Dreams from my mother / Dame Elizabeth Anionwu.
Publisher: London : Seven Dials, 2021Edition: Revised and updated editionDescription: xiii, 338 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 20 cmContent type:- text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781841885223
- Mixed blessings from a Cambridge union
| Item type | Home library | Class number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | South London and Maudsley Trust Library Shelves | ZZ3 ANI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Issued | 24/03/2025 | SLAM000692 |
Originally published as Mixed blessings from a Cambridge Union. London: ELIZAN Publishing, 2016.
Professor Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu is an Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London. In 1979 she set up the first ever UK sickle cell/thalassaemia nurse counselling service, based in Brent. She then became a senior lecturer in Community Genetic Counselling at the University College London's Institute of Child Health. Prior to retirement in 2007, she was Dean of the School of Adult Nursing Studies & Professor of Nursing at University of West London (UWL) & also established the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice.
She was Vice-Chairperson of the successful Appeal for the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue that was unveiled in June 2016 & is now Life Patron of the Mary Seacole Trust. Elizabeth is also Patron of the Sickle Cell Society & the Nigerian Nurses Charitable Association UK & is Vice-President of Unite/Community Practitioners/Health Visitors Association (CPHVA). In 2018 Elizabeth was listed as one of the top 70 influential nurses and midwives between 1948 and 2018. In 2020 she was included in the top 100 Greatest Black Britons & as one of the 50 most influential BAME people in health. Elizabeth appeared in May 2020 as a guest on the BBC Desert Island Discs radio programme. In November 2020 she was included in the BBC 100 Women 2020 list.
Includes bibliographical references.
It's 1947 and a sheltered Catholic girl is studying Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the first one in her family to go to university - and then she discovers that she's pregnant. The father is also a student at Cambridge, studying law. And he is black. Despite pressure to give up her baby for adoption, the young mother has big dreams for her child's future. Her daughter Elizabeth overcomes a background of shame, stigma, and discrimination, to become one of the UK's greatest ever nurses, and the first ever sickle cell nurse specialist. Recently named a BBC 100 Women of the Year 2020 and awarded a Damehood, Dame Elizabeth Anionwu has continued her work throughout her retirement, and recently brought to the nation's attention how Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on Black and Asian communities. Dreams From My Mother is an inspiring story about childhood, race, identity, family, friendship, hope and what makes us who we are. Ultimately, it is an incredibly moving story of a mother and a daughter separated by society, but united in the dreams they shared for her future".
Log in to your account to post a comment.
User comment on 27/01/2025
Absorbing memoir of a pioneering nurse activist, whom I’d heard speaking at an unexceptional NHS event recently. Her description there of meeting her father for the first time as a callow young nurse, and then connecting with his Nigerian heritage, had won me over. That tale is told here, as also her work and research spreading awareness of the previously disregarded condition of sickle cell anaemia. Her achievements and energy are impressive, all the more so given the disadvantaged upbringing she’d come through, the result of the taboos her parents’ relationship (mixed race, unmarried) ran headlong into back in 1947. The author delves into that distant story of her parents too. It all feels like a long time ago, but that child is still with us, still active and positive, now a Dame and a recognised authority.