A distinguished wartime surgeon has been doubly honoured.

An original commemorative plaque, lost and found again, has been put up next to its replacement at Dover's Buckland Hospital.

The first plaque was unveiled in 1991 by the then Rotary Club of Dover president Peter Sherred.

But it went missing when the hospital was demolished after its replacement was opened in 2015.

It remained lost until this month, when the current rotary club president, Tony Cook, learned that the old plaque had been found among effects brought to Canterbury from the former hospital.

He was told of the discovery by the estates maintenance manager at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Malcolm Stubbersfield.

The original plaque has now been put up next to its replacement at the new hospital's entrance.

Mr Cook said: "It was a real pleasure to see the two plaques, both commissioned by the Rotary Club of Dover, side by side in Buckland Hospital commemorating the life of Gertrude Toland.

"She was a surgeon heroine of wartime responsible for the saving of so many lives.

"Together they make a fitting tribute to a quite remarkable woman."

The replacement, arranged by Mr Sherred, had been put up in August 2018.

Dr Toland, who died in 1985, was the first woman to work as a doctor in Dover.

She was a surgeon, leading one of the teams at Buckland, and during the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation she operated continually for nine days.

About 350 men were treated and 300 survived.

Her skills were needed again for those wounded in the Battle of Britain a few months later and civilians hurt in the constant shelling of Dover from guns in German-occupied Calais.

The present Buckland Hospital is a short distance from the original site, in Coombe Valley Road.

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