Peter Lawrence, born and bred at Bristol in 1925, servedin the army's Special Wireless Section in the Far East during the closing years of World War II. It was while he was stationed on India's North West Frontier that he was on the receiving end of the health service there.

I have vivid memories of having my tonsils removed by anIndian Surgeon, just after arriving at Abbotabad in '44....On the morning of the 'fateful' day I was tucked up in ahospital bed, dressed only in a short 'operating' vest,and duly given a pre-med injection just to make me sleepy,they said, and 'so that I wouldn't remember much about it'.

The next hour was like something from The Goon Show!...

In my semi-conscious state, I was unceremoniously picked up by two huge ward orderlies who, I'm sure, would havebeen more at home humping hundredweight sacks of potatoesaround. I was dumped on a nearby stretcher, carried outof the ward and placed on the floor of a waiting 'ambulance'.

Well, they called it an ambulance!.... It was an ancient-looking khaki coloured vehicle with a huge red cross painted on its side, and looked like a relic from 1918. It tookabout ten minutes to start the darned thing -- by whichtime the effects of the pre-med injection were beginning to wear off.

The engine coughed and spluttered, and before it coulddie on us, an Indian orderly jumped into the driver's seat,and with a 'Hold tight, Sahib', he let in the clutch, and we shot forward two yards.... And the engine stalled!...

The ambulance came to a sudden halt, and the stretcher,with me on it, shot from one end of the back to the other,almost ending up in the cab with the driver!... There followed a few Hindustani swear words, which I didn't at that time understand, and a hurried 'Sorry, sahib' from the driver.

Another five minutes, and with the engine racing, pistons rattling, and the bodywork shaking and in danger of disintegratingaround me, we moved off again and travelled about a hundred yards... and stopped again!

'Oh no!' I thought... 'Not again!'

'OK, Sahib' came the driver's voice, 'we are here!'..... And almost immediately the back door opened and two more burly orderlies clambered aboard!

'What you doin' right up there then?!' asked one of them. (by this time the stretcher and I were jammed against the back of the cab).

It was hardly worth all the effort, I said, after all Icould have walked across and saved 'em the manpower and petrol! Call it my contribution to the war effort!

'Not so likely!', came the reply. 'You'll have us out of a job! This is a nice quiet little number! We're very 'appy 'ere, an' we don't wanna finish up where you're going, do we, wiv all them nasty little yellow chappies swarming all over us!'

By this time the stretcher and I were on our way into the hospital building where we were dumped on the floor of a little sort of ante-room, while the two orderlies went off to report our arrival.

Ten minutes later, when all was peaceful and quiet andI was just slipping into a warm sleep, the door burst open,and in came an Indian Doctor - at least I assumed that'swho he was. He was suitably dressed in a long white gown and wearing a white mask, and I suddenly realised, by the way he addressed me, that he was the same Doctor who'd examined me earlier.

'Come along... what are you waiting there for?!'

'Well, I'm supposed to......'

'Be quiet and don't just lie there!', he commanded,'Get up and follow me!'

Oh marvellous, I thought, I get a pre-med to make me all sleepy so's I won't feel anything... I'm carried on a stretcher,chucked in an ambulance, and driven a hundred yards, whenI could have walked.... Now I have to get up off the stretcher and follow his nibs, as though there was nothing wrong with me!!

That was only the start!!

'Come with me' says his nightshirt, 'And hurry - we haven't got all day!'

I climbed off the stretcher and with my little shirt hardly covering anything, I obediently padded behind him, along a corridor, and into what appeared to be an operating theatre with all sorts of hospital things around the walls and on the floor, and an ominous looking operating table in themiddle!

'Right!' said our Hippocratic genius, pointingto the operating table 'climb up there!'

And so I heaved myself up on to the table, whereupon a white sheet was thrown over me, and some sort of mask placed over my face.

Oh good, anaesthetic.... it won't be long now, I thought,and I'll be away with the fairies, when suddenly the white sheet started to slide down over my chest....

'Not yet!!' I almost shouted... 'Not yet,I'm still awake... I haven't.........'

I woke up back in the ward with what seemed like a barbed-wire entanglement in my throat, and my tonsils were some where across the way, saved for posterity in a glass bottle!

Within a short time I was discharged from hospital and returned to training school just in time to join the next draft into Burma!

Peter Lawrence, 2002