It was cannula carnage at the hospital

I was silently mourning the death of Brigadier General Charles FitzClarence at First Ypres when a young male nurse entered the crowded waiting room and called out my name. I must look fairly decrepit because he offered an arm for me to lean on as he walked me up the aisle and into the CT scanner anteroom. Kind, I thought. He was a dark, solid-looking chap in his early twenties. His uniform was all white: white jacket, white T-shirt, white trousers, white Crocs.

He directed me to a chair beside a medical trolley and suggested I remove my jacket and fleece. Next, a female nurse with an unmistakable air of seniority loped up and asked me if I had an objection to having the cannula and contrasting agent fixed into my arm by her student – in other words, Mr White. None whatsoever, I said. She loped away, leaving us to it.

I now recognised that her student was a bundle of nerves. His offering me his arm in the waiting room had felt wonderfully natural and human. It pleasantly combined deference for age with that French notion of equality. But now that he was given the green light to insert what was perhaps his very first cannula, our relations were altered. Now I was a diagram in a fervently remembered textbook. His hands shook with apprehension.

Carefully he inspected my inside elbows for a decent vein. Had I a preference? The guinea pig insouciantly shook its head. He selected the right arm and tied a strip of elastic around the bicep, drawing it overly tight. Then he wriggled his trembling hands into disposable gloves and vigorously wiped the site of the insertion with an alcohol-soaked wipe.