pummelled, shocked and exercised me, so that at the end , although my hand has never been 100 %, I have been able to hold things, and it has caused me little inconvenience for  the rest of my life.   There was an amazing variety of patients being treated. Without exception all were young and active. There was a most attractive woman dark haired in her thirties, who had terrible panga hacks on her right arm from an attack by the Mau Mau in Kenya . Then there was an Egyptian  Major who had been wounded in the foot in the Sinai war. He had to stand on a plinth about a foot high and step down on his right foot to exercise it. Of course he would always try to step off with his left, and Miss Sutton would yank him over to the right and he would screech with pain!. There was a lovely girl of about 14 who had fallen through a skylight and had cut her tendons to her hand, which had been sewed up badly in a west country hospital so that the wrong tendon was linked to the wrong muscle, and  a new  operation had to be made to rectify it. These and loads of accidents caused to feet by walking on broken bottles in sand on the seashores were commonplace. All were to young people so there was a great deal of fun and vivacity in the ward, and in spite of the inevitable pain, it was a very cheerful and jolly place with everyone feeling they were on the mend.  About 30 years later I was in Selfridges queuing in the cheese department, when who should I see in the same queue. but Miss Sutton. I introduced myself and wondered if she would still remember the mad Ceylon Tea Planter, and she did and still knew my name.  I was able to thank her after all those years, for her wonderful work for which I was for ever grateful, and I thought of all the thousands of people who like me must have  passed through her tough capable hands.
Whilst all this was going on Jill was having morning sickness and suffering quietly at home either at my Mother’s at Buxted or at her Mothers at Oakley near Basingstoke. Mother was sure that she was going to have twins and suggested that I take out insurance before the third month,  as she was convinced  that she was too large too early.  We consulted our doctor who of course said it was impossible to say at that stage. This was long before the days of scans!  The insurance rate was 4 1/2 % and like a fool I did not take her advice as she was, absolutely correct in her diagnosis, as we were to find out later.
 Eventually in early February 1956 we said all our goodbyes to our Mothers and set off back to Ceylon. We flew by BEA to Rome in a turbo-prop Vickers Viscount which was a delightfully quiet and pleasant plane. The weather in Rome was gloriously sunny and pleasant. We were met by an English  friend of my Aunt Lilian’s who got us a lovely ‘pension’ just off the Vittorio Veneto. We did the sights, the basilicas, St Peter’s
and just enjoyed ourselves for three days in one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. We ate spaghetti, expensive chocolates and once when Jill got a frantic desire  for a drink, we had the luxury of paying in today’s money £20 for a glass of lemonade. What did it matter, it was our last taste of  western  civilization  before we were back to the exotic but very different life out East.
We then  boarded  a BOAC plane at Rome to fly via Istanbul, Tehran,  back to Colombo. This time the plane was a Lockheed Super Constellation, and it was the last large  petrol engined  airliner that we  were  to ever fly on far.  It was a gracefully shaped aircraft, substantially larger than the old Argonaut,  but noise level was quite unbelievable and it was virtually impossible to say anything to each other. Let us thank one thing today and that is that one does not have to fly in large  petrol engined planes any more!   

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