Dr Emily Joy started life as an Airforce daughter in the Outer Hebrides, then moved to Singapore and back to the UK after her father crashed his aeroplane into a water buffalo.

She went to Edinburgh University Medical School with grand plans to save lives and discover sex. Instead she discovered squash, alcohol and the travel bug. After working for two years in New Zealand, she became a GP in York and then set off for two years in Sierra Leone with Voluntary Service Overseas – just in time for the outbreak of civil war.

She now works as a family doctor in the Highlands of Scotland but has returned to Sierra Leone several times.