Local fitness instructor and holistic therapist, Nadia Smith has written a very personal account of having two hip replacements. The story of her agonising search out find out why she developed osteoarthritis in both hips and ended up with two hip replacements is told in ‘How Did I Get These?’

Nadia has lived on The Doward, Ross-on-Wye since 1988. At that time she was full-time carer, mum and therapist for her son, Ashley, who has Cerebral Palsy. From the age of nine until he was 21, Nadia organised 84 volunteers, called Ashley’s Army, to help with his therapy programme. Ashley brought together a large community of people who were also involved in fundraising to give him the chance to try out different forms of therapy to help improve his quality of life, which happened.

All the time Nadia worked as a fitness instructor at night and developed her own complementary therapy, ‘True To Our Roots Qi Gong’. Nadia has been a Holistic Practitioner for the last 25 years and practises from her clinic on the Doward.

She has known radio presenter Janey Lee Grace, from BBC Radio 2, for a few years, and asked her for advice on how to promote her Holistic System, and herself as a Holistic Therapist. She recommended that Nadia wrote a book, which she has.

Nadia will be selling her book at the launch on Saturday, October 7th at the Shire Hall, Monmouth, between 11am and 2pm. The book can be bought from Amazon and it is also available in digital formats. It is still in the process of being registered in English bookshops, through Nielsen, as the book was published by Balboa Press in the US.See the full story in this week’s edition of the Ross Gazette, or subscribe to our online edition here