By this time I was being subjected to 'Occupational therapy'. The practitioners of this treatment were extremely well meaning, but rather limited in the range of occupations they could offer. There is a limit to the number of small yellow ducks stuffed with cotton wool that one can face. As for the tapestry it was uninspired. I can see now the rather dismal picture. It was a mountain scene with stream, bridge and acres of blue sky. It should have been bathed in bright sunshine but in my hands it ended up looking like 'the quiet before the storm'. The blue sky was almost more boring than just doing nothing. I did finish it eventually and it lay about at home, nobody having the courage to throw it out.
I achieved one other high spot during my time on that ward. I cannot remember how it started but somehow the word spread that I could read palms. I think it was something to do with one of the books that were produced for me. With a ward largely staffed by nurses from Ireland I was never short of clients. The trick was to get them talking before starting to make any predictions. It is of course, the easiest thing in the world to get people to talk about themselves. There are one or two opening gambits that never fail. "And where in Ireland do you come from?" "What persuaded you to become a nurse?" and for those with, perhaps, a little more about them "It's easy to see that you went to a very good school" One or two of the patients with whom I was particularly friendly started to help me by passing on little tit-bits of information that I subsequently used. Eventually I built up quite a reputation. Sister knew exactly what was going on. She approved very much of anything that helped to amuse her patients and to set the seal of her blessing on my activities she made an appointment for a session with me the following day. I knew it was going to be difficult to get anything significant out of casual conversation with her before starting. She was very sparing with her personal details but the man in the next bed had learnt that her fiancé had been captured in the desert warfare and had won a pretty impressive medal. That was all I needed and my reputation soared. Before I left that ward I achieved the highest possible accolade – the matron of the hospital indicated, via Sister, that she would like her palm read.
I passed that test with flying colours because Sister demonstrated that she knew very well how I operated. Just before Matron was due to attend Sister casually dropped on my bed a list of things that would make my prediction easy. Like all the other men on the ward I really loved that woman.
There was one incident that occurred on the orthopaedic ward involving Sister and my father-in-law. He was known as 'Pop' among the family a name that rather belies the fact that when required he could present a fairly commanding figure. He was Colonel of the Birmingham Home Guard and there is a picture of him in the family album of him leading a parade in which he appears as the classical officer-in-command.
The event on the ward happened because Pop was arranging the purchase of a house for Jan and I and he needed my signature. He had just attended a Territorial gathering and was in full uniform, red tabs, medals and all, and appeared at the ward entrance looking for Sister to ask permission to see me. Sister evidently thought he was just walking in, assuming that his seniority allowed him to ignore visiting times which in those days were strictly observed. The confrontation was at the far end of the ward from my bed so I could not hear the conversation but I was told as an example of a clash between two powerful personalities it could hardly be bettered. Pop won, but only after using all his charm. He explained that unless I signed that day another purchaser would step in. Sister, surely, would want one of her patients to have the perfect house to go home to when she had finally effected the cure that was so clearly under way. He had heard such a lot about her that he was sure she would allow this small but important infringement of the rules, etc, etc. What had started as a confrontation ended as a friendly meeting between two people both confident of their position and was sealed by tea in Sister's room.
The time eventually arrived when the houseman, i.e. the consultant's assistant told me that I was to be sent home for a few weeks before starting on a period in the plastic surgery ward where some flesh and skin would be put on my wound. He told me that there was a slight shortening of the bad leg, about half an inch, but I should soon get used to that. He reckoned that I should have about twenty years before there might be trouble. It has now lasted fifty five years, so every time I think of that very formal old surgeon and his self-effacing houseman I raise my metaphorical hat to them both.
Going home was quite wonderful but I began to understand what was meant by the dangers of becoming institutionalized. It was not so much that one had got used to being waited on hand and foot. (To some extent that still applied) It was the social trauma of going out and meeting people again. I was never one for having a fund of small talk, and that is all that is exchanged at convivial gatherings. A patient in hospital thinks of very little except his own condition, which is fair enough when confined to bed. Once let loose it takes some time to learn to be interested, or pretend to be, in other people's problems. I doubt if I have ever quite achieved it.
However, I had no sooner got used to reasonably normal life again than the time came to return to hospital. The plastic surgery ward was very different to the big orthopaedic one. There were only about eight of us and several spare beds. The whole atmosphere was friendlier, and I soon realised that this was, to a large extent, due to the attitude of the nursing staff and surgeon.