This category is dedicated to our dearly beloved Rose Thompson – wife, mother, champion for Black healthcare equality, and Director of B’Me Against Cancer– who passed away on June 14th, 2023.
Our dearly beloved Rose Thompson – wife, mother, champion for Black healthcare equality, and Director of B’Me Against Cancer– passed away on June 14th, 2023. A funeral service for family and close friends was held on the 14th of July.
Rose cared for her community and was much loved in return. Therefore, we will celebrate her life and legacy, which will be open to all on Saturday 14th October at 2:30 PM at the Albert Hall, North Circus Street, Nottingham, NG1 5AA.
This event is for us to come together, celebrate a well-lived life, and support the incredible legacy of care and support she fostered with her charity, B’Me Against Cancer. Featuring a range of tributes from Rose’s close family, friends, and colleagues, as well as special announcements regarding how B’Me Against Cancer plans to carry on Rose’s immense legacy, we invite you to join us for this special and long-awaited occasion, all in honour of Rose Thompson.
All ticket donations made for this event will go towards continuing the important work of Rose's beloved charity, B'Me Against Cancer.
Register here on Eventbrite (recommended ticket donation: £5)
Rose Thompson was a therapeutic radiographer in London and the Midlands for 26 years, founder of the CIC Social enterprise BME Cancer Communities, and founder/CEO of the charity B'Me Against Cancer.
Rose was a multi-award-winning campaigner, whose vision was to contribute to ending, or at least reducing, cancer health inequalities. She was the author of two BME prostate cancer reports launched in the House of Commons and was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from Nottingham Trent University in 2017.
Her career in cancer services began in 1977 at Westminster Hospital's radiotherapy department in central London, having qualified at the Nottingham School of Radiography the year before, three months after losing her mother to advanced breast cancer. Her twin and another younger sister also died of breast cancer and Rose herself was a two times survivor of the condition.
From 2003 to 2007, Rose was the Black and Minority Ethnic Cancer Information Specialist at Europe’s leading cancer information charity Cancerbackup, since merged with Macmillan Cancer Support.
She was honoured by Nottingham City Council with a Goose Fair Award for "the city's best," in recognition of the numerous cancer-focused community initiatives she had led throughout her career.
Alison Hewitt, friend, and radiographer remembers Rose.
"I first met Rose in 2008 at a women's event in London organised by 'Different Women' and when she mentioned during her talk that she was a radiographer, I made a beeline for her after the event finished. We found that we had a lot in common including mutual friends in Nottingham, radiology, Jamaican heritage, and academic networking. She shared with me her campaign to reduce the breast screening age to below 50 and I received my first letter aged 47!
My son and I attended her 60th birthday party and when he lost a toy there, Rose replaced it with some gifts from Hamleys. I kept encouraging her to write a book about her life. She's gone now because her work is done but she has passed on several batons to women, cancer patients and campaigners, Jamaicans and her close-knit family members and friends. I will miss her dearly."