Anne Watts's powerful and moving memoir of nursing in war zones, ALWAYS THE CHILDREN, is out in paperback from Simon & Schuster now. The Manchester Evening News called her book 'a tale of real courage and devotion to other people's children' and the Daily Express described it as 'intensely moving'.
See here for an interview on the BBC Wales site.
Extract from interview: 'Anne is now working on her second book about her experiences working with the world's first nations, including the Australian Aborigines and American Inuits. She also has a third, about the Middle East, in mind. "As a nurse, you really get to know people," she said. "You nurse kings and Bedouins and everybody in between, and people talk to nurses. It's a wonderful profession."'
See here too for the Independent's feature on Anne and Solina Chy, a Cambodian woman Anne first met when Solina was a young girl in a refugee camp, fleeing the Cambodian Killing Fields.
Anne has been a recent guest on Roger Phillips's BBC Radio Merseyside show and has a busy year of appearances ahead, including the Royal Congress of Nursing in Liverpool, The Charles Causley Literary Festival, and various talks at Women's Institutes and the University of the Third Age.
Unieboek published ALWAYS THE CHILDREN in Holland, and Anne is completing a second book for Simon & Schuster.
See Anne's website for photos, a map of places around the world where she has worked and more information on her and her writing.
Praise for ALWAYS THE CHILDREN
'In reading the book, I lived with Anne Watts through her experiences, full of admiration for her grit and compassion. It's the most touching testimony to the pity of war and she is such a natural story-teller.' -- Lyndall Gordon, author of LIVES LIKE LOADED GUNS: EMILY DICKINSON AND HER FAMILY'S FEUDS
'A magnificent life story. I feel humbled by Anne Watts' experiences.' -- Jennifer Worth, author of CALL THE MIDWIFE and FAREWELL TO THE EAST END
'Intensely moving' -- Daily Express
'A vivid, humbling memoir' -- Clare Richardson, Yours
'Anne Watts chose a life of dedication as a nurse, and entered deeply into the new international empire of suffering. In Vietnam, Cambodia, the Lebanon and in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm she had to deal with human wreckage at its most heart-rending…She writes at the same cool level of intensity that she must draw upon when she goes to work. Her subject matter is enough to make you believe that there is no hope for the world, but the devotion and sympathetic force she brings to dealing with it suggest that there just might be some hope yet.' -- Clive James
'Sometimes a person's life story will bring you up short and put things in perspective. This is one such book…Anne Watt's memoir has so many impressive elements, it's hard to give it the praise it, and she, deserves…her memories of that time are heart-rending and inspirational…This is a tale of real courage and devotion to other people's children; the word heroine has rarely been used so pertinently.' -- Abigail Kemp, Manchester Evening News