Dr Andrew Manson

Andrew is a young, newly qualified doctor at the start of his career in Blaenelly. When we meet him he is tired, dull and preoccupied — low after an unhappy evening with Christine and brooding on love and marriage. Yet the moment duty calls, his better nature takes over.

• Dedicated and responsible. He knows the case “would demand all his attention” and decides to remain until it is over rather than snatch sleep; he reassures the anxious grandmother that he will not run away.
• Quick-thinking and decisive. Confronted with a lifeless child and a collapsing mother at once, he does not freeze — “blindly, instinctively” he saves the mother first, then turns to the baby.
• Resourceful. He draws on the memory of an old case at the Samaritan and improvises a treatment with kettles, basins and hot and cold water when no textbook procedure is at hand. …