Health professionals and patients across Kent are recalling their memories of the NHS, which is gearing up to celebrate its 60th birthday.

The health service opened for business on July 5, 1948.

A leaflet which brought news of the new service, proclaimed: "It will provide you with medical, dental and nursing care.

"Everyone - rich or poor, man, woman and child can use it or any part of it."

In west Kent, work has already begun to create a detailed history of two hospitals, now earmarked for demolition, which are older than the NHS itself.

Pembury Hospital, near Tunbridge Wells, opened in 1836 as a workhouse for paupers.

The Kent and Sussex Hospital, in Tunbridge Wells, was partially flattened in a bombing raid in 1941, seven years after it was built.

Both hospitals will be destroyed to make way for the new Pembury PFI hospital, due to be completed in 2011.

As a boy, John Willing, from Sevenoaks, needed treatment at Pembury Hospital for tuberculosis. He was first admitted at 18 months in July 1948, just as the new health service was created.

He said: "I needed extensive plastering and antibiotics, but recall life on the ward vividly. I never liked the food, although on reflection it wasn’t bad and I used to hide the cabbage under my plaster cast."

• The Kent Messenger would particularly like to hear from people who were treated in Maidstone, around the date of the NHS’ creation in July 1948. Contact Mary Graham on 01622 695666 or email mgraham@thekmgroup.co.uk