A DOCTOR from Barnt Green, who helped pioneer a hospital in a remote part of southern Africa during the 1960s, has written a book about his experiences.

Place of Compassion is Dr Kenneth Luckman's first book and describes the seven years he spent working in the mountain villages of Lesotho establishing a healthcare system.

In 1953, at the age of 18, he attended a summer school where he first felt his calling was to work as a doctor in the Third World.

He said: "This was a bolt from the blue because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life."

After graduating from Birmingham Medical School in 1958, Handsworth-born Dr Luckman took a six-month obstetric post at the old General Hospital, in Bromsgrove.

However, the idea of overseas service stayed with him and when he received a letter from the Society of the Sacred Mission, requesting a doctor to work on a project in Lesotho, he decided to accept.

In 1961, Dr Luckman travelled to the tiny kingdom of Lesotho accompanied by male nurse Arnold Skelton and builder Gerry Galloway.

The men were initially based in the village of Ha Chooko, living in mud huts and using a nearby building as a dispensary.

They made house calls to villagers and learned the native tongue.

The rugged Maloti mountain terrain made the journeys, usually on horseback, difficult.

Months later, they moved to the other side of the Mants-onyane River and work began on a grassy plain, which would become St James' Hospital.

Dr Luckman said it was a "daunting prospect" because all cement bricks had to be hand crafted by Gerry and members of the community.

Within two years, the hospital was open and after seven years it was fully functioning with an x-ray theatre. Funding came from all over the world and generous Bromsgrove residents furnished the first ward.

After nine years, Dr Luckman returned to Britain, settling in Barnt Green with his wife, Hazel.

For 27 years he was a GP at what is now the Cornhill Surgery, in New Road, Rubery, before retiring six years ago. In 1999, he returned to Lesotho to find a much larger hospital, which even has a television.

The Dunedin Drive resident said the hospital continues to struggle with running costs and all proceeds from the book will be donated to the cause.