Many Caribbean recruits were placed in psychiatric hospitals, or on geriatric wards. Gloria Falode arrived at her hospital and “saw this imposing looking building. It was a psychiatric hospital. The night sister came and said, ‘Did I want tea?’ and she took me to one of the wards and introduced me to the sister and then they put me to sit down by this fire and they gave me tea. In the morning there was a knock on my door and someone was

knocking on all the doors along the corridor saying, ‘6 o’clock nurse’ because they used to wake you up as you were on duty at 7am … we had chains with a key on it, you never had it dangling, it went straight into your pockets and then you put your belt over it. We were told that was for our safety … Your duty was to talk to the patients and listen to them and report anything strange to the sister, as your powers of observation were more acute. We

used to do the Gay Gordon dance with patients, where you dance in a ring and had to go up with your hands together and then change partners, it was really elegant.”

Thelma Lewis joined the NHS when she started at the Houghton Hospital, Epsom: “The patients seemed normal to me because at home if someone is mad, you back off mate! It wasn’t until they flared up and they put them in the padded cell I realised they could get to that degree of aggression. Sadly, I couldn’t take that. It was their attitude towards the patient. I thought, ‘this is not nursing.’ There were other Caribbean students, one girl called Olive from Guyana and two male nurses from Trinidad but I was still very homesick! I was quite prepared to return home within months of arriving, but then we would encourage each other and say, you can’t come this distance and let the side down. That sort of thing kept us going.”

Gloria Fallode (top row, far right) with fellow nurses, 1960s