Visiting East Grinstead Hospital

Well, the first time I went was a Sunday in July. It was a hot day and someone was brought in and they had this yellow, I don’t know what you call that material over his wounds and the smell was terrible and I didn’t know if I could do it. And I said, “If others can do it, I can do it too.” These were burn victims, some burned beyond recognition and they had plastic surgery operations one after the other and they survived that. The hospital ward was a little different. They had their keg of beer and they could wear their uniforms, not hospital blues or anything like that so the plastic surgeons kept up the morale as well as rebuilding the men and I remember one of them showed me a picture of himself, a nice young fellow, and he said, “This is what I’m supposed to look like.”