As a child, I spent more time hanging around hospitals than was probably normal. Mum was a nurse, so my sister and I became somewhat expert at navigating our way around the corridors of the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital. And, like most kids, I was often to be found in the Accident & Emergency department when I had gashed my leg, knocked my head in the playground, or swallowed a fish bone. I had my first operation when I was ten. It was an operation on my right eye to correct a squint, and my family had absolute trust in the surgeon that it would be a success. Almost every moment, from being admitted to the hospital right up until the operation itself, stands out in my mind. I was in the children's ward in the old part of the hospital. It was reached through a long, chilly, stone-floored corridor. A few shabby partitions had done little to transform the ward from its Victorian origins. The ceilings were lofty, the radiators cast iron and the windows grimy. I was given an injection before being taken to the operating theatre and remember examining the exciting cracks in the ceiling above my bed as the sedative took hold.
