Through Fire and Water

Extraordinary times require ordinary people. "This is an extraordinary story of faith, of medical affairs, and of the Royal Navy in wartime." (Captain Peter Hore RN, Paul Houghton's obituary writer in the Daily Telegraph.) Through Fire and Water is the story of an ordinary surgeon, whose skill changed the course of the Second World War.

Discover the roots of Paul's resilience in both war and peace in this thrilling memoir of an extraordinary yet ordinary life. The past springs to life as we hear, in his own voice, the sights, smell and roar of sea battle on the Malta Convoys. As one of the colourful characters of the war at sea, his life spanned most of the turbulent twentieth century, and he saw surgery transformed by medical revolutions like the discovery of antibiotics. His son, Mark, himself a doctor, paints an intimate portrait of a bold, yet shy man who struggled to put his faith into practice - clumsy at home, yet almost miraculous with a scalpel. It's the story of how, as a young man with a flaming temper, he was changed by life's challenges to become the navy's first Fleet Surgeon, before being a founding consultant of the NHS in Worcester, UK.