To Sark And Beyond

In 'To Sark and Beyond' Chris Davies Curtis has combined her three previous books, 'So You Want to Live on Sark,' 'From a Feudal Isle to Aotearoa,' and 'From Queen's Nurse to Godzone.' Starting dramatically with her experiences as a district nurse in London in the early 1960s, where she visits her patients by bicycle, we then move to Sark. In this tiny feudal British Channel Island, she and husband Ken open a guest house and develop a smallholding with 200 hens, goats, bees and the donkey, Pedro. They have to learn to milk: grade and sell eggs: extract honey and drive a donkey cart. As Chris is also the Island Nurse, we meet many of her patients and share in sad and happy occasions. After a tragic accident, when she nearly lost her son Roy, they decided to explore New Zealand. There are many interesting stories about experiences on the ship on the way out, and the ports of call. Arriving in Auckland Chris gets a job as Matron of a small hospital for a while, and the three Davies then bought a Bedford van and toured 'Godzone' for two years. When they ran out of money, they worked in a motel in the South Island of New Zealand, driving guests to picnics by horse and carriage. They fell in love with this beautiful country and emigrated in 1976. The final part of this entertaining book describes Chris' experiences as a District Nurse in a large rural area, just north of Auckland where she was the only nurse and was on 24hour call.The whole book is full of illustrations drawn by the author, and many black and white photographs. People have said 'I just had to read to the end: I couldn't put them down.' Now everything is under one cover and in chronological order with a few additions.