, whole of rny firs~ t~rrn .

,. ·k during t.l1c . like seas1c 1<r\css.

i I wa~ h01ncs1c. . ·kn css is a b1l
r\t St Peter's . I JoJl lCS JC
t 'l, /4,4llill!lilll
f l il is till you ge l
..
You do n' t k·no w hoW aw .
u
u right in . the top of
,uul when yon do, it h1ts yo L lO die .
Th Only
e · .
th<' ston1ach m1d you wan . kn ess an
rmnfort is that boLb ho1nes1c ble The firs
d ~~
t
. •tan
sC',l~irknr-s!-i ,u·e ins ' tly cur a . f th
rnc
alk ou t o e
go C's away t.l1c ino nl you w
d d is for gotten as
school groun ds an the sec on
soo n as thr ship enters port.
. sick during my firs
I was so ternbly home akin a plan for t two .
getting
weeks that l set ab ou t m gif 't were for only a few
lf t back home, even 1
myse sen th I
davs. My ide a was at should all of a su dd en develop an attack
of ·acute appendicitis .
You will probably think it silly ~a t~ nine-y
ear-old boy imagined
that he could get away with a trtck like
that, bu t I ha d sound
reasons for trying it. Only a month before,
my eld er sister
had actually had appendicitis, and for sev
eral days before her
operation I was able to observe he r behavio
ur at close quarters .
I noticed that the thing she complained ab
ou t mo st was a severe__
pain down in the lower right side of he r tum
my. As well as this,
she kept being stck and refused to eat an d
ran a temperature. -
<..
-- -
You might, by the way, be interested to kn
ow tha t this sister had-
her appendix removed not in a fine hospi
tal operating-room full
of bright lights and gowned nurses, bu t on
ou r ow n nursery table
at ho1ne by the local doctor and his an
aesthetist. In those days it
w~ fairly co~ on practice for a do
ctor to arrive at yo ur house
with a bag of msbuments, then drape a cle
an sh ee t over the most
convenien t table and get on with it.

On this occasion, I can remember lurking

the nursery while the in the co rri dor outside
. operati-on was going on . My oth er sister
were with me and we 8'lo d th s
' 0
ere spellbound, listening to the
 soft medical murmurs coming from behind the locked door and
picturing the patient with her stomach sliced open. We could even
smell the sickly fumes of ether filtering through the crack under
the door.
6· The next day, we were allowed to inspect the appendix itself in a

glass bottle. It was a longish black wormy-looking thing, and

I said, "Do I have one of those inside me, Nanny?"
7· "Everybody has one," Nanny answered.
8· "What's it for?" I asked her.
9· "God works in his mysterious ways," she said, which was her stock
reply whenever she did not know the answer.
10· "What makes it go bad?" I asked her.
1
1. "Toothbrush bristles," she answered, this time with no hesitation
at all.
12
· "Toothbrush bristles?" I cried. "How can toothbrush bristles make
your appendix go bad?"
13
· Nanny, who in my eyes was filled with more wisdom than
Solomon, replied, "Whenever a bristle comes out of your
toothbrush and you swallow i~ it sticks in your appendix and
turns it rotten. In the war," she went on, "the German spies used
to secretly send boxloads of loose-bristled toothbrushes into our
shops and millions of our soldiers got appendicitis."
14
· "Honestly, Nanny?" I cried. "Is that honestly true?"
15
· "Inever lie to you, child," she answered. "So let that be a lesson to
you never to use an old toothbrush."
16
· For years after that, I used to get nervous whenever I found a
toothbrush bristle on my tongue.
17
· As I went upstairs and knocked on the brown door after breakfas~
I did not even feel frightened of the Matron.
13
· "Come in!" boomed the voice.
I entered the room clutching my stomach on the right-hand side
19
·
and staggering patheti cally.
''O. "What' s the matter with you?" the Matron shouted.
~ ''It hurts, Matron," I moaned. "Oh, it hurts so much! Just here!"
ru
 22 ov er ea tin g!" she sn ap pe d. "\tVh at do you PXpeq i
· "You 've be en
f
you gobble ca ke all da y long ?"

a th in g for da ys ," I lied. "I coul dn't eat, Matron,

· "I haven't eaten
23
·
I simply couldn 't!"

24
· "Get on the bed," she ordered.
the be d an d sh e be ga n pr od di ng my tummy Willi her
25· I lay on
wa s wa tch ing he r ca ref ully, an d wh en she hit vvhat I
fingers. I
the ap pend ix pl ac e, I let ou t a cr y that rattled the
guessed was
I
sa i
Ho w 1

ow pa nes. "O w! Ow ! Ow !" I cr ied out. "Don't, Matron,

l wi nd
iat?
Th en I slipp ed in the clinc he r. "I 've been sick all
don't!"
oa ne d, "a nd no w th er e's no th ing lef t to be sick \\ith,
morning," I m
but I still feel sick!"
~d
26· This was the right move. I saw her hesitate
. "Stay where you are/
t d qu ick ly fro m th e ro om . Sh e ha d had a nurse's
urs
... . .. I she said and walke
g an d sh e did no t wa nt a ru pt ur ed appendix on her hands.
trainin
d he went
27
· Within an hour, the doctor arrived an
ng and I did
through the same prodding and poki
prop er
my yelping at what I thought were tbe
times. Then he put a thermometer in
my mouth.
 28
· "Hmm, " he sai·d. "It read
once more. '' s normal . Let me feel
your stomach
29
· "Owch!'' I screamed
when he touched the
30
vital spol.
· The doctor w
ent away with the Mat
have felt it safer to se ron. Like the Matron,
nd me home rather th he must
operation in the scho an ric;k an appendiciti
ol. The Matron return s
and said, "The Headm ed ha lf an hour later
aster has telephoned
coming to fetch you your mother and she'
this afternoon." s
JI. I di dn 't an
swer her. I just lay th
ere trying to look very
heart was singing ou ill, but my
t with all sorts of won
and joy. de rful songs o[ praise
32
·I was taken home acro
ss the Bristol Channel
wonderful at being aw , and I felt so
ay from the school th
forgot I was meant to at I very nearly
be ill. That afternoon
Dr Dunbar in Cardiff, I had a stt!ion with
and I tried the same
But Dr Dunbar was tricks all over again.
far wiser and more sk
Matron or the school ilful than either the
doctor.
33
· After he had
prodded my stomach
routine, he said to m and I had done my ye
e, "Now you can get lping
yourself on that chai dr es se d again and seat
r."
34· H e
himself sat down behi
nd his desk and fixed
penetrating bu t not un me with a
kindly eye. "You're fa
he said. king, aren't you? ..

35 "How do you know?"

I blurted out.
3li. "Because yo
ur stomach is soft an
"I f you had had an in d perfectly normal,"
he answered .
flam1nallon down th
have been hard and ere, the stomac.:h wou
Iigid. It's quite easy to ld
tel\."
rr. I kept silent.
38- "I expect you're homes
ick," he said.
39· I
nodded miserably.
<10. "Everyone is al first,''
he said . "You have to
blame your mother sUd-. it _out. And d~n'
for sending you away t
insisted you were loo l1.) boar<lmg-
school. She
young to go, but it w
it was the iight thing as I who persua.ded he
to do. Life is tough, an r
how to cope with it d the so oner you learn
the helter for you."

~ti ii + L