visitor training. And this was starting to build up.

Presenter23:26

Yeah.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu23:26

Actually quite deep sea

Presenter23:28

So you were determined to change what was going on. I mean, how difficult a task were you facing? The problem that brought people into h

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu23:35

hospital, this is children as well as adults, was what's called the painful crisis. And

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu23:42

By the time they went to the accident and emergency unit, they were rolling around in pain. I mean, this is the most horrific pain that people can have.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu23:53

And most of these patients were young and black.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu23:58

And there would be, unfortunately, health professionals who thought they were drug addicts.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:03

Now can you imagine?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:06

And what about treatment? What was available for people? It really depended which hospital you went to, and there were.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:13

Deaths that could have been avoided.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:16

And this is what encouraged some of us to form what is the Sickle Cell Society, a national charity, to enable families to come together with interested health professionals and others. And this actually did start to initiate change in policy.

Presenter24:36

You talked about the racism and the misunderstanding of of the condition. Is is that still a factor? Is that still out there?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:44

When you consider

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:45

The number of people who have the condition, it's at least 15,000 people.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu24:51

Not enough resources are allocated if you compare it to a condition like cystic fibrosis. Now cystic fibrosis is an extremely serious condition and needs all the resources that it's getting and probably more.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu25:03

But when we're talking about health inequalities, it's when you see disparities of that nature that you realise there's still some place to go to get conditions on an equal footing so that families do not feel that they're getting a lesser quality of care simply because of the colour of their skin.

Presenter25:24

Yeah.

Presenter25:25

It's time to take a break for some music, I think. What are we going to hear next and why have you chosen it?

Presenter25:31

It's Nina Smoke.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu25:31

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I love Nina Simone both.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu25:37

her voice, but also the life that she led. She was a gifted pianist who never made it to where she wanted to be, and she felt that that was due to racism. She was a a feisty woman, and I

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu25:50

I just love her to bits, to be quite honest, and this is my favourite song of all that she has ever sung.

Speaker 426:00

I wish I knew how.

Speaker 426:03

It would see.

Speaker 426:05

To be free.

Speaker 426:08

And wish I could pray

Speaker 426:11

Are the chains holding me?

Speaker 426:16

I wish I could say

Speaker 426:19

All the things that I should say Say'em loud, say em clear.

Speaker 426:27

For the whole round world of hear

Presenter26:32

I wish I Could share.

Speaker 426:34

Uh

Presenter26:34

Uh

Presenter26:36

Nina Simone, and I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. Elizabeth Annie Onwo, we've been talking about your professional life, but let's talk a bit more about your family. You had no knowledge of your father until 1972, and that was when you asked your mother for his name. Now, quite unexpectedly, you discovered that he was in London. So, what was that first meeting like? Tell me about it.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu26:59

Oh, it was fantastic.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:01

I used to ride a scooter in those days and I had to go up the North Circular Road and I remember parking the scooter, going up to the front door and the nerves really kicked in. Pressed the doorbell and he opened the door and you know Lorne, it was like Minnie Me. He was darker, he was male, he was larger than me.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:24

He just gave me this enormous bear hug and he welcomed me. I met my stepmother. It it was just wonderful.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:31

What was he like?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:33

Oh, he was very erudite. He was an ambassador.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:37

before the Nigerian Civil War. Very educated, very dry sense of humor. And in fact we discovered we had the same sense of humor and also the same love of music.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:47

That was wonderful. I never called him Dad initially. It was my stepmother after a few weeks said, you know, he's your father. Call him Dad.

Presenter27:55

Uh

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:55

The The

Presenter27:56

Yeah.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu27:56

Okay.

Presenter27:59

You were able to visit him in Nigeria later. How was it spending time with him there? It was wonderful. And he

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu28:05

He just accepted me. I was his daughter and he was obviously very proud of what I had achieved so far. I was very quiet initially and at one point he said something that I didn't agree with and I just burst out and said, Oh he said, Oh, at last he said, I knew you must have had some views. But it was me having to, you know, learn how to be a daughter, how to have that daughter-father relationship.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu28:33

It worked out so well. I mean, unfortunately, you know, he he died after eight years, quite young.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu28:40

But I had a wonderful eight years of knowing him and being introduced to my Nigerian family. It it was like a balm. It it soothed a lot of issues that I wasn't even aware of and I became

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu28:53

so much more confident and inwardly calmer, yes.

Presenter29:00

It's time for your next disc, Elizabeth.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu29:01

What have you chosen for us, and why?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu29:04

It's a song by an Egbo singer, Flava, called Nekata. Now my Egbo name that was given to me on my first visit to Nigeria is Neka, and it it means my mother is supreme.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu29:17

And I thought that was wonderful for my family to appreciate everything that my mother had done, you know, when my father wasn't around.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu29:25

So this is why I've chosen the song, but also it's wonderful Nigerian singing.

Presenter30:13

Flavour and Necatar. Elizabeth Anionwu, after your distinguished career, you were awarded a damehood in 2017 for your services to nursing and for your role in campaigning for a statue of the nurse Mary Seacole, the British Jamaican woman who treated British soldiers on the battlefield in the Crimean War at St Thomas's Hospital. I said in my introduction that the statue, which was unveiled just a few years ago, is the first statue of a named black woman in the UK. People might be shocked by that. Why is it important that she's there?

Presenter30:47

Yeah.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu30:47

Well, you know, I must give recognition to Lord Clive Soley, who started the Mary Seacom Memorial Statue Appeal, and it took twelve and a half long, long years to raise the necessary money.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu30:59

Mary Seacole is part of the history of Britain. She is of Jamaican Scottish heritage.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu31:06

And the fact that she's brown-skinned should just not be important, but it is important.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu31:12

And the joy of having this wonderful, wonderful monument in the grounds of St Thomas's Hospital, overlooking the Houses of Parliament. And Mary is striding forth, and you know, it's as though she's keeping an eye on those politicians. You know, it's wonderful from whatever background you are. But can you imagine how important it is for groups of individuals who don't always feel accepted? You know, I took my granddaughter down. She was there at the unveiling.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu31:45

A few months later she was staying with me and took it round London Eye and I said, Is there anything else you want to see? Can we go and see Mary again? Oh the joy in my heart. That's what it is about. My granddaughter can see a statue of a woman that looks like her in terms of skin colour. It's just wonderful.

Presenter32:09

You've talked a lot about your mother today, Elizabeth, and she died in two thousand three. I know that your sister Marian once told you that you'd led the life that your mum should have led. How did it feel hearing that?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu32:22

Oh, what a poignant comment. It made me cry actually, to be very honest, because

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu32:27

I think my mother would have been a Professor Mary Beard, to be quite honest. She was so brilliant. As a woman I, you know, regret that she didn't have the life she should have had, but on the other hand she got succor and joy and comfort from her children.

Presenter32:45

And you're a mother yourself and a grandmother too. Having had such a disrupted early life and a tricky start, I wonder how that impacted your parenting. What kind of mother were you? Grandmother are you?

Presenter32:58

I

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu32:58

I was told by friends I was very over anxious mum.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu33:02

But my daughter survived it, and we've got a very close relationship, and then to.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu33:08

have the joy of a granddaughter. They both bring me great

Presenter33:12

Great, great joy.

Presenter33:13

One more disc then before we cast you away to our desert island. What's it going to be, Elizabeth?

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu33:19

Reading singing My Girl, but I think we should call it My Girls for my daughter and my granddaughter.

Speaker 433:26

Add the function

Speaker 433:30

What a fally day.

Speaker 433:35

And it's cold outside.

Speaker 433:39

I've got the month of May.

Speaker 433:44

Oh, wow.

Speaker 433:49

Say what can make me move me feel its way is my good

Speaker 433:58

Talking about

Presenter34:00

Uh

Speaker 434:00

Bye.

Presenter34:02

Otis Redding and My Girl.

Presenter34:05

So it's time to cast you away to your desert island, Elizabeth Anyonwo. Now, I'm assuming that your nursing experience will stand you in very good stead for life as a castaway. So we're going to give you three books to take with you. You'll have the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and a book of your choice, too. What will that be?

Presenter34:23

Yeah.

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu34:23

It would be President Obama's mem memoirs dream

Presenter34:27

Came from my father. It's yours. You can also take a luxury item to make your stay on the island more enjoyable. What will that be?

Presenter34:34

I'd like

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu34:35

Date of the art trampoline. And the reason being, I have always wanted to jump and jump and jump and jump on a trampoline. I think it's the inner child in me and there's going to be nobody to see what I'm up to. And it'll be my physical exercise as well.

Presenter34:52

Fabulous And finally, which one of your eight wonderful disks would you save if the surf threatened to wash them all away?

Presenter34:59

Nina Simone, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.

Presenter35:03

Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu, thank you so much for sharing your desert island discs with us. Thank you, Lauren. It's been wonderful.

Presenter35:21

Thinking of Elizabeth bouncing joyfully up and down on her trampoline really makes me very happy. I love doing that too. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. There are many of her fellow health professionals featured in the Desert Island Discs back catalogue, including ICU specialist Professor Hugh Montgomery, consultant anaesthetist Dr. Kevin Fong, consultant surgeon Dr. David Knott, and the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. You'll find all those editions on BBC Sounds. Next time, my guest will be financial expert and campaigner Martin Lewis. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 136:00

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