They Put Me at the Back

Her life, in her own words

Born on the bank of the Cabarita River in Westmoreland, Jamaica, Rose learned early what it meant to be put at the back. She never stayed there.

A courtship carried out in letters across an ocean. A young family landing at Heathrow, and a first taste of the English cold. A first home in Old Trafford, with peanuts and butter beans growing in the back garden. Nights cleaning offices, days on a register-office front desk, then the NHS — and, years later, a university degree in social work.

They Put Me at the Back – and still I bloomed is Rose’s own story of Jamaica and Manchester, of family, loss and love, and of the stubborn hope that kept her pushing to the front.

Rose Thompson

Rose Thompson was born in 1956 in St Paul’s, Westmoreland, Jamaica. She came to England in the late 1980s, trained as an NHS nurse and went on to graduate in social work from Manchester Metropolitan University. A mother and grandmother, she has made her home in Greater Manchester for more than thirty-five years.

They Put Me at the Back – and still I bloomed is her first book, published on her birthday, 1 April 2027.