Connie Mark

Constance Winifred McDonald (1923 -2007) was a Jamaican-born soldier and campaigner. Born on 21 December in Rollington Town, Kingston, Jamaica, to Mary Rosannah (née Fyfe), she had Jamaican, Scottish, Lebanese and Indian ancestry. Despite their mixed heritage, Connie and her parents considered themselves British, given that Jamaica was a British colony at the time. Connie was raised in Kingston and attended Wolmer's Girls' School.

She developed a great bookkeeping expertise and consequently in 1943, she was recruited to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). She served as a medical secretary, where her job was to type up horrifying details of battle injuries. She described it as a difficult job where one had to be on call 24 hours a day. She remembered: “Having to type the medical reports really brought home what war was to me – I was 21; I was still in my formative years.”

The women in the ATS didn’t have to live in barracks, so Connie remained at home. However, she was still required to march every day before doing her duties.

Upon completing six months of service, she was promoted to lance corporal and applied for her additional pay as provided for in the British Army regulations. The War Office turned down her request, stating that ATS soldiers were not entitled to the increase. Six months later, McDonald was promoted to full corporal and her pay increase was again denied. McDonald viewed the policy as racist, feeling that as she was in a British regiment of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) she ought to be treated like all other such personnel. She protested: "We were British! England was our mother country. We were brought up to respect the royal family." Like many British subjects across the colonies, Connie willingly fought for king and country, but she was given nothing in return.  but never received, what she considered the king owed her as back pay.

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Connie remembered the day the war ended as a great relief. “VE Day was marvellous, everybody was happy, ‘cause as far as we were concerned, the war was finished. Everybody was happy. Everybody just jumped up and down; the war was over, and it meant that no more of our people would be killed. We had parties, and everybody took it as an excuse to have a party, a drink up and get stone-blind drunk. I didn’t use to drink those days; I just went to all the parties that there were.”

When the war ended, Connie’s commanding officer nominated her for the British Empire Medal, but her recognition was denied. She believed the denial was because she had refused to clean British officer personnel's private quarters – something which was not in her job description (and would most likely not have been asked of her white counterparts). In 1949, when the ATS was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps she signed up for further service. In 1952, she married Jamaican fast bowler Stanley Goodridge, and they subsequently had a daughter, Amru Elizabeth. Soon after their marriage, Stanley won a contract to play cricket in Durham and moved to England. After completing a decade of service, Connie joined her husband with their daughter in England, where she gave birth to their second child, Stanley, in 1957.

Upon settling in Britain, Connie returned to work as a medical secretary. She also became involved in charities, community service, and educational projects (and would remain so for the rest of her life). Eventually, she and Goodridge divorced, and she married her second husband Michael Mark. She joined the West Indian ex-Servicemen's Association and pressed for them to add women to the title of the organisation, continuing her fight for the recognition of women's contributions to the war effort.

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In 1980, Mark founded an organisation called the Friends of Mary Seacole, which was later renamed the Mary Seacole Memorial Association. In 1989, when preparations were being made to celebrate the contribution of servicemen and women on the fiftieth anniversary of the war's outbreak, Mark began lobbying for the inclusion of West Indians and women. In an interview conducted by Jacqui Harper for the BBC programme Hear-Say, Mark expressed her frustration that the service of Black Britons was ignored and not taught widely to new generations (not much has changed has it?). She applied for a grant from the Greater London Arts Council and put together an exhibition of photographs that she was able to collect from service personnel and the archives of the Imperial War Museum for the anniversary celebration. In 1992, Mark finally received her British Empire Medal for her meritorious service during the war.

In 1993, Mark was notified that the British Government had created a bursary fund honouring Seacole to grant £25,000 annually for nursing leadership studies. Mark continued her activism, participating annually in the Remembrance Day parade until she became too frail to do so.

She was also well-known and respected for her poetry and participation in storytelling events to champion Caribbean culture (although I couldn’t find a single quote from her poetry – if anyone knows where I could find it please let me know!). In 2001, she was honoured as a member of the Order of the British Empire.

Mark died in London on 3 June 2007 following a stroke. Her life serves as a reminder of the countless soldiers of colour from across the empire who served, fought, and died for a country that continues to ignore their efforts and discredit their loyalty. We couldn’t even pay them what they had rightfully earned. It’s called a “world war” for a reason – and yet in my history classes I was taught only about one group of white European men fighting another.