I send to members of the RBNA Association my warmest greetings and best wishes for health and achievement in the year ahead. I am conscious of the honour you have done in electing me as your President. I hope I can justify you confidence.

You represent one of the world's great professions. Nursing is basic to the physical, mental and emotional well-being of patients. It represents the ideal of service, the highest ideal of all, as well as the difficult art of harmonious human relations. A smile, an encouraging word, can have a profound effect on recovery, alongside the technical, material skills. demanded day in, day out.

It is right that the work of nurses should be acknowledged and respected not only in their active careers but also when those years of service have ended.

May members of the Association enjoy peace of mind and body in the year ahead, despite the world of stress that surrounds them, a world that so needs and so lacks those fine qualities that makes nursing a calling of such vital and enduring significance.

Aubrey Rose

The autobiography of Aubrey Rose `The Rainbow Never Ends' is obtainable on request at a cost of £9.99 plus postage and packing from Lennard Publishing. Windmill cottage, Mackerye End, Harpenden, Herts AL5 5DR.