Jean Gittins is in Tweed Bay Hospital suffering from exhaustion and waiting for Kenelm Digby to remove an infected sebaceous cyst from her cheek:
It was Sunday....The church service was to be held in our ward and I was asked to choose the hymn. Without hesitation I suggested my favourite, 'Abide with me'. Immediately after the service, Sister Gordon took me out on the balcony and quietly told me that Bill Faid had slipped from our roof and, having fractured his skull, was dead on arrival at the hospital.
I found out later that he has been repairing a leak on the roof.
Bill Faid had slipped from specially constructed steps because it was a wet morning and he was wearing 'rubber shoes supplied by the Welfare'.
In the evening Professor Digby, who is also feeling keenly the loss of a friend, visits Gittins and postpones the operation because he doesn't want to add physical trauma to emotional. (See July 26).
Source:
Jean Gittins, Stanley: Behind Barbed Wire, 1982, 95-96