Nurse Kitty

It's May 1945, and at 3:00 p.m., Nurse Kitty Longthorne listens, together with the other surgical staff at South Manchester's Park Hospital, to Winston Churchill's broadcast on the radio. Germany has signed a declaration of complete surrender. The war is over in Europe, and that day is to be celebrated as VE Day. The mood in Park Hospital - still full of wounded American soldiers - is jubilant and hopeful, though Kitty is anything but.

It's 1949, and Nurse Kitty Longthorne is still hard at work at Manchester's Park Hospital. The one-year-old NHS is inundated by the nation's sick and dying, made worse by a crippling labour shortage. Now engaged, Kitty and James adore each other, but once they marry, she will be expected to leave the job that means so much to her. When she is offered the trip of a lifetime - a voyage by sea to Barbados to recruit nurses to join Park Hospital's ranks - adventurous Kitty is desperate to go.

It is 1950 and Kitty Longthorne is now a Sister at Manchester's Park Hospital, and as busy as ever. With dizzying numbers of children with polio being admitted to the children's ward, a sharp uptick of major trauma from road accidents and growing political and racial conflict affecting her patients and staff, there's no shortage of drama at the hospital. But Kitty is determined that everyone is treated with respect.