Gulzar Waljee

Gulzar Shivji

1959–64, 1967–present

Gulzar Waljee was born in the port town of Tanga, Tanganyika (now known as Tanzania) in 1940. Her father migrated from the Kutch district of Gujarat to East Africa in 1890. He was one of several thousand labourers from British India who migrated to construct railways between Uganda and Kenya, with the promise of employment and land. Gulzar was one of twelve children.

In 1959, aged 19, Waljee migrated to Guildford as part of a British Council scheme to recruit nurses and midwives internationally to work for the NHS. Her recruitment, as well as the recruitment of another nurse who was also expected to train in Guildford, made headlines in Tanga. She received her initial training at Royal Surrey County Hospital which was organized by the Guildford School of Nursing, where she worked for three years under the guidance of a South African matron. At the hospital, she met Stella, a Jamaican nurse who may have been the only other overseas nurse at Royal Surrey County Hospital. Despite her limited English, Waljee successfully passed her exams in 1962. She often spent her spare time travelling across Surrey and took up ballroom dancing; it was through this hobby that she met her husband in 1967.

By 1963 Waljee was a State Registered Nurse, having received training in midwifery at North Middlesex Hospital and St Mary’s Hospital in Croydon. After a short period in East Africa, where she worked as a nurse in Nairobi, Kenya, Waljee returned to Britain and moved to Cambridge with her husband. Prejudicial renting practices, which discriminated against South Asian tenants, meant it was difficult for Waljee and her husband to find a home. After much searching, the couple were given a flat by Mr and Mrs Lee, who supported Waljee and her husband as they settled in Cambridge.

Waljee had a thirty-year career in midwifery and nursing. She was also Secretary of the NHS Fellowship Social Club for eight years. Whilst Waljee was the first in her family to settle in Britain, seven of her siblings soon followed. Five of her sisters and her brother undertook nursing training in the UK, whilst another brother became a pharmacist.

Waljee is the mother of Yasmin Waljee, OBE, an international human rights lawyer based in London.