Last night, in an insomniac state, I was watching an interview on BBC News 24 on a programme called Hard Talk. The subject was Claire Bertschinger who was a Red Cross nurse in Ethiopia in 1984. It was her feeding station which was visited by a BBC news crew which resulted in the Michael Buerk reports which in turn resulted in the whole Band Aid/Live Aid thing.

All this is old news, as she wrote a book about it which was published last year, but last night was the first I heard of it. There seems to be a new paperback edition coming out in June this year.

The book was obviously publicised to coincide with Live 8 but somehow it totally escaped my notice.

Ms Bertschinger came across as a very well-adjusted person, considering what she has seen throughout the years. Her descriptions of her time in Ethiopia were such that I am amazed she was able to talk about them without cracking up. She described how there would be rows and rows of children wanting admission to the feeding station – 10 rows with 100 kids in each row – but she could only had the capacity to take in about 60.

How do you make that choice? In choosing one child to feed, which would save their life, you are effectively leaving the others to die. It must take some strength of character to be able to do that and concentrate on saving the 60.

What was even more remarkable was how the Ethiopians just sat quietly and in orderly rows waiting for the Red Cross people to do their triage. If there was a shortage of just one type of food here there would be riots in the supermarket to get whatever limited stocks there might be – I can still remember the sugar shortages in the 1970s.

Throughout the whole interview Ms Bertshinger seemed to be very honest and had obviously spent a lot of time trying to come to terms with her experiences. She came out of it a lot better than I ever would. After 1984 she could not face returning to Ethiopa, quite understandably, but went off to other African countries and Afghanistan.

I don’t read many biographies, but I think I will try this one, even if it might be painful to read.