SIR: I read with increasing horror, about the crisis in the Health Service, involving shortage of beds and transfer of critically ill patients many miles around the country, and I find myself reminiscing about the "old days".

In 1957/58 I began nurse training at Bolton Royal Infirmary. My exit from Introductory Block to the excitement of "real nursing" was indeed a baptism of fire. It co-incided with the major Asian flu epidemic which rampaged throughout Bolton, and indeed, the rest of the country.

Our days (and nights) were a constant round of admitting patients. All of them were found beds - at that time a major policy decision was not required; all that was necessary was a phone call to a porter, who brought a bed - the cellars at Bolton Royal were full of them - and erected it. The wards were full, there were beds down the middle of them, staff succumbed to the virus also, but no patients were left on casualty trolleys.

During my three years training, I remember at least three major incidents. The first was a plane crash on Winter Hill, the second a pit accident at Mosley Common and the third, and most harrowing, the Top Storey Club fire. Due to a network of convalescent beds at Edmund Potters, Blairs and Fall Birch hospitals, we could (if necessary) and did almost empty an acute ward to admit casualties from this type of incident. The patients transferred, who still needed considerable nursing care, received it at these outlying sites. These, one might say, were the "bad old days".

At Bolton Royal Infirmary in 1958, there were three senior administrative posts, plus a small number of clerical staff - but we did have enough beds to see the people of Bolton through a major "flu epidemic' - and we did quite a few operations as well! The population of Bolton has not increased phenomenally nor has it become much sicker. The hospital beds however, have decreased at an alarming rate, and convalescent beds are no more.

I wonder if the cellars of Bolton Royal are still full of beds!

Margaret E Clare RGN.RM

Silchester Way, Bolton

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