The Bye Diaries

David Bye’s diaries are a rare window into an experience that none of us would wish to have, but he was forced to endure.

The two small, ordinary pocket diaries take us from Barletta, Italy in January 1945 until the end of discharge leave in November 1946. In them, he records not only the progress in his reconstructive journey, but also details of his trips out of hospital, his visitors and struggles with the Medical Board for official leave and pension.

The text is more aide memoire, than reflective. There is no evidence of his keeping a diary previously, or since. So, we can only guess why he chose to start them, apparently stopping just before he had completed his two-year reconstructive journey. Was it a practical way for him to keep track of time passing, or had he been briefed by one of Richard Battle’s plastic surgery team in Italy just what a long and involved process he was about to go through?

Entries seldom stray into emotion, but give prosaic insights into the reconstructive surgical process, his trips, visitors

and occasionally the reactions of those close to him. 4^th April 1945 “Joan turned up with Mother” he records, “what a situation!”. After his 9^th operation, for a bone graft, on 22nd October 1945 he uncharacteristically records an emotional reaction when he makes these 3 entries; 1^st November “All stitches removed from hip. Will try leg out on floor” followed by on 2^nd November “Get Up?? HA! HA!” (figure 1), and finally more prosaically on 8^th November “Out for first time (N.A.) Hard work.”  Throughout we get a sense of him just “getting on with” maintaining a daily routine despite long periods in hospital and his planning for a return to civilian life after treatment.

The whole constitutes a unique contemporary record of one patient’s experience undergoing multi-staged plastic surgery typical of the period.

Read a full Transcript of the Diaries