Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
First black woman chaplain to the Queen and Speaker of the House of Commons, also ministers to two churches in Hackney, East London.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:11Your professional life takes you from Hackney to royal palaces to Westminster. The people you're preaching to are in very different circumstances. Do you moderate and change the way you talk to them and the things you talk about?
Yes, I think when you're speaking to folks, you have to speak to them in the context that they're in. So although I may go into Patois from time to time in my parish in Hackney, I may not quite use Patois as such in the Commons or in Parliament or preaching in one of Her Majesty's chapels.
Presenter asks
4:31Your appointment as chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons caused a degree of interest – you described it as a hullabaloo in the press. Why do you think there was such a hullabaloo?
I really wish I knew. I'm sure in previous years there have been dissension in terms of, you know, who do we have in this particular role. But I guess the press took a keen interest because I wasn't the normal establishment figure.
Presenter asks
The book
The luxury
earrings (jewelry box full of earrings)
I think the luxury I toyed with what it should be. Should it be fresh cream? Should it be lobster? But then I can go catch some lobster. And there might be a coconut tree I can get some cream from. So it will have to be earrings.
You've said that being a woman you have to be twice as good as a man, and being black three or four times as good as a white person. Can you pick out a particular experience that illuminates that?
I think it's just life in general … for many women and for many people of colour throughout the world. For example, every time we say we want more black people or we want more women in roles, what do you hear people saying? 'Oh, but we have to have the right person, you know, they have to have the right skills.' … Why would women, why would black people be applying for a role that they were not fit for? So that disturbs me.
Presenter asks
8:11You were born in Montego Bay at the very beginning of the sixties. You were about two years old when your mum left to go to England. Can you remember her going?
I have no recollection of my mother whatsoever until I met her years and years later.
Presenter asks
9:55What was life in Montego Bay like? What was your home like?
I grew up in a tenement yard. Probably the equivalent here would be a rundown estate … You didn't feel as if there was anything wrong with you because everyone else around you were in the same situation … things like electricity, running water, did you have that? Not in the house, no. There was a little standpipe. And so as children, we had to go and get the water, fill up the oil drum pan.
Presenter asks
30:15The Higher you build your barriers, the taller I become. Rose, do you relate to your ministry and the work that you do with a Caribbean perspective? Does your beginning inform what you do now in life?
I am a Caribbean woman at heart … my Caribbeanness, my Jamaicanness, is very much part of my foundation. And so in everything I do, I bring that with me … It's who I am.
“All that I know is that [faith] has saved me and I think I'm a better human being for it. All the books tell me that I should be something different because of the various experiences that I've had, but I'm not a victim. I am a well-rounded human being, and I give God thanks for that.”
“I've always felt, you know, when I was told that, look, you know, my husband is perfectly capable of looking after himself. And if I didn't know how I was going to manage, I certainly would not have put myself forward.”
“The circumstances that surround a person is not important. What is important is how they respond to it.”
“I would be glad to get away from those who tells me that I can't because of the colour of my skin or because of my gender. I would like to be well away from those.”