#BTFocus – From nanny to registered nurse . . . Bajan recounts 55 years of life in England

by Sandra Downes in London

In 1965, when Oriel Weekes heard that English recruiters were in Barbados looking for workers, she went for an interview. At that time, the 22-year-old was working with a Welsh family as a nanny, caring for their young son.   

Leaving her own two young sons in her mother’s care, Weekes explained, “I wanted a better life for them and I knew they would be all right.” Even at the airport, she remembered her younger son Patrick, two years old, telling his five-year-old brother Winston not to cry because “mummy say she going send for us.”

With that, she, Jane Browne and Doreen Rice (now deceased) boarded the same flight to England. The three ladies were strangers, but they all started working together at J Lyons Tea Shop in Oxford Street, where they did waitressing, washing up, making and serving tea. Weekes however, always had a special love for children so even though she “quite enjoyed” working at the tea shop – despite “the battle-axe I had for a boss” – she realised after a couple of years that job was not for her.

She began applying to hospitals and when one in East Surrey offered her a two-year training position as a State Enrolled Nurse (SEN), she was ecstatic. “It was a role similar to being a bedside nurse,” she explained. “I remember my pay was £7 something a month and out of that I had to send home something for the children.”

Meanwhile, on the job, “some people saw us as being there to do all the hard work,” she recalled, “the blacks and the Irish. They expected us to attend to the patients’ needs and keep the rooms spotless while the white nurses were in the office drinking coffee… we weren’t allowed in the office. But I always try to make the best of any situation, so it became a benefit to me to learn bedside nursing. Most of us only came through because we had praying parents back in Barbados.”

Once again, it was her desire to marry her love for nursing and children which motivated her in 1970, to apply to do paediatric nursing at Great Ormond Street Hospital. She was successful and began working through agencies. Her sons joined her in the UK in 1973.

Weekes worked at a few hospitals and was so good with children that she became the nurse other staff relied on to get their young patients to take medicine. “I always got along well with children,” Weekes added. By then, she was working as a children’s clinic nurse on mornings and at secondary schools in the evenings; or vice versa. In fact, of her 47 years in nursing, Weekes spent 30 as a school nurse, working among nine schools in Croydon.

It wasn’t until three decades after leaving Lower Workmans, St. George, that she would go on to be the founder of the Barbados Overseas Nurses Association. In 1994, she became a registered nurse. “I used to go to parties and so on weekends and I would hear people from other islands talking about raising funds for different causes. I told myself that people back home in Barbados had needs too.”

The next thing Weekes did was telephone her friend Pauline Sealy and ask: “What do you think about a Nursing Association in London?” Sealy agreed with the idea so Weekes suggested, “You write to your friends and I will write to mine.” The result was that two of Weekes’ counterparts responded positively, and two of Sealy’s. “Just six of us got together for that first meeting on February 4, 1994,” she recalled. The other four nurses were Jennifer Howell, Sheila Atherley, Iona Gittens and Carlma Deabrau. And that is how the Barbados Overseas Nurses Association was formed.

In the early days, fundraising was their main focus, aimed at assisting vulnerable Barbadians in England and back home, especially those who needed medical help. “The first fundraiser was a dance. The six of us used our own money to launch it. We had a good turn out, and the numbers grew from then.”

Weekes remembered telling Sealy that she could “take the chair” since Weekes was pursuing a Registered General Nurse course at the time. “I will do PR and try to gather people in.”

Before long they had drafted a constitution with the help of fellow Barbadians, the late Owen Eversley OBE and Shirlene Rudder. The Association began making financial contributions to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the Diabetes Association and the Princess Margaret Secondary School and was later registered in England as a Charity. The former St. George Girls’ School student went on to serve as President and Treasurer and is currently Social Coordinator for the BONA Choir.

Even now, students from many years ago still acknowledge her, even though sometimes she can’t remember them. “I am always pleased when they recognise me,” she remarked, recounting a recent occasion when one ran out of a barber shop to greet her. “I will never forget the advice you gave me,” he told her, “because I was naughty.” Though retired, Weekes still visits her schools sometimes so students can chat with her if they want to, during their lunch break.

The last 55 years have not been all work for Weekes, though. Belgium, Spain, Wales, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Mexico, St. Thomas, Holland, Trinidad, China and Zimbabwe are just some of the many countries she has visited.

Some of her hobbies are “making my own greeting cards and confectionery. I love doing things with my hands,” she stressed. Although she misses Barbados “to a point, I don’t regret coming to England. Before, I only saw white people driving by in their cars and working black people hard, but when I came here and saw them cleaning the streets, I couldn’t believe it.”

The Association continues to hold social events monthly and an annual excursion, sponsored walks, AGM, Christmas Celebration and Thanksgiving Service. Their goals include raising awareness about health issues among the elderly and engaging with younger people through seminars and conferences. (SD)