When she was 17, Magi Sque – who then went by the name of Rosie – had the beginnings of a dream. On Saturdays she worked in the Calypso clothing boutique in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and after each shift she handed her £5 wage to her mother. She was saving for her passage to England, where she hoped to become a nurse.
But handling all those rich prints and sateen cottons “sparked an interest” for Sque, now 74.
“My family would tell you I have always said: ‘When I can, I’m going to have my own clothing brand.’” But for five decades she instead practised, studied and taught nursing, eventually becoming an emeritus professor at Wolverhampton University, all the while nudging her sartorial dreams further into the future. But as she approached her 70th birthday, she began to think: “Oh no, not another thesis to read, not another essay to correct.” And then she heard herself say: “It’s time to move on.”
She enrolled on a weekend course for startups and, in 2019, days before she turned 72, Sque launched Magi Rose – “distinctive, fun to wear, for downtime and holidays”. She flicks the pages of her sketchbook. And then she happens upon a photo of herself in Calypso all those years ago.
Sque sailed to England at 18 for an interview at Guy’s hospital, London. She was one of three passengers – she didn’t know the other two – in “a banana boat … You could see the waves above you.” In her suitcase she had a red velour hoodie she had bought at Calypso and a gold watch shaped like a beetle – a gift from her father, “a very, very good man”, who gave neighbours financial help and donated to hospitals. “You squeezed the wings to open [the watch]. He said: ‘I’m giving you this beetle so you don’t bring one home.’”
Sque qualified at Guy’s, and she did “bring home a Beatle” – a husband. “Long hair. From Liverpool. Looked like John Lennon.” After eight years, the marriage ended and Sque moved to Canada with her young daughter.
In Toronto, many of the nurses had master’s certificates. Sque admired “their knowledge and decision-making skills”. She thought: “That’s what I want.’”
Around this time, a friend gave her a copy of The Other Wise Man, the story of a fourth magus who was bringing a pouch of jewels to Bethlehem but didn’t get there because he kept stopping to help others, donating a jewel each time. Maybe because of her father’s philanthropy, the story struck a chord.
“It was a period in my life when I wanted a change,” she says. As she considered academia, she thought: “The magi were wise men. That’s a nice association.” Although she had always been known as Rosie, her parents had named her Margaret Rose, after Princess Margaret, and now she switched to Magi.
It was as Magi that she met her second husband, when he asked her for the time in the foyer of a cinema in Toronto. She clocked his English accent, they got talking and arranged to meet after their films. “I didn’t expect to see him again, but there he was, waiting for me.” When Michael’s holiday ended, he returned to England but stayed in touch; last January they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.
Sque completed a degree in nursing at Surrey University, then cast around for a subject for a PhD. At a talk on organ donation, she had “a sort of epiphany”. Maybe the idea chimed with the story of the fourth magi (“Organ donors can save the lives of up to eight people,” she says). “It was like something came down and said: ‘This is what you’ve got to do.’”
She became an expert, developing a theory of “dissonant loss” – the need for donor families to resolve the dissonance between a loved one being clinically brain dead and looking normal before they can agree to donation. Sque even addressed the House of Lords.
So is her clothing line a calling, too? She looks around her home in New Milton, Hampshire. “There is nothing material I need … The intention with Magi Rose was to get a successful business so I can be philanthropic,” she says. Her dream is to donate to hospitals in Jamaica. “But first I have to get this business up and running.”
