The Freezing Cold

The cold, I damn near froze to death. In, I went, we were disbanded at first, our hospital wasn't ready for us in Horley, Number 14 had it and they were going to Italy, so I went to Number 10 for awhile, in Nissen Huts, the hospital was, and then I went back to my own unit. We had these, in, down in, Aldershot, no where were we, no we went to Horley, we were in Aldershot we were in these little huts, cold, I have never been so cold in my life, got a couple little lumps, they were little cottages, houses.

I remember my first Christmas over there I, we'd go to bed at night and you'd put all your great coats and everything you owned on the bed to try and get warm, cold oh, it was damp you know, no heating. And I remember I got, a friend of mine sent me a hot water bottle, and a Christmas wreath in a box, I thought, "Wasn't that wonderful." I was thrilled.

And then we moved to Horley, 14 moved out and this was a new hospital, lovely, it was a beautiful place. And that was on a direct line between Brighton and London. Oh well we had everything, everything, I mean there were all kinds of accidents you know, there are motorcycle accidents, and there are shooting accidents and there are, well, everything. It was a big general hospital, 1200 beds. That's a big hospital. That's what we were trained to do, we were doing our own thing.