I was born in Kenya; both my parents are British and we moved back to England when I was five. I've never been back to Kenya but, needless to say, would like to one day. I grew up in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands and went to a comprehensive school there. I started sixth form but dropped out after a year and went to stack shelves for Kwik Save. It was during my brief career as a shelf stacker that I decided nursing might be the career for me. I started my nurse's training in 1987 at the then Wolverhampton School of Nursing (when I qualified it was calling itself the United Midlands College of Nursing and Midwifery). I managed to qualify just at the time that there were too many nurses! Needless to say that didn't last long and I managed to get a job at a nearby hospital (Walsall's Manor). It was at Walsall that I first worked in Intensive Care and I spent the next eight or so years doing ICU work.