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SAVING FACE
Thank you for a most interesting ‘Gem From the Archive’ (July) about Dr Harold Gillies and his work on facial reconstructions. He came from New Zealand, but another surgeon, Henry Pickerill, who had gone to New Zealand from England before the First World War, returned to England during the war and worked alongside Dr Gillies, helping set up the unit at Sidcup.
On his return to New Zealand and then in Australia, Dr Pickerill continued this work on this side of the world and Jim Walker, a great uncle of my partner, was treated by him in Sydney. This young Kiwi soldier had been hit across the face by a piece of a gasshell casing at Passchendaele in September 1917. Although it did not enter the skull it caused horrific injuries. The whole of his upper jaw was shattered, his nose was cut off and his lips were blown
