IT'S PERHAPS the most striking and memorable of all Pope Francis’ images for the Church: “It must be like a field hospital that cleans and heals wounds. This is the mission of the Church: to heal the wounds of the heart, to open doors, to free people, to say that God is good, God forgives all, God is the Father, God is affectionate, God always waits for us.”

An unprepossessing hut with cream-painted corrugated iron walls and a wooden interior on the brink of Cambridge can claim to be literally that – both church and field hospital. St Vincent de Paul in Fen Ditton began life at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and has moved across the city four times since. Built in 1914 it was one of several prefabricated huts used as a hospital for soldiers returning from the front line in France. The hospital included a pioneering bath ward, filled with warm circulating water, which was particularly effective in treating shrapnel wounds.