Mr Holroyd served in the Suez Canal Zone as a Dentist, and as a RADC veteran made this statement about the conditions under which he had to practice dentistry. In a letter to his Member of Parliament he told of the primitive conditions of his Ambulance Surgery in the Zone, and also stated he had neither electricity nor running water.  The drill ran very slowly as it was operated by a foot pedal, very similar to the early Singer sewing machines.  The food and drink were grim and everything tasted of Chlorine.

My own experience with the Dental Corps is limited to one visit, (to fix a loose filling), and I think this visit is worth mentioning because of the co-incidence involved. My loose filling, and the fact that I had to eat and drink at one side of my mouth due to the pain when anything liquid or solid touched that loose filling, caused me to report sick.  Two days of this pain was about all I could stand.  I arrived by duty truck at the Medical/Dental Field Ambulances and reported to a RADC Cpl, who examined my mouth with a Tongue Depressor and marked the defective tooth on a chart with upper and lower teeth drawn on it.  He handed the chart to me and I entered the dentist’s surgery.  The Dentist asked me what the problem was and looked at the chart.  When I answered him he asked me what part of Scotland I came from, I answered “Coatbridge”, and he told me he also came from there and it was wher his father had a Dental practice. When he told me his name and said his father was Dr Black, I told him that on a few occasions in the past I had been to see his father for dental work, we then got along famously.  Talk about co-incidence. I still have that filling to this day and it has given me no problems.   Primitive though conditions were out there, the Dental Surgeons of the RADC did a fine job.

Aye, Jock Marrs.
September 2003.