I first met Rose when I started at St Mary’s as a senior registrar in July 1983. She worked in a draughty, galvanised green hut, no doubt full of asbestos, whilst the rest of us were in a brick built house formerly the delousing unit. Still, an improvement from the multiple caravans of before. In those days, there could be an interval after lunch before the huge numbers of trays of slides came out for reporting. On fine days you might see Rose on her knees with bottom in the air as she gardened outside her office. She seemed quiet only later, did I enjoy the sense of humour and twinkle in her eye that was always there.

She will be greatly missed by John Burston, my predecessor who remembers her especially for her tremendous generosity of spirit and kindness. I am sure that she wrote a humorous poem for him that included reference to “the Piskies” on his retirement and move to Cornwall.

In due course, I returned to St Marys. Rose and I worked together providing the service at St Mary’s for the period that the department was split in two. During this time, my father had a stroke and died about 10 weeks later. Work was very busy but the support and kindness that Rose gave me was tremendous and I remain hugely grateful today.
She worked hard, could be determined and like all of us occasionally grumpy. Who isn’t? She was good to work for and with. She introduced the first PC into the department, possibly in 1986, encouraging all of us to use it and opened my eyes to the possibilities.

What else?
She enjoyed her BMW but when it came time to renew the tyres, the car had to be replaced.

I only knew of her travels to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. These included Albania, Yugoslavia and Jordan but within a few weeks after Rose and Keith’s return there was always an uprising, revolution, coup d’etat and we wondered if tourist travel was all that they were involved in.

Rose worked hard with others such as the hospital clergy to enable parents to grieve for their miscarriage. I believe it remains the case that if you lose a baby before 24 weeks, there is no legal requirement to have a burial or cremation and no legal certificate is provided. In the 1980’s hospitals disposed of the remains as clinical waste. Rose was determined to enable parents to have a burial or cremation and a means of remembering their loss. She succeeded, but many hospitals still remain unable to provide such a service.