A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

A luminous, uplifting and deeply moving memoir by a care worker, told through her funny, heart-breaking, sometimes frustrating, and always eye-opening encounters with the often overlooked and marginalised people she cares for.

Kate never expected to become a home care worker. But when she left her senior role in the NHS, burnt-out and disheartened, she thought caring for people in their own homes would be a simpler job. Despite being determined not to become too involved with her ‘customers’, she soon found herself developing firm friendships, forging deep connections and bearing witness to the extraordinary drama to be found in ordinary lives.

With energy, compassion and clarity, her memoir gives an astonishing insight into this unsung – and often maligned – profession, and into the hidden lives of the housebound and infirm. From Beryl who screams like a banshee whenever Kate tries to wash her, but collapses in giggles when her toes are tickled, to bawdy Mr Radbert who ‘promised to give me his car when he can remember where he left it’.

Every Kind of People is clear-eyed about the challenges facing the NHS and the care system. But it is above all a celebration of humanity and of the life-changing impact of caring, on those who offer it and those who receive it.

‘Being as close as this to someone is a uniquely precious place to be. It is a place where secrets are revealed and fears are shared and outrageous jokes are made that could not be told to anyone else. It is a coal face of human experience’