When I was a little girl in Grenada, I used to do little deeds of kindness. People said to me: “Oh you’re a very kind girl, you would be a good nurse.” This stuck in my mind. Then, when the quota came from England asking the West Indian girls to come up and help the NHS in a time of short supply, I took advantage.

I came over in 1966 and got a very good training at Farnham in Surrey. Then I went to London and worked at several hospitals before ending up at St George’s in Tooting, where I stayed until I retired in 2005.

I liked my job very much. They were strict with us where I was trained, but very nice. If you were making the beds and the fold in the sheet was not in the centre of the mattress, God help you – you’d have to undo it and redo it in the sister’s presence, and you’d be shaking like a leaf. When I went to London it was much more relaxed, but I’m glad I had that strictness trained into me.

Over my career, I did cardiac, medical and surgical nursing. The most pressurised was cardiac – you had to be very good with people with heart problems, they would be very unwell. But it’s a very nice job, because the patient comes in at death’s door, and the nurses and doctors work on them, and when you see them go through the door walking again, you feel great: we restored somebody back to their health. You really have to be inside the profession to appreciate that.

I’ve noticed nursing changing over the years. When they brought in the patient’s charter in the 1990s, a lot of discipline was lost on the ward. I think nursing is all about the basics. You have to have so much education to be a nurse now, but I found that when nurses came from university, they had no practical knowledge. For me, training on the job was a good way to learn. Then you could build up your knowledge and do your research as you went along.

The NHS is one of the best organisations in the world. Every country envies it. This is something we have to boast about, therefore we must work to save it. If a young person was considering becoming a nurse today, I would tell them: “You go into nursing my dear, do not listen to what anybody says” – because I tell you, it’s one of the most rewarding jobs. And the money’s not too bad now. In my day, we got hardly any money. But I enjoyed the nursing and I praise the NHS for having me here [from Grenada].

My only regret is that I had to retire. When I go back to the ward to see some old friends, the nurses say to me: “Come on Cecilia, will you get a uniform and come and help us?”