Katherine

Because the company I worked with had a Health Board contract I was always picking up medical staff  from the local hospitals.

One of my favourite customers was black South African nurse called Katherine.

She was quite a big lass with a brilliant bubbly personality, always happy and full of the joys of life.

I always got my Sunday name from her and it was usually "Good  morning Michael and how are you today?" in that great precise Afrikkan accent.

The only thing that hacked her off was some of her nursing colleagues.

She could never understand why young women in Scotland could come to their work and openly boast about how drunk they were the previous night or how they could (and this was a major Katherine gripe) smoke in public.

"Girls in my home town would be disgraced if they behaved in such a way" she would say.

Made me think of a mate of mine who taught briefly in Botswana and he would say that if a kid misbehaved in school the whole family would turn up and apologise to the teacher.

Loads of problems in Africa these days but with people like Katherine there is a great deal of hope.

Sheesh this is heavy stuff. Next post will be a good old taxi tale.