I checked in at reception at OPD6 at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for my appointment with Mr T.

The orthopaedic surgeon was much younger than I expected, and his preferred form of treatment for broken limbs most unconventional. He recruited his patients to a team of workers to stuff cocaine baggies. The dust swilling around our workbenches actually did have some therapeutic benefits for the pain of fractured bones, but I couldn’t envisage this  ‘medicine’ as a permanent fix for any of us.

At the end of my shift, the surgeon lifted me on top of a high red and white candy striped pole, then left me there with no safe means of descent. A fellow patient-worker next me suffered the same fate. With the encouragement of a big, burly, bearded man, we eventually found the courage to jump the twelve feet to the ground. Miraculously we made it, unharmed.