Mr Long's Condition was a war injury sustained while serving with the army during the Dday landings of 194
while being evacuated during the retreat from Dunkirk hehis unit were under heavy fire and Mr long was hit in the right femur with a burst from a machine gun shattering his bone and nearly severing his leg.
fortunatly he was near enough to the waters edge and pulled aboard a rescue craft.
Mr Long lost conciseness and came to in an english field hospital in kent where his leg was saved.
a number of operations were carried to try to save the leg the bone was so damageged that a 9 inch section of bone had been completely lost and all that surgeons could do was to clean up what remained of the bone and try to get it to fuse together.
Mr Long was put in plaster up to his chest and traction was applied to the healing bone.
it took 2 years and several skin grafts to get the leg to become useable and then years of further physiotherapy
the overall result was his leg is now 8 1/2 inches short and still remains weak due to muscle and tissue damage.
The first pair of boots he was given with a raise on were a pair of standard issue army boots with a solid raised leather sole which Mr Long says caused him a lot of problems when trying to walk because they were so heavy he eventually was issued with the type you see hear with a bridge type sole to give the raise while being light as possible,
the heel and sole are floated to the outside to help prevent the ankle from turning over on uneven ground.