Timid Greek six-year-old, patient in St Martin
& St Nicholas Hospital, Pyrford,
the children’s orthopaedic ward. Fractured arm 
heavily plaster-casted, legs in large new shorts,
I was shown my bed, hailed by an older lad’s loud
laughter: “Hey, knickers!” – disconcerting start 
to an anglicised education with difficult, strange rules.

First Sunday there, beds were wheeled out to the courtyard
for an army Padre’s mainly inaudible,
if wholly indecipherable, homily.
Was it called a sermon, that weirdly pious speech?
Too many unusual words were lost on me: 
could I last out, or reach the lavatory in time?
Where was the nearest door? Chamber pots were 
Not in view… A distrust of all authority –
imposing figures, often wearing uniform,
white-coated Doctors and nurses, grim-faced folk –
would last for years… Hymns and gabbled words were endured
with much talk of God’s love. I writhed on a urine-soaked 
mattress, wretchedly out of place, dreading disgrace…

Named after two saints, the special hospital
was re-branded successfully, post-NHS,
and kept in use for a further, more secular
40-odd years… Why now, aged 85,
do the distressing memories haunt me still?
As one fortunate and privileged refugee
from yet another bygone European war,
I reflect upon history, and accidents,
and accidents of history – and always will.

Alexis Lykiard was born in Athens in 1940. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, novels and translations. His latest poetry collections include: Winter Crossings (Shoestring, 2020), and These Nervous Years: Poems From An Era of Plague & Unrest, 2019-2025 (forthcoming in 2025). Contact: alexis.lykiard@gmail.com