CHRISTIE Watson guided an avid audience through an insight into her new book about nursing, compassion and kindness.

The Language of Kindness is about the intricacies of the nursing profession and the stories of Christie’s time as a nurse for the past 20 years.

Now, her third book tells of her personal trials on the wards where she was mainly based in a paediatric children’s ward. The award-winning author said: “We are all nurses at some point in our lives.”

She described times when she helped patients, especially the elderly in contrast to youngsters.

Christie said: “Babies run at life but patients who are elderly show deterioration for 24 hours before dying. This tells us about the precious nature of life.”

She added memories of her time nursing: “I had a patient where I held her hand, gave her a cup of tea – she said I had saved her life. Most of my learning has come from patients, making someone who is alone feel less alone. The heart of nursing is sitting with patients and making them feel better – you have to listen to people’s stories to give them the best care.”

The book includes Christie’s trials as she nurses a premature baby, a heart-lung transplant patient and a tragic child fire fatality, to name a few.

Christie gave up nursing two years ago to focus full time on writing. She describes her time in the profession in the book, and at the event she discussed the internal struggle between nursing and the writer she always felt was deep within her.

She said: “I have always been different and eccentric. I have always read which has led me to writing to find meaning to why we are here.”

Within the book she pays tribute to her late father from his own words about love and how it is the most important emotion within life. She described when her father was dying the nurse that was looking after him was fulfilling the same job she had been doing to help reassure the family.

She said: “The nurse who helped my father went out of her way to make us feel comforted as a family and focused on the heart of nursing.” She added: “We need to be role models for other people – tiny small actions make a big difference.”