War and peace

"I was five when the war broke. A little nipper. Remember the bombs coming over and the black curtains. Burning candles. And much later, I remember this man coming out of the dancehall. Shouting, 'The war's over!' and dancing in the street."

On Friday morning I sat with Norah, Helen, Dorothy, Freida, Mary and Angela in the rehab ward at Cherry Tree Hospital. I asked them about the big war they'd lived through - the 1939 war - if the struggle of simply getting through it had prepared them for the struggle back to health now?

"You've got to get on with it, or slip behind. It makes you harder. You look after yourself, you're not baby-ish like, crying all the time. You're hard, strong I should say. You don't notice at the time, but it comes later. You think about it, see it in your mind."

Did that experience shape your experience of hospital?

"Yes, it's part of life. It's hard but you've got to get on with it."

Did it prepare you for hospital?

"You're never ready for hospital. Not if you've been healthy before. You're not the same as you were. It's change. Suddenly you find yourself in hospital in terrible pain. Some people get upset, some feel it deeply, some accept it easier. Different temperaments. The ones who accept change, the ones who fight it."

And what would you say to someone in that position.

"It does pass in time, it does. IT DOES PASS."