Episode 1

In her illuminating memoir, Christie Watson gives an account of her twenty year nursing career. At the heart of her intimate portrait of hospital life are the small acts of kindness and compassion that all of us will receive when we inevitably experience illness, whether it be ourselves or our loved ones.

We accompany Christie when she becomes a student nurse filled with anxiety as she cares for a teenage boy who is about to receive a new heart and lungs. We'll be there when she qualifies and takes up a post in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit where the children in her care are especially fragile. As the years progress, we'll discover how Christie's expertise develops. It's not long before she's mentoring junior nurses, responding to crash calls, and playing a pivotal role in caring for those at the end of their lives and those who are just beginning. As she nears the end of her years as a nurse the tables are turned when her father loses his fight to cancer and she receives the kindness and compassion that underpin what it means to nurse and to be nursed.

Christie Watson was a registered nurse for twenty years before becoming a full time, critically acclaimed and award winning writer. Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away won the Costa First Novel Award.

Read by Teresa Gallagher
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.