The Guinea Pig Club was formed on the grass, outside of Ward III at the Queen Victoria Hospital, in East Grinstead in 1941. A group of young men, all airmen who had received burns and were in the care of plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe decided to form a drinking club to pass the time while they were stuck in the hospital. It was to become a way of maintaining contact with one another when they were finally discharged, and annual reunions have continued to this day. Initially, they called it the Maxillonians, after the Maxillo Facial Unit where they received treatment, but later it would change to the Guinea Pig Club when an airman announced how they were all just "bloody guinea pigs" to the Maestro. The Maestro, of course, was Archibald, who the men sometimes called Archie or the Boss. They looked up to him because when they first arrived, no matter how severely injured and disfigured they were, no matter how wretched, lost, and alone they felt, he looked into t
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