‘How I survived a TB ward’ – Author to recall lost era at book launch

An author will tell of her time spent in an isolation hospital at an event in York this month.

As a teenager Rita Jerram was diagnosed with tuberculosis and taken to the special hospital. She describes the experience in her latest memoir, A Shadow in my Life

Rita writes about the 14 women and girls she bonded with during her time on the open-air veranda; she also tells the stories of some of the strong-willed, valiant nurses on the frontline of this dread disease.

Her book is rare. Only a handful of memoirs exist about life in a sanatorium, in the days before, or in her case just after, the discovery of streptomycin.

A Shadow in my Life is jointly published by Stairwell Books and Fighting Cock Press and will be launched at an event at York Explore where Rita will read from the memoir.

“Rita’s memoir is an important historical account describing from personal experience the end of an era,” said Rose Drew of Stairwell Books.