Retired civil engineer Agnes Dalrymple earned the title ‘Iron Lady’ for her no-nonsense approach to any lack of discipline in the predominantly male-dominated workforce she headed, and particularly in the sea defence area where she fought for funding to ensure the safety of people’s lives and infrastructure.
“As a woman in a male-dominated field I had to stand my ground because the men believed they could walk over me. For example, I supervised a drainage and irrigation (D&I) project on the West Bank Demerara where the only women in the unit were myself, the secretary and the cleaner. In the field there was no woman. The men tried all kinds of things to sabotage my work. They didn’t think I’d go in the mud. In those days the hydraulics division had responsibility for both the sea defences and drainage and irrigation,” she told Stabroek Weekend.
She recalled the 1980s when rehabilitation of the D&I system in the Canals Polder was being done and she had to visit the sites to ensure the work was done according to specifications.