From the author of Call the Nurse, come new tales of a London nurse working to help and heal a community on a remote Scottish island. Lively, touching, engaging reading for fans of Call the Midwife and All Creatures Great and Small.“Julia MacLeod shares unique and enchanting experiences as a nurse in rural Scotland. Her stories will ring true with every nurse—or anyone—who has ever cared for a … nurse—or anyone—who has ever cared for a family or a community, whether in Scotland or America. Call the Nurse is a delightful read.” —LeAnn Thieman, author Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul
Mary J. Macleod and her husband left the London area for an idyllic place to raise their young children in the late sixties, and they found the island of Papavray in the Scottish Hebrides. There they bought a croft house on a “small acre” of land, and Mary J. (also known as Julia) became the district nurse. At the age of eighty, she first recounted her family’s adventures in her debut, Call the Nurse, where she introduced readers to the austere beauties of the island and the hardy charm and warmth of the islanders.
The anecdotes in this new volume take us to the end of her stay on Papavray, after which the MacLeod family left for California. Once again, we meet the crofters Archie, Mary, and Fergie, and other friends. There are stories of troubles, joy, and tragedy, of children lost and found, the cow that wandered into the kitchen, a distraught young mother who strides into the icy surf with her infant child, the ghostly apparition that returns after death to reveal the will in a sewing box. There are accidents and broken bones, twisters that come in from the sea, and acts of simple courage and uncommon generosity.
Here again, a nurse’s compassion meets Gaelic fortitude in these true tales of a bygone era.
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This is about the place rather than stories about nursing. It was mildly interesting, but I wouldn’t read another in the series, if there is one.
Interesting to learn about the lives of a small community in the Scottish Highlands.
Great stories
Nurse Mary J has brought her characters to life in this book. This book is similar to James Herriot’s “All Creatures Great and Small”. If you haven’t read this series, I also recommend it. I enjoyed this book just as much as the first in the series and would definitely would buy more from this author.
I just loved this. If you’ve read James Herriot, you’ll love Ms. MacLeod’s work, too!
Great book, Many interesting stories. Easy to read and put down at the end of a story.
We live in Texas, and its 8-12 hour car ride to get across the state to visit family. We spent an entire drive taking turns reading it out loud to each other and trying, with varying degrees of success, to read the characters with a Scottish accent, lol (-made somewhat easier by the author’s phonetic character wording). It is wonderfully written and truly brings the characters and island scenery to life.
Nurse, Come You Here! is the sequel to Mary J. MacLeod’s delightful memoir, Call the Nurse. The sequel picks up right where Call the Nurse leaves off, and many of the characters will be familiar, at least to the reader who hasn’t allowed too much time to pass between reading them.
One of the primary differences is that, while the first book truly centered around MacLeod’s work as a district nurse, Nurse, Come Your Here! takes a broader perspective, with many of the chapters describing island life and happenings that don’t have a direct connection to nursing. (Of these, the story of Louis the Sheep was probably my favorite.) While the language is unchanged, the sequel also doesn’t quite capture the essence of the islands in the way MacLeod’s first memoir does, perhaps because that book is so focused on the ways and events that make the Hebrides the Hebrides.
I was admittedly surprised when, with a few chapters to go, the MacLeods packed up and moved to California. In the U.S., the nurse did not nurse, and so these chapters are devoted to her musings on life in the U.S., particularly on the West Coast, as well as similarities and differences between the Americans and the Brits. It was a startling transition for this reader and would have made for a better epilogue, I felt.
Although I preferred Call the Nurse, this second memoir is also highly readable.
(This review was originally published at: https://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2018/08/nurse-come-you-here-more-true-stories.html.)