ALWAYS THE CHILDREN
A Nurse's Story of Home and War - (Simon & Schuster)

An incredibly powerful and moving memoir. Anne grew up in a small Welsh village, but had a traveller’s heart like her Merchant Navy father – the same father who was outraged when she told him that her vocation was to be a nurse. But her mind was made up and her first posting was during the Vietnam War, for Save the Children. Her vivid descriptions sear themselves on the heart, as she confronts human cruelty, but also illustrates the courage and self-sacrifice of so many people in situations of crisis.

She is a warm and compassionate guide, through the human cost of the Vietnam conflict and the challenges of a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. She went to Southern Lebanon in the unsettled eighties to nurse in a hospital funded by Rafik Hariri, and saw the harsh realities of the Arab-Israeli conflict first hand. She experienced the absurdities of nursing in Saudi Arabia at the time of the Gulf War and encountered the horror of female circumcision on a visit to Sudan. A return trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, brings back many memories, but it is her return to her home village and confronting the truth of a painful family secret that finally brings personal healing at the book’s close.

"I was reading the last few chapters on the plane home from holiday yesterday, couldn’t put it down even while then walking through Heathrow (I was scolded by the passport control officer) and later, there were a number of concerned citizens on the Piccadilly line, nervously eyeing the alternately crying and laughing girl in the corner. ALWAYS THE CHILDREN turned out brilliantly! And I can’t wait for your second instalment."