Life is now full of aides, cooks, butler, security

Her Excellency, Dr Jean Richards, our new First Lady is settling down to the very great change that has entered her life. She still continues her practice at the Mount Hope Maternity Hospital, but is trying her best to adjust to the security that now accompanies her everywhere and to the staff of aides, cook, butler, driver that now surround her.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe I would be in this position,” she said during an interview last week at the family home in Maracas Valley where President Max Richards and herself are still living while adjustments are made to the official President’s House. Dr Jean, as she is fondly known, was born on August 18, 1935, at Cipero Street, San Fernando. The fifth child of the late Amjad and Lena Ramjohn’s nine children, she refers to herself as being in the middle of four sisters and four brothers. “There were two girls and two boys, then me and then two more of each.”

She has been told that former President Noor Hassanali, her first cousin, was also born in their grandparents’ Cipero Street house. Her father and Noor Hassanali’s mother were brother and sister. Her early education started at Grant Memorial and continued at the San Fernando Govern-ment where she won one of the few exhibitions offered at that time. She went to Naparima Girls’ High School, where she obtained a Grade One Senior Cambridge School Certificate. That was her passport to Naparima College (the boys’ school) to complete the Cambridge Higher School Certificate exam or A levels as it is called today: “The girls’ school did not offer that exam, and I had to do Modern Studies as there was no science.”

Amjad Ramjohn had often told his young daughter that he would like her to be a doctor, but realising that this would mean she would have to be away from home for a long time, he changed his mind and suggested that she do Arts. However, Jean’s mind was made up that she would be a doctor. She taught at Naparima Girls’ for over two years and then left for the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, to study medicine. Having qualified, she worked there for a short while, and on her return to Trinidad worked as a House Officer at San Fernando General Hospital, where she did a bit of everything — surgery, gynae/obstetrics, casualty. At the end of 1967, while spending a holiday in Mayaro, the young doctor met Max Richards who was then a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. They were married on March 22, 1968.  “Actually,” says Her Excellency, “we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary five days after the inauguration and it was a nice present.”

When their first child, Mark, was born, Dr Richards made up her mind that she would never be a general practitioner. “I am in labour locked in my office, and patients are waiting to give me their problems and complaining because I was not available.” One year later on November 20, 1969, daughter Maxine was born. And in 1970 Dr Richards moved into anaesthetics. The family had to make some compromises with their careers. “My husband came to live in San Fernando where I was practising and travelled up and down until the children were ready for the University (primary) School.” The roles were then reversed and Dr Richards was travelling from St Augustine to San Fernando. “It was time consuming but Max was very good with getting the children to school and could even dress them whenever I needed to overnight in San Fernando.” As she travelled up and down to San Fernando she would often wondered where her medical practice would take her. “What would I do eventually? Miraculously, in 1980, the Maternity Complex was going up at Mount Hope, long before the Eric Williams Complex was built, I applied and was the first and only anaesthesist appointed to the Maternity Theatre.”

Dr Richards retired in August 1995. By September she returned, on contract, to the Regional Health Authority, and remains Registrar in Anaesthetics in the Maternity Block. “I like what I do and that is why I do not want to give it up. I am still full time and was on call on the holiday last Monday.” As First Lady, she plans trying to balance things with the hope that it will work, but will be prepared to compromise. Motherhood is obviously the number one priority in the doctor’s life. She speaks with a quiet pride of son, Mark, now specialising in her field of anaesthetics at Warrington, Manchester, with just one exam to go. And smiled as she reminisced that on his return from studying at Mona Campus “he opted to practise at the Sangre Grande Hospital.” Daughter, Maxine, has a degree in geography “with a bit of geology” from Mona Campus as well, and an MBA, and runs her own business, Trends Limited, a market research company. Their Excellencies have not yet moved to St Ann’s. And when they do, will first live in the ‘Big’ House for about three to four months while the Cottage is being upgraded. And then in the Cottage for the two year period needed to repair and refurbish The President’s House. Did she ever visualise herself as First Lady, in residence at The President’s House? “Not in my wildest dreams, the closest I ever came to being in that house was our relationship with President and Mrs Hassanali who lived there.”

In her Maracas Valley home now are all the staff that come with being President of this country: cook, butler, aides, and security. This is the one thing that Her Excellency is taking sometime to adjust to: “All the security and attention, and my own aide. I wish it could be lessened but don’t think it is possible. From the appointment on February 14 to inauguration on March 17, I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, now they drive me to work and security stays at Mt Hope. I cannot leave my house now without security. Today all I wanted to do was to get a gift for a friend at the Grand Bazaar, I had to have an entire security detail. It is getting into my private life but I suppose it comes with the territory.” Another thing which comes with the territory is entertaining. But with this Her Excellency has no problem as that has been a part of her life with a husband who was Principal and Pro Vice Chancellor of the St Augustine Campus. And she added quickly: “I have already warned Maxine that I will need her to help me, and she has promised to move in with us. She copes quite easily with anything.”

One of the loves of her life was cooking for her husband: “In fact he never wanted anybody else to cook but me. And I love cooking, trying different recipes. The only food which has eluded me is Chinese because there are so many good restaurants around and we have a good friend who cooks chinese food very well. But all the others I can do.” Her other loves are reading, the garden — especially tending the orchids inherited from her mother who died in 1982 — the two dogs, 12-year-old Chico and two-year-old Xena, are treated with tender, loving care. Tennis was her sport but had to be stopped after knee replacement in 1986, the result of an accident while playing mas that year, but she still walks for half an hour on mornings with her husband.