My passion for wildlife
began early

I used to smuggle roadkill into the house despite my mother's preference for flowers.

Jane Wilson-Howarth mother, GP, author and zoologist, is an authority on travel health. She has lived in the East for long enough to be able to say diarrhoea in nine Asian languages. So far A NOVEL AND five of her NON-FICTION books have been published as well as innumerable articles.
Read more.

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• A Glimpse of Eternal Snows

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• How to Shit Around the World

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• The Essential Guide to Travel Health

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• Lemurs of the Lost World

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• Your Child Abroad: a travel health guide

reviews

• A Glimpse of Eternal Snows

  Towering snow-covered Himalayan peaks on the cover attracted my interest initially, however after a couple of chapters I was struggling to get into this book, its content focused on pregnancy, rigours of childbirth and a handicapped newborn.
  Not really my idea of a mountain adventure. The book features the Wilson-Howarth family. Jane, mother and trained paediatrician, is the author. Husband Simon works on infrastructure projects for a world aid agency. Their children are Alexander, an active pre-schooler, and newborn David, who with cleft palate and severe yet undiagnosed neurological problems, promises to turn their world upside down.
  The author struggles as intuition and professional knowledge forces her to face David's degree of impairment and uncertain future. Medical colleagues add to the worries, viewing her newborn as "an interesting case", but not talking openly or honestly about his prognosis. Chapter two passes by and I am really not attached to this story, too many hospital scenes and worrisome kids.
  The family then faces a choice. Stay and endure the best and worst of interventions modern medicine and surgery provide, or escape to a simple life in Nepal where another infrastructure project beckons, and enjoy the limited time they may have with their impaired son and brother.
  In Nepal things are looking better. We are out of the hospital ward, and the children become just part of the story as they struggle to cope in a hot and very different environment. The author leads her family in small adventures as they sample a culture steeped in superstition, prejudice, poverty and cultural divides.
  By chapter 10 I am really enjoying this book, there are no epic events - as is often the case with living in foreign cultures, it is the small things that make the interesting tales.
  The real epic, however, is played out in David's slow physical and mental progress and the couple's tortured self doubt over their non-intervention strategy to hopefully provide him with a better quality of life.
  The conclusion is in some ways surprising, beautifully expressed. It tells of how a family held true to a belief that quality of life mattered most, and how their Nepal experiences equipped them well to maintain that belief.
  In postscript notes, the author says the script started as a travel narrative but developed into a story incorporating David's birth and struggles. She has blended his story into the travel narrative beautifully.
  — NB this bloke reviewer thought this one gets better as it goes along —

  Ken Callagher - Waikato Times (NZ)

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• Your Child Abroad

  This superb, informative and easily read guide should be familiar to every family doctor and a necessary component of all practice libraries. Travel to sometimes remote places is increasingly undertaken for occupational reasons but also for family vacations. The steep rise in the number of airborne family journeys testifies to the attractions of far off places. These places are usually safe if the traveller is aware enough and properly prepared to avoid sometimes common assaults by insect vectors and other potential hazards. From extensive personal experience and with a magnificent skill at presenting necessary information on page and website in preparation of an overseas trip, the authors make an extremely clear presentation. Indeed they are to be congratulated on a major contribution to the travel literature. This handbook should ensure that experiences of travel abroad will be as safe as they are pleasurable. I am delighted that an updated e-version is planned for later in 2013.

  Prof B.W.M. McGuinness, MD

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• Your Child Abroad

  “a timely and relevant publication. It embraces the parental perspective providing sound practical information and advice… With the help of case stories, the authors create a personal tone without distraction from the key points… This book is an essential resource of every travelling parent.”

  Travel Wise: newsletter of the British Travel Health Association

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