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‘What’s happening?’

No reply. They were talking, but not to me.

I was bewildered, dazzled, disorientated. They were putting their hands under me, moving me across the bed. Maybe this was another fantasy kidnap.

‘Please, what’s happening?’

One of them broke off from their conversation.

‘You need turned.’

He reeked of cannabis. Dougie always said I had a nose like a bloodhound but this guy was in a different league. You could almost taste it. Together they worked like a Formula One pitstop team: rolled me onto my other hip, wedged a pillow behind my back to keep me there, placed another pillow under my top knee, and switched my overnight urine drainage stand, attached to my catheter, to the opposite side of the bed. It was done in seconds, a slick, well-practised manoeuvre. Wham bam, wheelnuts tight, off you go, Sebastian Vettel, back out of the pit lane.

‘OK,’ Doobie said. It wasn’t a question. They switched off the blinding light, pulled back the curtains, and moved to the next bed. Click, swoosh, gone. Not remotely cruel, but not remotely kind either. Disengaged, impersonal. I wasn’t a person; I was a task, one of dozens of four-hourly turns they had to perform through the night. It was an attitude I was to become deeply accustomed, and eventually immune to. But right at that moment, I had never felt more alone, more insulted by the stench of cannabis, or more acutely aware of what a sheltered, precious, middle-class prat I was to feel so offended. Later, when I got to know Doobie better, I became quite fond of him. But not his smell.