The hawthorn hedges are white with blossom; the countryside looks set for a wedding. Even in the small garden of my hospital, spring is inescapable. Cherry and magnolia bloom. Viburnum scents the air, young leaves come to the trees. Hospitals are where most lives begin, and where many end. Hospices shepherd only a small minority of deaths, about one in twenty, often those of the middle aged whose diseases are more predictable. Frailty is less orderly, and the fitful hazards of age bring many to the general wards where I work. More of us die in hospital than anywhere else.

In the Emergency Department I met the woman who became my wife. I recall meeting an impressive colleague who made the world feel more open, more various. She remembers meeting a man who persuaded her to order Chinese during a long shift, then, when she was summoned to a cardiac arrest, ate her crispy duck. Later our children were born in the same hospital.

When our son died he was brought to a cubicle in the Emergency Department where, as a young man, I had seen and stitched a........

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