Jess was born in Jamaica in 1938.
Her village, Accompong, was created by runaway enslaved people who established a fortified stronghold in the 17th century. Known as the ‘Maroon people, ’ a name based on the Spanish word “cimarrones," meaning "wild ones", they successfully fought off the British. This led to the signing of a peace treaty in 1739, granting them semi-sovereignty over the area. Accompong has always been a peaceful and safe place with virtually no crime. Jess’s family owned a farm, and she had an idyllic childhood. She would ride a mule to school and eat fruit off the trees.
When Jess left school at 16, she got a job in a dressmaking shop in Kingston and sent money home to her parents. The work was hard, but it didn’t bother Jess because, as she told me, ‘back then I was young and strong’. She heard stories of her friends who had travelled to the UK and, when she turned 18, decided that she wanted her adventure. She convinced her dad to sell a couple of cows to pay for her passage to England. Her parents were distraught that their daughter was leaving. According to Jess, they ‘hid away’ on the day in 1959 that she boarded the Boeing 707, which flew first to Canada and then to London Airport.
Jess wasn’t keen on London at first and missed her parents terribly. She thought the houses were factories because of the smoke from the chimneys. Everything looked so dirty, and the conditions were bad. She saw the signs in the windows and experienced racism firsthand; landlords and employees would turn people away just because they were black. She wanted to return to Jamaica as soon as possible, but wouldn’t dream of doing so until she was independent and could make something of herself.
Jess stayed with her uncle in Brixton and got a job working on the railway at Wimbledon Park. It was so cold cleaning the trains early in the morning. She once fell face-first into the snow - everything was so different from what she was used to back in Jamaica. Jess didn’t enjoy the work much, but in her words, “You've got to do something, anything, to make ends meet” Eventually, the cold got too much for her, and she decided to apply for a job as a nurse at St James’s Hospital in Balham.
She enjoyed the work and loved meeting and caring for the patients. After a few years, St James’s closed down. The only other hospital employing people then was St Stephen’s across the river in Fulham. Jess had to learn to drive to get there, which she did. She went on to work as a nurse for 32 years until St Stephen’s also closed down.
