Lena Hunt (right) with a colleague

Caribbean and other overseas recruits supported each other during the first few weeks and months. Some, such as Elizabeth Yates who trained at the London School of Occupational Therapy, arrived to find they were the only Caribbean student.

Nola Ishmael remembers, “We had Trinidadians, people from different countries in Africa, we had people from Mauritius, we had Bajans like myself. We all learnt and supported each other and I made some really good friends at the Whittington.”

Lucy Martin-Burnham arrived too early for the hospital training school, so “the matron recommended that I work on the wards, as this would obviously give me good experience. I was very fortunate to have a very understanding sister; she took me under her wing, which was very comforting and reassuring. I started my training in 1951 and was quite excited because it reminded me of my training back in Jamaica, going to school. It was all theory. There were no other Caribbeans training where I was.”

Lynette Richards-Murray was the first Guyanese student in her hospital. “Matron knew I was coming and they sent a taxi for me at the train station and I had a very warm welcome there because I was the first

Guyanese there. They had a few people from other Caribbean islands. I had a very good Irish friend and in some ways I can see what drew us together because the conditions that were happening in Ireland were the same in Guyana. We had this commonality.”

Sherlene Rudder, who joined the NHS at Pembury Hospital, Kent, remembers: “There were lots of students from different Caribbean islands. I made friends with another young lady who had come from Barbados. The sister used to put the fear of God into us and she was very strict but had incredibly high standards … You can appreciate it later but when you first start, it’s pretty tough on you.”

In Joyce Bleasdille-Lumsden’s hospital, “there were only five black nurses from the Caribbean. We had one African nurse, she was a princess from Nigeria, one Trinidadian, one Guyanese, two Barbadians and myself. The next morning the night sister made friends with a Jamaican nurse and she asked her to look after me. Her name was Dorothy Wallace. I couldn’t understand her accent, it was different from Grenadian, but we got along fine and she took me to the dining room and to the ward to see matron and then we became very close friends.”