{"id":131,"date":"2026-09-13T18:07:36","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T18:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/?p=131"},"modified":"2026-09-13T18:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T18:24:21","slug":"veronica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/13\/veronica\/","title":{"rendered":"Veronica"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"et_pb_section_0 et_pb_section et_section_regular et_flex_section\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_row_0 et_pb_row et_flex_row\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_column_0 et_pb_column et-last-child et_flex_column et_pb_css_mix_blend_mode_passthrough et_flex_column_24_24 et_flex_column_24_24_tablet et_flex_column_24_24_phone\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_text_0 et_pb_text et_pb_bg_layout_light et_pb_module et_flex_module\"><div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\"><p>Veronica came to England from Jamaica when she was 9. Her mum was just 25 and had given birth to Veronica when she was a teenager and still at school.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone knew Veronica\u2019s mum as Pearl, and she was a talented seamstress. Veronica\u2019s dad, Charlie, worked for British Rail. He was also a skilled carpenter and picture framer and could make and repair shoes as a hobby. They settled in Clapham in SW London.<\/p>\n<p>For newly arrived West Indian families, inherent racism from the banks and the fact that they had no history in England meant that getting a bank account was very difficult. Because of this, many people from the Caribbean set up \u2018Pardner\u2019 Schemes.<\/p>\n<p>The Pardner system was initially brought to Jamaica by enslaved Africans and used to purchase freedom.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme is based on friends, neighbours, or relatives agreeing to contribute money to the pot each week over a fixed term. Each month, a scheme member gets the whole pot, which means they get a lump sum to help pay for a deposit on a flat, set up a business, get a car, or something similar. This scheme is based entirely on trust, and only people with a good reputation can participate.<\/p>\n<p>Veronica\u2019s family used the Pardner scheme a lot in those early days in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>When Veronica was small back in Jamaica, she fell from a verandah and injured her head. Her family didn\u2019t think her injury looked bad and just gave her some sugared water (A Jamaican cure-all). They never took her to the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>When she came to school in England, the teachers noticed something wasn\u2019t quite right and advised her to see a doctor. The doctor said that she had damage to the back of her skull, restricting the blood supply to her brain. The facilities in London meant that Veronica started getting the medical treatment she needed.<\/p>\n<p>She had a seizure in her late teens and then had an operation to put a stent into the arteries in her neck and head to improve the blood flow to her brain, which seemed to help at the time.\u00a0 After school, Veronica worked in a factory in Battersea that made nurses\u2019 uniforms. In her early twenties, while living at home, Veronica got pregnant and had a baby girl. The relationship with the baby\u2019s dad didn\u2019t work out, so her mum helped her with the baby.<\/p>\n<p>Although they were no longer a couple, the baby\u2019s dad would often call around in his bright yellow Triumph Dolomite and remained a part of Veronica and his daughter\u2019s life.\u00a0 A few years later, Veronica met Winston at a house party. He was also from Jamaica and worked in a plastics factory in South London. They had a son and, in 1978, decided to get married.<\/p>\n<p>Veronica\u2019s mum, Pearl, who was known as \u2018Auntie P\u2019 by then, made the wedding and the bridesmaids\u2019 dresses. It was considered bad luck for Veronica\u2019s 7-year-old daughter, Michelle, to be a bridesmaid. Michelle remembers being jealous of her cousins getting dressed up on her mum\u2019s wedding day.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-windrush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/windrush.positivenetwork.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}