Joyce Thompson was born in Ashington in March 1931, the youngest of 7 children. Her father was a miner at Woodhorn Colliery and the family lived in a house with just two bedrooms. She developed TB in the knee, which later spread to the elbow, and spent time at Ashington Hospital, Stannington Sanatorium and Hexham Hospital.

"I went to Stannington, I was first put in the observation ward upstairs then I was put down onto the orthopaedic ward and from then on my knee just got worse and worse. There were about 10 to 14 beds, and the girls were all about my age, and I did see deaths on there. I didn't really know a lot of them at the beginning it wasn't really until I went up to Hexham to have my leg amputated and then come back again that six of us girls were put in this little room by ourselves so we got to know each other better then."

"My leg was so painful, and with it being on the knee joint probably that made it worse. ...Mr Stanger used to come quite often and he looked at the dressing and he said to Sister Mundy, "When you put this dressing on I don't want it taking off for another week." And after the week when they took the dressing off, it was full of little maggots crawling all over the dressing, I got quite a shock. And I suppose his mind was made up then that I had to have the leg amputated."

"I know that when I did get to Hexham that when they were preparing me for the operation I couldn't bear the pain, and one of my friends, Tommy, told me "Joyce, we could hear you screaming down the corridor." So the sister at the time she said "This is no good," and the next thing I came round after I'd had the amputation and I felt as right as rain and I asked for a salmon sandwich."

"Well I think I was just pleased to get rid of it, it was so painful. I was very shy but I opened up a lot for being in the hospital. I had some good times after that. After the operation one of the porters came to me and said to me "Joyce I took your leg away after the operation," and he said "they didn't need to cut it off it dropped off."