Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHAEL PALIN

What sort of injuries were you seeing coming into Queen Mary’s at the very end of the war, the armistice time?

DR ANDREW BAMJI

I’ve got a set of notes here of a chap who was admitted here just before the armistice, in fact. And his name is Thomas, of the First Cheshires. And you can see that the whole of the side of the face has been literally just taken off.

MICHAEL PALIN

Just ripped out.

DR ANDREW BAMJI

Yes,

MICHAEL PALIN

And yet he was alive and conscious.

DR ANDREW BAMJI

He was still alive and conscious.

MICHAEL PALIN

I wouldn’t have thought that was possible, both alive and conscious.

DR ANDREW BAMJI

Well as long as it doesn’t take off a major artery, then he’s not going to bleed to death.

MICHAEL PALIN

When were these pictures taken? How soon after the injury?

DR ANDREW BAMJI

This was taken about two weeks after the injury. And this is actually dated the 6th of November. And so we knew he would have been here at the time of the armistice itself. And as you go through, looking at the reconstructions, then just watch the dates. We’re now in 1921. And a whole series of tubes and flaps are being raised. And then when we get to August 1922, we’ve recreated the upper lip, and then you bring down a last flap to recreate the nose. And the very end. This is what you end up with. Our guy is now presentable.

MICHAEL PALIN

Push his face back, right? It’s just …

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHAEL PALIN

What do you feel about the way the wounded and that side of the war is seen?

DR ANDREW BAMJI

It’s neglected. Perhaps one of the things that really bothers me about the way that we look at war, and perhaps even the First World War in particular, is we only focus on the glorious dead. And in a sense, we’re not allowed to see the people who have been disfigured in the way that Private Thomas was disfigured. And if we don’t look at that sort of thing, how can we possible understand what war was really about?