: Jacqui Davey
: Sweaters Without Borders A simple hobby can reach across the globe
: novum pro Verlag
: 9783990648704
: 1
: CHF 8.80
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 158
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
District Nurse Jenny is still grieving after the tragic death of her firefighter husband, Steve, in a fire 18 months ago. One evening, Jenny goes to the attic to clear out some of Steve's items and finds her late Aunt Sue's knitting bag, which she took on her overseas nursing trips, containing a child's sweater pattern and a pair of old needles. The memories of her aunt's altruism cause Jenny to purchase some wool and try knitting a small sweater herself, despite being a hopeless knitter at school, and donate this garment to a student doctor setting off to Sudan for a medical elective. At a large refugee camp clinic, young medical student Claire issues the sweater to a young injured girl, setting in motion a personal journey of charity and growth for Jenny - but where will that journey end?

CHAPTER ONE


TWENTY YEARS ON


Jenny woke up with a jolt and yawned before glancing down at her mobile phone and got a bit of a shock. “Oh no!” she gasped. “I can’t believe it’s six o’clock. No wonder I’ve a sore neck! I must have been asleep for over three hours!”

Poor Jenny’s head had been squashed against the edge of the sofa for most of the afternoon, so it was no wonder she felt uncomfortable! She also realized she’d been dreaming! It was hard to recall all the details, but part of the dream had been watching a large plane taking off from Aldergrove Airport on a nice summer day with Auntie Sue on board. Another part of it was about several small children sitting outside a small wooden dwelling, wearing little red sweaters. All of them had shining black hair and looked as if they came from a country in Asia. Jenny knew this dream reminded her of Auntie Sue going off on her volunteering trip to Vietnam as a nurse. Now, twenty years later, Jenny was a district nurse herself!

“Life was a lot simpler then.” Jenny quietly muttered. “My biggest challenges in those days were doing maths homework or trying to knit a scarf in Miss Kershaw’s craft class! Now I’ve lots of patients to treat! I needed that doze this afternoon, after two evening shifts this week!”

Jenny gave herself a long stretch then decided to go and get fed. Lunch was a long while back and a few hunger pangs were starting!

As Jenny got up from the sofa, she lifted the TV remote control from the coffee table in front of her and pressed the keypad for ITV. It was good timing as a news headline had just started on the screen:

A low-flying helicopter seemed to be circling over a young female reporter’s head as she stood in front of a barren landscape in intense heat with bony-ribbed cows and a struggling mass of people walking behind her. Many of the small, bloated-bellied children looked frightened or displayed vacant stares. There didn’t seem to be many older people in the crowd, but several young women carried babies on their backs.

Jenny caught the end of the young reporter’s speech:

“… this year’s harvest has failed, and hundreds are arriving daily at this refugee camp, walking over 100 kilometres to get emergency food aid. There’s been no rain for fifteen months and temperatures have now reached forty degrees centigrade, even in the shade. 5 million people are at risk of starvation. Hunger will steal their futures and, without support from other countries, many of these refugees will starve. This is Trish Flanagan from ITN, reporting from Juba in Sudan.”

As Trish’s voice tailed off, Jenny saw a small girl standing in the foreground of the TV screen alongs