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The first consultant I saw told me that surgery was not an option. The invader could not be dislodged with surgical steel. The scalpel still had to be used to perform a diagnostic operation, though - two, in fact. So I checked into the BRI Thoracic Unit on Ward Six on a bright Sunday afternoon in September.

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I should add at this point that hospitals have always caused me great anxiety.

I am no stoic. For the next six days, though, I met people who were - blokes such as Barry, 70-something Len and young Mark.

By day, we'd compare notes and dodge the food on offer (for a week, I went self-catering, courtesy of Marks & Spencer, brought in by my partner).

The NHS menus might be written in consultation with the likes of Loyd Grossman these days but he doesn't actually come in and cook the stuff.

At one point, a porter arrived to take Lenny for an X-ray but noticed he was eating his lunch.

Actually, to be accurate, Len was looking at his lunch, with the sort of expression a man might wear who had been expecting Kylie but found himself with Nora Batty. "I'll come back for you later," said the porter.

"No, no," cried Len. "Take me for my X-ray now!"

At night, I'd lie and listen to the gurgle of the chest drains inserted in my companions, until they gave me one of my own, post-op, with a pleasant morphine cocktail on tap.

Ward Six is staffed by the finest of medical people, women and men whose job it is to be at their best while they cope with the worst of the human condition.

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