Some Caribbeans joined the NHS as allied health professionals, working as carpenters, cooks, porters and auxiliaries. Some, like Derek Harty, found initial experiences a bit overwhelming.

Daisy Anson went to the Sherwood Hospital, looking for work. “They sent me to the laundry and there I got the job … The man who was there said the pay was £5/2/6p. I was walking on air coming out! I worked on the calender, the machine we used to draw the sheets through. You had to put the sheets in, roll it round and then press it down. The other girls at the back put the sheets in and we would take them out and fold them. My hours were from 8am until 5pm. I was 37 years old. There were other workers from Jamaica and all over. I enjoyed it.”

When Derek Harty first arrived he worked in a factory with his mother and then applied to work in the NHS, in a laboratory. “I got a job eventually in 1966 at East Ham Memorial Hospital in London … My first job was as a junior technician. I can remember the first duty I had was to take blood. When I saw blood being taken, I didn’t feel good at all. I actually fainted! I was wondering if I could continue doing jobs like that. After the first day it got easier. From the very first day I was among a team of people who made me feel comfortable and I was looking forward to studying for my new career. I was given day release: one day a week I would attend college and my fees and fares were

paid for … I remember my salary was not … more than I was getting in my job in the Banana Board in Jamaica. I didn’t mind, I saw progress in the job. Staff were wonderful and we still meet and speak together. It was like a little family, it was a small hospital.”

Initially Nelson Auguste “worked in hotels, factories and building sites even as a gravedigger. There were only two of us and then one Friday, I buried so many people I was frightened and I packed the job up! A friend was working at the National Heart Hospital and they said to me there are vacancies and I went there, filled out a form and got the job. I started work in 1972 at the National Heart Hospital in Westmoreland Street. My first job was a general porter.”

Laundry press (Royal London Hospital Archives: BG/P/14)

Occupational therapy attracted Elizabeth Yates because “it sounded interesting and it was people-oriented. The course was a three-year programme. A third of it was on clinical placement in different hospitals and the rest of it was college based. Within the college base you had academic studies, for example anatomy, physiology, medicine and surgery. We had to learn different occupational techniques like needlework, drama and woodwork, weaving and pottery. It was good.”

Siburnie Ramharry joined the NHS to be a dietician. She lived in the hall of residence and made friends with two fellow students from the Caribbean. “The first part of the training was fairly general, we did basic nutrition. The course was run in such a way that anybody who didn’t want to do the dietetics could stop and maybe go into catering and hotel management. We did very strange things in our first year like how to do laundry and the correct way of folding napkins. We did a lot of cookery and needlework. The second part was much more concentrated on nutrition, dietetics, we had to do a lot of biochemistry and psychology because obviously you were working with people. I really enjoyed it and it actually began to make sense.”

Inez Stewart worked in a cutlery factory when she first arrived in Britain, but then “a hospital job came up at the Northern General Hospital, where they wanted people to work in the dining room so I applied and got it. [It] was a big hall where