Violet Radcliffe

In Jamaica Violet worked as a dressmaker, taking in work from in and around the town where she lived. Violet left Portland, Jamaica aged 33 and sailed to the UK with her 12 year old niece. Like many others from the Caribbean she wanted to come to the UK in order to “better herself”. She arrived on 22nd March 1956.

She travelled from Southampton to Doncaster by train where she lived with her sister.  Violet recalls that her taxi from the train station to her new home in Balby cost 75 shillings, or £3.75.

a young black woman looks into the camera, smiling
Violet Radcliffe’s passport photograph, 1956

Within a month of arriving in England Violet found work at the Rockingham Arms Hotel on Bennetthorpe before moving on to work at T.B. Morley, a lighting company on Wheatley Hall Road.  Violet worked at T.B. Morley until it closed. Violet is affectionately known as Miss Mammy by Doncaster’s Caribbean community.

an older black woman with short grey hair sits on a sofa, looking into the camera and smiling
Violet Radcliffe