Every Kind of People : A Journey into the Heart of Care Work

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEKA luminous, uplifting and deeply moving memoir by a care worker, told through her funny, heartbreaking, sometimes frustrating, and always eye-opening encounters with the often overlooked and marginalised people she cares for. Kate never expected to become a home care worker. But when she left her senior role in the NHS, burnt-out and disheartened, she thought caring for people in their own homes would be a simpler job. Despite being determined not to become too involved with her ‘customers’, she soon found herself developing firm friendships, forging deep connections and bearing witness to the extraordinary drama to be found in ordinary lives. With energy, compassion and clarity, her memoir gives an astonishing insight into this unsung – and often maligned – profession, and into the hidden lives of the housebound and infirm. From Beryl who screams like a banshee whenever Kate tries to wash her, but collapses in giggles when her toes are tickled, to bawdy Mr Radbert who ‘promised to give me his car when he can remember where he left it’. Every Kind of People is clear-eyed about the challenges facing the NHS and the care system. But it is above all a celebration of humanity and of the life-changing impact of caring, on those who offer it and those who receive it. ‘Being as close as this to someone is a uniquely precious place to be. It is a place where secrets are revealed and fears are shared and outrageous jokes are made that could not be told to anyone else. It is a coal face of human experience’—‘The work of a natural storyteller … All kinds of brilliant’ JON McGREGOR‘I am in love with Kate’s storytelling, her ability to see the person and her fabulous, dry humour. This is a book about caring, and it’s also a book about being in love with humanity’ KATHRYN MANNIX’An extraordinary account of what it is to care for others, both beautiful and painful to read. This book is a compassionate invitation to get up close to the human condition and those who attend to it’ DR GWEN ADSHEAD, author of The Devil You Know’An extraordinary and important book that will make you laugh, cry, admire and despair in equal measure… A wonderful achievement’ DAVID HASLAM