Margaret Deasy: retired occupational health worker

Everyone has a story. Former occupational health worker Margaret Deasy recalls her pet-filled early life off Essex Road in a home that “isn’t there anymore”. This interview was first published in ‘Elthorne Pride Lasting Legacy’. Interview by Nicola Baird, photos by Kimi Gill.

Margaret Deasy was brought up off Essex Road, N1 with her big brother. Her mother Kathleen, who’d grown up on a farm in Ireland, was inventive and hard-working. “She had a real business head,” says Margaret. She bought our house, rented out rooms and worked nights at the Mount Pleasant Post Office.

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“We lived at Newhall Street, N1, which was off Popham Street, off New North Road. It’s on the old Ordnance Survey maps, but it’s not there anymore as they knocked the whole street down. Now it’s all flats,” says Margaret, 72.

The same happened to their next home at Shepperton Road, which they moved to with the aid of a pram filled with belongings. “I do envy people who can go back,” she says. “It was a good place to live, like a little village with two paper shops, dairy, funeral parlour, fish and chips and hardware store.”

Her mum’s independence is impressive, but there’s a sadness for Margaret too who says, “My Dad was Irish. I think he was married so I only saw him once. My brother, William, was a war baby, he was born in 1944 and we think his Dad was an American GI, but my brother never met him. Seven years later she had me when she was 41. We took our mum’s maiden name.”

“My mum was very brave. A lot of people didn’t keep their children. My mum fell twice, worked all her life, brought us up and put us through good schools.”

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Places Margaret loves in Islington

• Camden Passage then and now: it was a cut through to my primary school St John the Evangelist at Angel. I then went to a convent grammar, Our Lady of Sion Girls’ in Eden Grove, off Holloway Road. In 1966 this amalgamated with another Catholic school in Highgate, La Sante Union, which used to be a private boarding school and is opposite Parliament Hill Fields.
• On Saturday mornings we went to the pictures on Essex Road. We used to bunk in – someone would pay and then open the back door and we’d all creep in. I do like Sadler’s Wells and loved seeing Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake.
• I still like Chapel Market. I worked in a shop, Clark’s Bakery, selling bread and cakes. Opposite was one of the two ice cream parlours, De Marco’s. My favourite was a knickerbocker glory with a cherry on top.
• I’ve just joined Archway Library’s reading group. We’re reading Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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As Margaret shares her story at Elthorne Pride’s regular Monday afternoon meet-up it’s clear she’s enjoying revisiting her childhood. “We had a menagerie of animals in Newhall Street and Shepperton Road,” she says recalling dogs and cats, a monkey, bushbaby, pet rat, chickens and even mice. “My mum would wear an apron and carry mice in her pocket! She said the animals were for us, but I think they were for her. The neighbourhood children would knock on the door to ask to take the animals out.”

With her big brother one of Margaret’s jobs was to fill the old pram with their black and white dog Lassie’s puppies and take them to Brick Lane market to find new homes. They also had two Pekinese, called Kincan and Tootsie. “My mum really loved animals and later in her life she would breed chihuahuas and Yorkshire terriers.”

Even when Kathleen died in 1976 the siblings kept pets. “My brother inherited her dogs and he let one of the chihuahuas have a litter of puppies. I was given one of those puppies, Pepper. I then let Pepper have a litter and she had four puppies,” says Margaret.

Nursing
Being surrounded by animals led Margaret to start work as a veterinary nurse before switching to nursing because it offered more training and opportunities. “I started in 1979 nursing at Whipps Cross, and after completing my general nursing training qualified in occupational health.”

During her nursing training Margaret enjoyed “secondments to a psychiatric hospital, paediatrics, obs and gynae (obstetrics and gynaecology), ENT (ear nose and throat), medical, surgical, A&E and ICU (intensive care).”

Nursing is hard physical work so when Margaret hurt her back, she realised that she couldn’t do the bed making and bed baths anymore. That’s when she switched to occupational health, later taking a job at the Local Authority with Hackney Council. Other jobs in occupational health were at Sainsbury’s in their business centre in Holborn and when she learnt to drive, the United Biscuits factory in Willesden. “I got a lot of free biscuits and there was a shop in the factory to buy biscuits,” she says which became a regular Christmas treat. It’s also where she heard a feral kitten crying near her basement office. “One of the engineers, called Dean, caught him so I called the kitten Deano, and had him for 16 years.”

Having pets has been a lifelong joy. Two of her cats, Sheba and Sami, are coming up to 15 and recently (May 2023) she adopted a Tom cat who’d been terrorising her old pair. He’s been snipped now, but is called Squirty Boy.

“I couldn’t imagine not having animals, but I do put off going on holiday,” she says – even her watch has a picture of a cat on it. As for going away, that’s been even harder since her brother died in 2022, as he did sometimes come and look after the animals until he went into sheltered accommodation at Junction Road.

“My brother was a hoarder. His flat was full of books, paintings and clothes and then became infested with cockroaches! I’d take him food but there was nowhere to sit comfortably, and he wouldn’t let me tidy, but we’d talk every day,” she says. Margaret has had to put up with intense back pain for the past couple of years following injuries during her nursing career.

“Before my brother was in hospital, I visited every day and at the same time was clearing his flat as he couldn’t go back to the sheltered accommodation. One evening I felt a pull in my back in his flat after I’d lifted some heavy items. I thought I had pulled a muscle. Then in October 2022 after a visit to my brother I fell and really hurt my back. The third time was again in his flat – I still thought I had pulled a muscle, but in December fractures were identified after an x-ray. I was then told the procedure I needed should be done within six months. When I was coming close to that deadline, there were still 150 on the waiting list, so I had to go privately. If I hadn’t had the operation in January 2023 I would have been left doubledup with a bad back. The op hasn’t been successful as I’m still unable to straighten up completely and I am in chronic pain,” she says, adding that she’s also lost two inches.

It is humbling to learn how many of the women attending this Elthorne Pride coffee club have to cope with chronic pain due to work injuries and ageing (including rheumatism, arthritis and osteoporosis). That’s when talking about Islington memories can be a happy distraction. It was also a real pleasure to find out more about Margaret’s life.

More info

• Elthorne Pride is a charitable community group which runs events, coffee afternoons, bingo, food bank and advice surgeries from Caxton House, 129 St John’s Way, N19.
• It also has an extensive after school and holiday programme for young people.  Email info@elthornepride.co.uk or see the website www.elthornepride.co.uk

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola