Nadia Shepherd Todadiversity News Spring Edition 2013 - Issue: 3
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Todadiversity news SPRING EDITION 2013 £2.00 MARY SEACOLE HEROINE OF THE CRIMEAN WAR LOVE SAX & ALL THAT JAZZ RG1 SHORT FILM HEALTH WATCH READING EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Nadia Shepherd Todadiversity news Spring Edition 2013 - Issue: 3 Publisher: Contents Keith Seville Associate Editor: Shirley Anstis Features Editor: Mehrunissa Khan Graphic Designer: Jovana Perzic Design Consultant: Raj KC Contributor: Ayshea Newsam Callius Samuel Marketing Assistant: O’shane Clarke Admin Assistant: Shanice Medford 6 Mary Seacole 28 Fashion with Damson Belle Photographers: Heroine of the Crimean War Interview with Denise Sanderson- Stathis Tsolis Estcourt Alex Sunshine Creations 8 Berkshire Community Foundation Photo Smarty Think Local - Give Local 32 RG1 Short Film Rico Patel Interview with the producer 9 Children 1st West Berkshire Illustrator: The Forgotten 36 Mish Da Fyah Sis Mark Chandler Lyrical Lady 10 ABC to read Today Magazine Berkshire House Assisting Berkshire Children to Read 40 Love Sax and All That Jazz 252 - 256 Kings Road Comedy Drama on Relationships Reading, Berkshire, 12 CIRWC RG1 4HP A Listening Ear and A Helping Hand 42 Education & Black Boys Performance well below others Tel: +44 (0) 870 414 5252 13 Vox Pop Fax: +44 (0) 870 414 5353 Young peoples’ views on Universities 45 Eddy’s Ventures [email protected] Celebrating with Tasty Cuisine www.todaymag.co.uk 14 Amirah Foundation Today Magazine is owned and Give Change to Make Change 46 Trinidad Carnival 2013 published by Today Publishing Limited. Revelling with Today Magazine Views expressed in Today Magazine 16 Berkshire Women’s Aid are those of their respective authors A Place of Refuge 48 The Tipping Point and do not necessarily in any way reflect those of Today Publishing Book Review Limited. The publishers cannot accept 18 Nadia Shepherd legal responsibility for any errors or Today Magazine’s Exclusive Interview 50 Stroke omissions, nor can they accept Recognising the Signs responsibility for the standing of advertisers or editorial contributions. 22 Mel Stevens All prices and credits are accurate at Overcoming 51 Health time of going to press but are subject Life’s Watch Reading to change. Reproduction in whole Challenges Formally or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. Today Publishing Reading Link Limited cannot be held responsible 24 Against All for any unsolicited material. Odds 52 Samina © Copyright 2012 Today Publishing Breaking Driving Limited. All Rights Reserved. Printed by the Javelin Partnership Limited on Down School paper from a managed sustainable source Barriers Safety First using vegetable soya based inks. www.thejavelinpartnership.com Today Magazine 3 Our previous edition covered various social events and community organisations as pictured below. Welcome to Todadiversity news Shirley Anstis, associate editor Welcome to the spring edition of Today Magazine. Front cover - Autumn Edition It’s been a very cold wet winter and now we are through to longer, brighter and warmer days. We have a wonderful range of interviews and features with interesting and influential people in the local area. These role models are all learning and developing their skills and talents for the benefit of our community. We meet Mel Stevens who through a horrendous and rare medical occurrence broke her back whist giving birth. This devastating experience has not floored her. Instead, she has found a strength and support to reorganise her life and discover different ways of coping. Along the way she has worked with her local authority to change the way that they support new parents with physical and emotional challenges. Our contributor Ayshea Newsam interviewed our cover star Nadia Shepherd. Nadia shares her career in the music business and the joys she’s experienced so far. She also has ambitions to manage groups and try new things such as presenting and acting. We also cover fashion with Damson Belle, theatre with Love Sax and All That Jazz Front cover - Launch Edition and film making with Mark Straker. These very talented individuals share their latest projects with us. Alongside this we celebrate the fantastic Trinidad Carnival 2013 with its colour and vibrancy. Follow Us: In this time of great need we profile local charities that are making a difference in the lives of others. CIRWC offers a place of respite and support to all women. Berkshire Women’s Aid and Amirah Foundation give advice and support to women (and men) who are experiencing domestic violence. http://www.facebook.com/todaymag We hope these articles inspire and encourage you. We are always happy to receive your comments and feedback, so do get in touch via email [email protected]. Enjoy! http://www.twitter.com/Today_Magazine Shirley Anstis MA, B.Sc, MBACP Today Magazine 5 Mary Seacole was turned away by benefit festival at the Royal Surrey History History everybody including one of Florence Gardens, Kennington, to raise money Nightingale’s assistants. Was it possible, for Mary. There were over 1,000 Jamaican Nurse she asked herself, “that American performers, her name was ‘shouted prejudices against colour had taken by a thousand voices’. In 1857 Mary root here? Did these ladies shrink from published her Autobiography; an accepting my aid because my blood outstandingly vivid piece of writing flowed beneath a somewhat duskier skin called ‘The Wonderful Adventures of than theirs?” In her disappointment, Mrs Seacole in Many Lands’ which was Mary cried in the street. prefaced by WH Russell: “I trust that Mary Seacole A distant relative called Day, was England will not forget one who nursed going to Balaclava on business, and her sick, who sought out her wounded they agreed to launch a firm called to aid and succour them and who - Heroine of the Crimean War - Seacole & Day, which would be a performed the last offices for some of general store and hotel near the British her illustrious dead”. Mary Seacole was a nurse and a carer who served in the Crimean war in the 1850’s. camp in the Crimea. At the age of 50, England, of course, did forget Mary Her adventures took her far from home, the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean. with her large stock of medicines, Seacole. She was awarded a Crimean She met members of the British Royal Family and was cheered by thousands of people in London. Mary went to the battle zone as a medal, a bust was made of her by sutler (a person who follows the army Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Mary Seacole’s reputation Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Mary was widely praised for her and sells provisions to the troops). sculptor and nephew of Queen Victoria. after the Crimean War (1853-1856) Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a work in treating cholera and returned The moment she arrived in Balaclava, The last 25 years of her life were spent rivalled Florence Nightingale’s. Scottish soldier, and her mother a to Jamaica in 1853, where there was she immediately tended the sick and in obscurity. Mary Seacole died on 14th Unlike Nightingale, Seacole also had practitioner of traditional Jamaican a yellow fever epidemic. The medical wounded soldiers. Mary opened a May 1881. the challenge to have her skills put medicine, who had a boarding house authorities came to her to provide British Hotel in the summer of 1855, Photos: Illustrations of Mary Seacole and cover of her Autobiography to proper use in spite of her being where she cared for invalid soldiers nurses to care for sick soldiers. Mary near the besieged city of Sevastopol. Black. A born healer and a woman of and their wives. Mary learned about returned to London where she heard Soon the entire British army knew of driving energy, she overcame official medicine from her mother, soon gaining about the Crimean War and how the ‘Mother Seacole’. The soldiers became indifference and prejudice. Seacole her own reputation as a ‘skilful nurse nursing system there had collapsed. She her sons and she their mother. got herself out to the war by her own and doctress’. made applications to the War Office, Some of the army doctors - despite efforts and at her own expense; risked Mary travelled widely, she had two the Army Medical Department, and the her saving them a lot of work - regarded her life to bring comfort to the wounded trips to Britain. In 1851 she joined her Secretary of War, to be allowed to go her as a ‘quack’, others were less and dying soldiers; and became the brother, Edward, in Panama where she to the Crimea and tend to the sick and bigoted. The Assistant Surgeon of first Black woman to make her mark opened a hotel. Soon, Seacole saved wounded. She pointed out her extensive the 90th Light Infantry watched with on British public life. While Florence her first cholera patient and gained experience, excellent references and admiration, how she would administer Nightingale has gone down in history as extensive knowledge of the pathology that she knew many of the soldiers and to the soldiers, giving them tea and a legend, Mary Seacole was relegated of this disease - which she herself regiments, having nursed them while food and words of comfort, whilst being to obscurity until recently. contracted and recovered from. they were stationed in Jamaica. numb and cold herself. She was often on the front line and frequently under fire. It was W.H. Russell - the first modern war correspondent - who made Mary Seacole famous. He described her as ‘a warm and successful physician, who doctors and cures all manner of men with extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near the battle field to aid the wounded, and has earned many a poor fellow’s blessings’. Mary Seacole was the first woman to enter Sevastopol when it fell.