Home   Abdelaziz Mohammed   Claudius Fanusie   Nicky Price   Parletta Family   Ruth Hutchinson   Sandra Grant   Sheila Peacock   Taskin Mustafa		Ruth Hutchinson Ruth Hutchinson is a street crossing patrol officer. She was born in Jamaica and came to England 44 years ago to train as a nurse. She moved to Bruce Grove in the early 1980s. "I like chatting - I never knew I liked chatting so much until I started the lollipop job. I work as a street crossing patrol officer - affectionately known as the lollipop lady. I dress in a bright yellow coat, bright yellow gloves, and a bright yellow hat with a badge on it that says Harringey Council. And I'm wearing a smile. When the children come along I take them across the road. I have a paper and pencil so that if any cars don't stop I write down their number. Sometimes they're determined to run you over - so I have to let them know who's the boss. Every morning, so many 'good morning, good morning's'. The little kids tell me their stories - the ones who don't have any breakfast, one who got a flogging last night. There's a lot of trust between me and them. England was the most awful place I have seen in my entire life. Those horrible old houses, with the smoke coming out of the chimney I thought it would be like Kingston, nice and posh with nice houses. I thought everybody had servants, and I couldn't bear the thought of having to do all the work. But down at Bruce Grove it looked like everybody was there - different cultures, different people. It looked like a place you wanted to be." Ruth tells her story about life as a lollipop lady

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