THE UNFLAPPABLE Anne rang me at work to say my daughter seemed to be ill, and could I leave work early. I knew it was something more than the general run of sore tummies, but I was reluctant to believe that my eight year old could really have appendicitis.

So I drove 10 miles to the local GP, and read magazines in the waiting room, in the hopes of hearing of hearing better news. Naturally, he took one look at her and phoned Temple Street.

The waiting room at the hospital was full but we were taken straight into casualty and she was hoisted on to a black trolley, covered with a thin sheet of disposable paper.

The place was crowded with mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, nurses and sick children. The teenage father beside us was continually slipping off to sleep and almost - but never quite - dropping the naked baby he clutched in his arms. The nurses constantly, patiently, asked him to sit down, but he was in another world, shot up with different colours. The only time he roused himself from his waking torpor was to offer to hold my handbag while I took my daughter to the loo. (Unsurprisingly, I declined.) Eventually, his baby was diagnosed as having measles and they left for a ward.

Meanwhile, a boy close by was sleeping peacefully on a trolley. His mother said he'd been like that for three days - she couldn't wake him. A baby was screaming shrilly in the background and a little child was vomiting on the floor.

Nurses were thick on the ground but doctors seemed in short supply. My daughter was an avid observer but, when she finally framed a question, it was not about sickness, blood, doctors or nurses, but why the sheet covering the bed was disposable and would it be recycled?

Four hours later, we were still waiting for an overworked doctor to insert a drip into her arm before we headed for a ward. At 2 a.m. my daughter was safely tucked up in bed and I was lying on the floor, having forsaken the two hard plastic chairs beside the bed.

An hour later and it was all over. My daughter had her first major scar but she was fine. Three hours later, she couldn't believe she had an operation and wanted to know what was for tea.

The little boy in the bed beside her was crying almost continually - he had been in a serious car accident and he was in a lot of pain. Across the way, another child had come back from theatre and was throwing up on the floor.

My daughter steadfastly ignored them and asked me to find a video she could watch. Later, her friends came to visit and also fixed their gaze firmly on to the TV instead of the sick children around them. No callousness apparently, but a defensive blocking out of others pain; if they didn't see it, it couldn't happen to them.

Three days later we were home. The nurses were superb, the care excellent, the ward beautifully painted; but spare a thought for my back, which is still recovering from the nights spent on the floor.