IT all started with a pain in the pit of the stomach even though we had not had a curry for days. By the time Mrs C got me to the Doc, it had become a red hot poker.

By the time the ambulance got me to Mar'ton District Hospital, I was as happy as a sandboy, thanks to the powerful painkiller the Doc had injected into my bum and the laughing-gas the crew administered during the ride.

I apologised and said I was happy to go home now, thanks very much, but they would not hear a word of it. What followed was four days of starvation (not even a cup of tea!), plus so many needles, drip-feeds and other bodily intrusions that l felt like the badly-used dart board at the Beggars' Arms on New Year's Eve.

However, my bodily state is of little interest outside Curmudgeon Corner. The state of the National Health Service, however, is a cause of constant debate, for praise (from Government), condemnation (from the Opposition) and, I dare to venture, even more confusion to the consumers: i.e. poorly people.

So, having subjected this much abused institution to a sharp-end survey (and I mean hypodermically sharp) here is the Curmudgeon Conclusion: the NHS is alive (just) and well (thanks to tireless the devotions of its staff) despite all efforts to destroy it from above.

It is the 21st century reincarnation of the Blitz spirit, when ordinary folk got on with their lives whilst their towns and cities, homes, offices and factories were being burned down around them.

In this case, the ordinary folk are the doctors and nurses, the cleaners and the cooks, who struggle to keep people in pain or personal distress as happy as possible in the circumstances despite never-ending attacks from the enemy.

In this case, however, the enemy is supposed to be on their side: the politicians, the Whitehall mandarins, the teams of managers installed at local level and - I admit - much of the media, which loves to give the NHS football a good kicking every now and then.

I was treated with total care and good humour yet I was bitterly cold every night because there was a shortage of blankets and the central heating was turned down to save dosh, no doubt, on the orders of the management.

And this is a hospital which, any day now, is likely to be swamped by elderly patients with 'flu. Will they have a blanket apiece? Will the heating be turned up as a mild autumn turns to bitter winter? Talk about spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar...

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column, based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.