From extremely poor beginnings Shirley Phillips worked her way up to the highest levels of the nursing profession. As the daughter of a coal miner in the valleys of South Wales, the hardships she endured as a child could have easily destroyed her spirit, but instead her experiences formed her and fed her desire to care, to do good work, and to see good work done. The patients, public and staff she encounters as she progresses from pupil nurse to teacher of nurses all help to develop her as a person and a professional. As she begins her training relatively late in life she finds echoes of her childhood in her working day. Looking back on her journey through life, the happy and the sad times and the characters she meets all add a richness to the story of a full life lived in the caring profession.