Everyone has A&E stories to tell.

And the best place to hear them is in casualty. No sooner do you sit down in the waiting area than you are drawn into competition over who has waited the longest.

“What time did you come in?” one woman said as I sat with my friend, who had injured her finger. “About 8.15pm I said.”

“We’ve been here since seven,” she replied. “Well, I’ve been here since six,” another added smugly.

Once details of your current situation have been aired, the conversation switches to the longest you have ever waited in A&E. I thought I’d win easily with seven hours in a London hospital after being bitten by a rat. But there are always people who can outdo you.

Someone will relay details of the time they spent 20 hours in a British A&E unit after tripping over a shoe. Then another listener will join the discussion and gleefully recount the time they spent 679 hours in an airless corridor in sweltering heat in a Guatemalan hospital after stepping on a snake.

You could easily go out of your mind waiting in A&E. They play mind games, getting your hopes up after two hours by asking you to move to another area with different-coloured plastic chairs. There, you discover that you are simply sitting for a further three hours with a different view.

The last time I visited my local A&E they had a sign rather like the ones at the roller coaster in Flamingo Land, telling people how long they would be waiting, but they appear to have abandoned them.

That seems sensible. Unlike a roller coaster, you can’t put a time limit on people’s ailments. And if a sign says an hour, people expect it.

Anything goes in A&E – there were people in pyjamas and ballet dresses, people half-dressed, and barely dressed at all. It’s a place where dignity flies out of the window.

A weekend’s visit is enough to put you off sport for life. We saw at least ten people in rugby, football and cricket gear hobble through.

It’s all fuel for the second-most discussed topic after time of arrival – severity of injuries.

My friend’s finger was in competition with a swollen ankle, a cut foot and a fall down stairs. I was about to regale everyone with the tale of how my daughter was pierced in the bottom by a Barbie bed, when we were called.

However long you wait – and at three hours it wasn’t bad – in my experience the treatment is always brilliant despite the NHS being woefully under-resourced. And it’s free – it’s important to remember that.