My name is M.F. I was born in Penang, Malaysia. Yes, I came over here in September 1974. There was a big group of us Malaysians who came to do nursing. A lot of foreign nurses were recruited to the UK. Although we were homesick, we had friends from the same country. There were quite a few of us from Penang and some other parts of Malaysia. So often we met in gatherings and this helped offset the feeling of homesickness a little. Besides, we also had fellow-nurses from other countries, like Rhodesia, Nigeria and Ireland.

I had done some training in a private hospital in Malaysia so when I came over it wasn’t so daunting for me. After arriving in London, I did training for midwifery as well. I was with the Forest Gate Maternity, which is no longer there these days. There were several small hos-pitals in east London, like St Andrew’s, Forest Gate, Queen Mary’s, St Mary’s and East Ham. We had to move to all these little hospitals for training. I’ve always lived in East London. We were living in the nurses’ home until I finished my training.

I worked as an agency nurse at St Andrews Hospital and within a year, they got me back as a staff nurse. Later I got my Sister’s job. But I was thinking I should not stay with just one specific area of nursing, so I kind of branched out to medical, chest, then geriatrics… I went to district nurse training and became a district nurse for eight years. After that I did a course in palliative care.

I began to involve in the Chinese community in the late 1980s or early 90s. Because I could speak Cantonese and a bit of Mandarin as well, so I was able to communicate with them. I sometimes helped them with translation, like their hospital letters or whatever. So I went out to help at their the luncheon club and whatever activities they held. I was once the chair of the Newham Chinese Association for a few years, but later I came out of it.