Fallout from the Rollout: Case Studies the UK Covid Inquiry Didn’t Publish

by Caroline Pover, Charlet Crichton

397 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 22, 2026

About the author

Born in 1971, Caroline Pover grew up mainly in Plymouth in the south-west of England, where she dreamed of two things … becoming a primary school teacher, and writing books. She attended Exeter University, and graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Mathematics and Education, and a Dean’s Commendation for the quality of her written work. Following graduation she worked as a primary school teacher in the school she actually attended as a child, before a desire for adventure got the better of her and she headed off to Tokyo in 1996.

Caroline taught at an alternative Japanese high school, where — having developed an interest in girls’ and women’s education at university — she was thrilled to be teaching predominantly teenage girls. Teaching by day, Caroline launched a magazine to support foreign women living in Japan, which led to her writing her first book, “Being A Broad in Japan: Everything a Western woman needs to survive and thrive,” released in 2001, and based on interviews she conducted with over 200 foreign women.

While suffering a series of strokes in 2006 and 2007, Caroline was convinced that she’d never be able to write again, but nonetheless, wrote her second book, the “Guide to International Schools in Japan,” released in 2008 and updated in 2014 (Japanese edition released 2013). She also wrote a bilingual book for Japanese women, entitled “Ask Caroline,” released in 2010, answering the many interesting questions that Japanese women often ask of their Western counterparts. The book is often used in private and group language lessons where the students are predominantly female Japanese.

Caroline was on Saipan when the March 11th earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011, writing “Love with a Western Woman: a guide for Japanese men,” (English paperback and Kindle released 2012, Japanese paperback released 2013, Japanese Kindle released 2020) and subsequently prioritised supporting the survivors over her writing and publishing career.

She spent the first few years after the tsunami sharing her time between the UK and Japan, gathering support for Oshika hanto, a remote fishing community in the northeast of Japan. She eventually settled in The Cotswolds, where she took a break from writing books and established Auntie Caroline’s — a pickled onion and chutney business supplying around 70 independent shops around the UK. But still returned to Oshika every year, having raised almost £170,000 for Oshika and managed over thirty different community-led projects to assist with the recovery. She blogged throughout every trip to Oshika, determined that people shouldn’t forget the survivors in this remote little peninsula.

In early 2020, Caroline reconnected with her book-writing self and turned that almost ten-year blog into her fifth book and first memoir, to be released in August 2020, entitled “One Month in Tohoku: An Englishwoman’s Memoir on Life after the Japanese Tsunami.“

Caroline has been the recipient of a number of awards over the years, including Plymouth’s Top Ten Women of the Year, Japan-British Society Award for Contributions to Japanese-UK Relations, International Women's Day Outstanding Service Award, British Business Award for Best Entrepreneur, FEW Award for Contributions to the Foreign Women's Community in Japan, and Body Confidence Awards Nominee for "I Love My Bum" TED Talk.

She still lives in The Cotswolds, but returns “home” to Japan every year.