Nurse Kitty’s Secret War

Maggie Campbell 

ESCAPE into a drama-packed saga based on the pioneering doctors and nurses who worked at England’s first ever NHS hospital… the Trafford General in Greater Manchester.

Maggie Campbell – who grew up in Manchester at a time when the city was still on its knees after the Second World War, and can just about remember the end of rationing – retrained as a midwife after decades working as a seamstress in factories. The Trafford General, originally called the Park Hospital, was opened in 1948 by Aneurin Bevan but during the latter years of the war, the hospital was transferred to the US Army, becoming the 10th US Station Hospital and treating service personnel from across the world.

Nurse Kitty’s Secret War – an uplifting and emotional story inspired by the hospital’s real history – stars a feisty young nurse determined to protect her patients in the first months after the end of the war. It’s May 1945 and at 3pm, nurse Kitty Longthorne and the other surgical staff at South Manchester’s Park Hospital, listen to Winston Churchill’s broadcast on the radio announcing that Germany has signed a declaration of complete surrender. The war is over in Europe and the day of victory is to be celebrated as VE-Day.

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The mood in Park Hospital – still full of wounded American soldiers – is jubilant and hopeful, although Kitty is anything but. Her secret boyfriend and the man she hopes to marry, handsome young surgeon Dr James Williams, has been giving her the cold shoulder for the past week, and she can’t work out why.

Kitty knows James is busy campaigning for the future of Park Hospital but he’s also working closely with Nurse Violet Jones, Kitty’s friend and colleague, whose privileged background is

closer to James’s than Kitty’s tough upbringing in Hulme. A further worry for Kitty is that her beloved twin brother, Ned, who was reported missing in action, has now been identified as a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp.

Caring for the patients brings untold challenges for Kitty, and with a troublesome family that continually throws yet more obstacles in her way, is her career a mountain she may never be able to climb and will she have the strength to find her own happy ending?

Nurse Kitty’s Secret War is a reminder of the discrimination and inequalities of the health service in those early days, but also a celebration of the wonderful care and dedication of the hardworking and pioneering nurses. Brimming with romance, heartache and drama, and with an appealing cast of characters, including an inspirational fierce but fair matron, this is a delightful winter-warmer.
(Trapeze, paperback, £6.99)