My father is in hospital having undergone a major operation. He is to be 85 in March this year. In 1944 he was the only survivor of four in a jeep shot up just after the battle of Monte Casino in Italy. So you could say he has lived an extra 52 years. Mrs Fox and I motored down to see him, taking Erica for a well earned spin. It was three days after the operation.

He was in intensive care, not quite the Soldier in White from Catch 22 who was entirely encased in plaster, but with enough tubes, drips, plastic bags and computers plus oxygen cylinder and mask to emphasise the seriousness of the situation. He was just coming out of the pink haze provided by the epidural and other sedatives used during the operation.

All day there had been a slow deterioration as his body came to terms with the shock of the operation. While we were there this deterioration became acute. His heart had slowed to a flutter and his breathing, even with oxygen, was giving cause for concern. The hospital staff were magnificent carrying on doing what they could for him without fuss or panic. Calmly and pleasantly they explained the situation to his wife and us. If his heart completely stopped, should they jump on his chest and break his ribs in an attempt to restart it, they asked. No, we said, let him go with dignity. Suddenly it came to us there was a very real possibility that he was going to die there and then.

Although it is difficult to carry on a lucid conversation whilst wearing an oxygen mask, he was doing so. Although he was talking very quietly and extremely slowly everything he said was clear. He appeared very content and completely serene. Mrs Fox, who is a trained nurse and has been in this sort of situation before, was holding his hand and surreptitiously monitoring his pulse, which was fluttery and weak. His talk turned to how proud he was of his family and how our mother, dead these twenty years, would feel the same. The joy he got from his grandchildren and how he wished them all to have a picture to remember him by. This was terminal talk. Was he aware that he was slipping away and was content to do so? We steered the talk back to the present, the future and what immediate excitements were in store for everybody. As we did so the drugs injected into his drip began to take effect. His pulse got firmer and more regular and his breathing improved.

Within hours there was noticeable improvement and the immediate crisis had passed. A later visit by the consulting surgeon yielded the sage view that he had expected this sort of post operative shock and that the Doctor and staff had reacted correctly. We were not out of the woods yet as there was not only the continuing recovery from the post operative shock but also the chest infection brought on by lying slumped in bed and the diabetes brought on by the operation to sort out.

However an evening nipette of whisky was allowed, suggested by Mrs Fox, and morale improved all round.

The drive back to London, of over two hours, was a contemplative affair. Had that charming Doctor really asked me, after administering some treatment to the patient, to go back into the room to help him into the next life or was she confident that the treatment would work? Keeping up a light and cheerful conversation with one's father as he hovers between life and death is a taxing task but probably best handled on the fly as then, rather than dwelt on at length in advance.

Could it be that our serendipitous visit, it was going to be on the following day, was enough to give him the will to hang on in there and not slide away? I don't know if we will ever ask him. It was an amazing and highly emotional experience, all the more so for being unexpected and having to be played with the coolest of demeanour.

The afternoon certainly changed my perceptions of the National Health Trusts. Not only were the staff quite unlike the dragons of yore in their attitude to relatives and patient the quality of care was extraordinary and delivered with love. The hospital appeared very well equipped and the staff were more interested in their patient's well being than the hours they worked.

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