Hi ho, hi ho, we’re off to start physio

ThE cartilage in my leg was damaged while I was playing football at RAF Innsworth in Gloucester in 1973. Fortunately, I received excellent treatment, with an operation two weeks later at RAF Wroughton in Wiltshire. I was in a ward with six other airmen, all having orthopaedic leg surgery. The policy in those days was to put the leg in lightweight metal splints from upper thigh to ankle after an operation and get patients moving as quickly as possible. We were not allowed to be

discharged from hospital until the slowest of us was fit enough to leave. Accordingly, we were all anxious to go quickly and were in the physiotherapy department doing our exercises as often as possible. The nurses and staff looked after us admirably and were highly amused when the seven of us, one behind the other, marched in step along the corridors singing like the dwarfs in Snow White: ‘hi ho, hi ho, we’re off to physio.’ I was out in ten days and playing football again in three months. Brilliant! Howard Thomas, Evesham, Worcs.