I was always happy to go to school.My father secured an admission into the Dr. Ribeiro Goan School in 1945 for my younger sister, Pushpa, and I. We both remember Mrs. Jacques and Mrs. Coutinho as our first teachers My parents were so impressed with the school and the education we were receiving that they sent the rest of my younger siblings and cousins to the School which has turned out to be a sound investment as most of us in the family have made a success of our lives.

My father was a successful businessman and a well-known politician and stood for the elections for the Nairobi Legislative Council with Mr. J.M.Nazareth. My Mother was understanding, friendly and kind and she made sure we were happy and healthy.

To this day Elia Fernandes remembers Mum and how she enjoyed having my friends at our house ensuring that there was always delicious food on the table. Elia, Mildred, Adelaide, Trifonia, Lita and I became fast friends, until I left Nairobi in 1958 with Pushpa for further studies in at The Collegiate School Winterbourne, a boarding school outside Bristol.

When we arrived it had snowed heavily. Winters were harsh those days and I remembered how sunny it was when we left the Nairobi Eastleigh Airport. It was a train journey from London Paddington station to the Bristol Temple Mead station. Those days there were not many Asians settled in Bristol. The older generation were used to seeing Africans as slaves transported from Africa to Bristol; the younger generation did not see many Asians and so when we arrived at the school all the students came out to see who these two new students were. Sadly, many British students of our age group had little idea of how cultured, educated and civilised people were outside their world of Bristol.

The Collegiate School, however, was a wonderful experience and we came out with a few more O levels and A levels. I wanted to read Medicine but I was on a two-year waiting list at the Sheffield Medical School, as there was an admission quota for overseas students and Kenya was still a British Colony. Two years was a long time, and so I joined the Royal Free Hospital, London to train as a Radiotherapy and Diagnostic Radiographer.

In 1966 I met this dashing handsome student Raj doing his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics. I married Raj in 1972 and who is now a Professor in Statistics at the University of Liverpool.

We have two successful children; Sejal, a dentist who trained at Guys Hospital, London and Rahoul who, like his father, studied Economics and is working as a Senior Manager with KPMG, London in their Forensic Department.

We have lived on the Wirral since 1972. It is one of the most beautiful areas in the North West England.

I have continued working since I trained until I retired from the Nuclear Medicine Department at the Royal Liverpool Hospital in 2004. Between 1969-1972 I worked at a the Cobalt unit in Nairobi, which was a donation by the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm to the Kenyatta National Hospital for treating cancer patients. As the first Kenya-born radiotherapy radiographer, I have had the privilege of working with some of the famous oncologists from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm.

Retirement keeps me busy as ever.

I am a Soroptimist of Heswall and District and was elected their President in 2002.

For the last two years, I have been the Chair of MENSOR, the Minority Ethnic Network of the Society of Radiographers, which aims to achieve equality and diversity at the workplace for ethnic minority radiographers. I was a founding member of MENSOR and we plan to celebrate its 10th anniversary in October 2007. In March 2006, I was an invited speaker at the RASCO 2006 Conference organised by the Kenya Society of Radiographers in Mombasa and through MENSOR, the UK Society of Radiographers have established links with the Kenya Society of Radiographers.

In 2007, I was also elected a member of the TUC Race Relations Committee.

I cannot wait to meet some our Class of '57 students in Toronto and ever since I came to know about our reunion, the memories of my school days have become vivid - must be old age!!