From Queen's Nurse to Godzone

In her third book Chris Davies Curtis looks at her life as a district nurse. From London in the 60s to New Zealand in the 70s she describes with humour and pathos the many patients she treated and the sometimes difficult situations she encountered. We meet again husband Ken and read how they met on a pony-trekking holiday, learn of their early years of marriage in London and their eventual emigration to New Zealand in 1976 with young son Roy. After a two-year working tour of New Zealand (see 'From a Feudal Isle to Aotearoa') they had fallen in love with this beautiful country. They leased off their guest house and smallholding on the tiny feudal island of Sark in the British Channel Islands (see 'So You Want to Live on Sark') and emigrated In 'From Queen's nurse to Godzone' Chris tells of visiting her patients in rough areas of London, riding a bicycle and having to boil instruments and bake dressings in the days before pre-packaged equipment. In New Zealand she exchanged her bicycle for a car and was the sole nurse on call twenty-four hours a day, in charge of patients living in an extended area of forests, orchards, vineyards, villages and seaside settlements. As in the two other books in this series, the Author has illustrated each chapter.
About the Author: Chris Davies Curtis was born in Yorkshire England, and spent her school years in Stratford-upon-Avon with her parents and elder brother David. Her father was a writer of short stories and so she grew up in a literary world, although she only started to write in earnest much later in life. She trained to be a registered nurse, meeting her future husband Ken on a pony trekking holiday. Chris spent several years as a district nurse in London after they married. Holidays were spent exploring Great Britain and then they discovered the tiny Island of Sark in the British Channel Isles. Four years after marrying, they moved to Sark to build up a guest-house and smallholding business. After about seven years, they decided to travel to New Zealand by ship, via Cape Town. They bought a Bedford van and toured everywhere for two years, taking young son Roy with them. Various jobs paid the way. At first Chris was the Matron of a small hospital in Auckland and then Ken and Chris had an unusual job of working in a Motel and driving guests around by horse and carriage. They fell in love with New Zealand, so decided to return to Sark to lease their property and emigrate back to New Zealand in 1976. Here Chris became a rural district nurse in a large country area north of Auckland for seven years. Sadly the marriage ended and Chris returned to Sark in 1984. She had re-met an old friend on Sark whose marriage had also ended and she fell very much in love with the man who was to be 'The Love of her Life, ' Peter. They lived happily together on Sark for seventeen years, spending holidays in exotic places like Kenya: Tanzania: South Africa: Tobago: Canary Islands and becoming involved with Island life. Tragically, Peter developed a brain tumour and Chris' experience as a district nurse was called upon to care for him in their re-built lovely house. He died comfortably at home and Chris stayed on for several more years, as son Roy and family were living in Sweden, and she wanted to be near. To reduce the sorrow, Chris sold her house and bought a derelict 400 year-old cottage and renovated it, doing much of the decorating and carpentry herself. In 2009 Chris packed her bags again to return to New Zealand as her son had also returned with his family. It was then she started to write about her eventful life.