In February 1933 I was taken ill with stomach pains. Apart from the occasional common cold or sore throat, up until then I had been generally a very healthy child. But I had never been able to tolerate fat in food, somehow I could not digest it. Fat in a meal would form like a candle in my oesophagus. Coconut was another food I could not tolerate, even in a little sweet, because it made feel sick. For years I wondered why I had a sick headache every Sunday after tea and eventually I came to recognise the culprit. My mother always made a delicious cake for Sunday tea that was coated with butter-cream and smothered in large flakes of coconut because we all loved it. When I learned to forgo the cake, the headaches ceased.

However, in early spring 1933 I was actually in bed, ill with a pain that Dr Leiper diagnosed as a 'chill on the bowel' and I was allowed no food, only drinks. This went on for a week when I experienced fluctuating temperature, pains that appeared and disappeared, moved from side to side and varied in severity. The doctor maintained her diagnosis, but my brother wrote home daily from London urging my parents to disregard the doctor. He was adamant that I had appendicitis. He'd had his appendix removed at the age of 14, at about the time Elsie, our sister had died. Several of my cousins had needed to have the operation too.

However, at the end ot the week the doctor visited again and, as the pain had subsided that day, said I could have something to eat. Mother suggested a beaten egg in milk. I must have drunk gallons of this stuff as a child beacuse I loved its taste and it had the added advantage of being very nourishing too.

At approximately 11pm I awoke screaming in pain and rolling about in bed. Someone went into the village for the doctor who came straight away. She fell to her knees and pressed my tummy gently and quite suddenly jerked out the words, "Oh my I've found it, she must be taken immediately to the Infirmary at Denbigh. You must carry her flat and move her as little as possible. Oh my God!"

And so it was at midnight that Charlie Sackett, the owner of the Black Lion Hotel, drove his brand new black and royal blue limousine up to our house. I was carried on a plank of wood on to the back seat with my father in attendance, to make the journey of about ten miles on country lanes to Denbigh. During the journey I was violently sick all over this beautiful car and even though I was only aged nine and in pain, I was dreadfully sorry to have made such a mess. However, I can still remember Charlie saying gently, 'Never mind lass, you're worth more than the car'."

Looking back now I can appreciate the terrible, heart-rending worry that must have hit my Mam and Dad. They had already lost one little girl aged 12, now here was another daughter aged nine likely to die as well. For in those days peritonitis was very dangerous - any poison seeping into your system would eventually kill, for there were no drugs with which to fight the infection.

When we reached the hospital the doctor was called and the duty nurse, Sister Joyce, painted iodine all over my tummy. She then wrapped me in a blanket and carried me in her arms. 'We are now going to the theatre,' she said, and being the little country girl that I was, I thought we were going to a place of entertainment - at 1am! The surgeon was Dr Duff, a young Scotsman who had served as a doctor in the First World War. I know personally of several people whose lives were saved by his skill. It was said that he never performed an operation before first praying in a little room adjacent to the the theatre. I shall be eternally grateful to him for saving my life that night.

The following morning when I woke up in the ward, I was very, very sick again from the effects of the anaesthetic that had been given to me. I think it was chloroform that was in general use then. I was in hospital for two or three weeks.

I was able to go to that hospital and be treated free of charge because my parents paid a few pence each week into a Hospital Fund. When I returned home again having regained some of my strength I picked a huge bunch of snowdrops, packed them in moss in a cardboard box and sent them on the bus to Sister Joyce. I received a very nice note of thanks and for several years I sent the snowdrops. I only hope they were still alive when they reached their destination.

Bet Vaughan Williams describes some of the common remedies used.