Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An Emeritus Professor of Nursing and pioneering sickle cell disease specialist, who was the first sickle cell specialist nurse in the UK.
On the island
Eight records
I did Irish dancing in the children's home up until the age of nine. I absolutely adored Irish dancing.
I love folk music and I heard this when I first went out to Jamaica in the late seventies to learn more about sickle cell.
I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be FreeFavourite
I love Nina Simone both her voice, but also the life that she led... this is my favourite song of all that she has ever sung.
my Egbo name that was given to me on my first visit to Nigeria is Neka... this is why I've chosen the song.
I think we should call it My Girls for my daughter and my granddaughter.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:09How have you been getting on with self-isolating due to your asthma?
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. And there are communal gardens that virtually nobody uses, which I'm delighted at. So that I can do an hour's walk out there and listen to my music. … I think it has helped me avoid sinking into any sort of depression … human contact is really valued now.
Presenter asks
3:21As someone who has spent their whole professional life in healthcare, what are your thoughts about the disproportionate number of black and minority ethnic NHS staff who have died during the pandemic?
Well, all the deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic here in the UK are absolutely tragic. But as a black nurse I am so scared for my colleagues. … there's been a history of black and minority ethnic health professionals not really being valued as much as they should be. … I just want them to be listened to and paid more and valued as all NHS staff should be.
Presenter asks
5:42You were born in 1947. Your mother met your father at Cambridge. What happened?
The keepsakes
The luxury
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.
Well, I happen, Dorham. 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. And it was my maternal grandmother that realized that she was pregnant during a trip back home to Stafford. And all my mother would say was that the father of the baby was a fellow student. Nothing else. And so when my grandparents came to visit my mother, 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. 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.
Presenter asks
11:26What happened with the nun who inspired you to become a nurse?
She was the most wonderful nun. She used to r the sick bay, and I had very bad eczema. 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. Later on, before I left the convent, I realized she was something called a nurse. And I decide that's what I want to be.
Presenter asks
23:28How difficult a task were you facing in changing the understanding and treatment of sickle cell disease?
hospital, this is children as well as adults, was what's called the painful crisis. And 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. And most of these patients were young and black. And there would be, unfortunately, health professionals who thought they were drug addicts. Now can you imagine? And what about treatment? What was available for people? It really depended which hospital you went to, and there were. Deaths that could have been avoided. 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.
Presenter asks
26:36What was that first meeting with your father like?
Oh, it was fantastic. 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. He just gave me this enormous bear hug and he welcomed me. I met my stepmother. It it was just wonderful.
“I never ever had any sense of rejection from my mother. Even though I spent nine years in the children's home, she visited me regularly. So I never had a sense of rejection and I'm sh I know that that's helped me enormously through my life.”
“I just thought she was the most wonderful person on earth. Later on, before I left the convent, I realized she was something called a nurse. And I decide that's what I want to be.”
“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.”
“My granddaughter can see a statue of a woman that looks like her in terms of skin colour. It's just wonderful.”
“I think my mother would have been a Professor Mary Beard, to be quite honest. She was so brilliant.”