On August 17 my wife Barbara had me rushed by ambulance into County Hospital.

After a couple of scans I had a major operation on my stomach on Wednesday August 20 to remove a large tumour.

We were told by the surgeon afterwards that it was touch and go, and that I could have come back out ‘in a box’.

It went from what they thought would be a one-hour operation to a three-and-a-half hour operation, and from three hours in recovery to over ten hours in recovery, but thanks to the expertise of the surgeon it seems to have been a total success, and after 12 days in the County I came home on August 29.

Whilst in the HDU (Highly Dependable Unit) which is similar to intensive care, I had the most amazing nurses both male and female and I cannot praise them enough, and they do some most unpleasant tasks as part of their 12 hour shift, and not one of them ever complained, NOT ONCE, and believe me as we were not in the best of health there were some unpleasant tasks to be done!

Our NHS gets more than enough bad press, so when they deserve a good write up I would like to see if I can help them get it.

Alf Fletcher, Oakroyd Close, Burgess Hill