‘I used to call it my heart job’: Meet the lollipop lady who transformed a Hackney neighbourhood

‘Love, affection and good spirit’: Local legend Donna Thorpe. Photograph: courtesy Donna Thorpe

Is it possible for one person to transform a neighbourhood into a caring community?

I never thought so until I met Donna Thorpe, the lollipop lady who helped children from several schools and nurseries cross Albion Road in Stoke Newington.

Whether she was soaking in the pouring rain, sweltering in the unbearable heat, or frozen in the ice and snow, for seven years Donna greeted the children who passed her not only with a smile and a good morning but also by name.

Donna had made it a point to learn every child’s name, even those who didn’t cross the street like my daughter. That was the names of at least 500 children.

Donna’s kindness, care and warmth was so infectious that everyone who passed her was in turn compelled to smile at and greet each other.

I believe she positively transformed our neighbourhood from individuals who coldly swept past each other into a friendly familial community.

When she was not helping children cross the street, Donna served lunch at one of the schools as a mid-day meal supervisor.

One mother even confessed to me that Donna was one of the reasons she chose the school where she sent her children.

So, it was a day of great sadness for the local community when at the end of last term on the 21 July 2022, the day before her 53rd birthday, Donna stood at the Albion Road pedestrian crossing for her last day as a lollipop lady.

The local community rallied to get her a present and, amazingly, £1400 was raised – a sign of just how much Donna meant to so many.

Donna is now making plans for the future. Photograph: Rose Stewart-Tomes

Over the summer, I caught up with Donna over a cup of tea to learn more about her, life as a lollipop lady, and why she was retiring.

“I resigned,” Donna corrected me.

It was not always easy. I remembered embracing Donna on at least two occasions over the last year when she was in tears.

The wind could knock you over. The polyester uniform was unbearably uncomfortable especially with the unforgiving heat. In the winter it was constant joint aches. However, in the end it was the stress of the crossing itself that got her.

Donna didn’t want to say, but what really upset her was that people didn’t always make it easy to keep everyone safe.

“Some were unpleasant, others in too much haste, still others screaming and shouting,” Donna told me.

The occasional aggressive behaviour that Donna described was a stark contrast to her own affection. It made it more important than ever to celebrate her as a Hackney treasure.

Donna was born and bred in Hackney. Her mother, who had come from Jamaica, gave birth to her in Mother’s Hospital, now a block of flats, in Clapton.

After a spell in Southampton, Donna returned to Hackney aged 14 to attend Stoke Newington School – then called ‘Clissold Park’ – not realising then that many years later she would help children of the same school cross Albion Road.

After several Youth Training Schemes – “That era’s apprenticeships,” Donna explained – where she learned silk screening, photography and secretarial work, Donna had various jobs.

She worked as a cleaner, in a button factory in Old Street, and at a croissant shop before she got her first job in a school kitchen.

The lollipop lady job came in 2014.

“That was my heart job,” Donna said. “I used to call it my heart job. But it became too hard. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

As we sipped our tea, our conversation veered towards the Windrush scandal in which the UK Home Office, from 2018, wrongly detained and deported so many people back to the Caribbean countries where their parents were once born, simply because they didn’t have the correct ‘papers’.

Donna said: “What people don’t understand is that those who were sent back were British. People think Britain is white, but Britain was an empire and all the people Britain colonised were British.

“They were asked to come to England to help build the country and they are entitled to stay here. You can’t just discard them when you don’t need them. People need to understand that.

“You’ve just got to do a bit of research to find out. We’ve got books, we’ve even got the internet now.

“There’s no excuse.”

Given the overwhelming silence in our national conversation about the destruction wrought by empire and colonialism, I wonder whether in fact Donna’s next job ought to be to teach history and citizenship in schools. Donna, though, says she has other plans.

As the new academic year starts and children and parents go back to school, it’s now going to be up to us Hackney citizens to carry on the love, affection and good spirit shown by the legendary lollipop lady Donna Thorpe.

Alpa Shah is Professor of Anthropology and Convenor of Research Theme on Care at International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Her book, Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas, was a finalist in the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and winner of the 2020 Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize.

For more, visit alpashah.co.uk or follow her on Twitter at @alpashah001.