It has been described as the most exclusive Club in the world, but the entrance fee is something most men would not care to pay and the conditions of membership are arduous in the extreme.

The name "Guinea Pig" – the rodent species commonly used as a laboratory test subject – was chosen to reflect the experimental nature of the techniques and equipment used for reconstructive work at East Grinstead.

Most were British but other significant minorities included Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and by the end of the war Americans, French, Russians, Czechs and Poles.

[12][13] A few members even joined the club after the war's end, through injuries sustained in peacetime accidents, as Ward III remained operational until 1948.

At East Grinstead, McIndoe and his colleagues, including Albert Ross Tilley, developed and improved many techniques for treating and reconstructing burns victims.

They had to deal with very severe injuries: one man, Air Gunner Les Wilkins, lost his face and hands and McIndoe recreated his fingers by making incisions between his knuckles.

Aware that many patients would have to stay in hospital for several years and undergo many reconstructive operations, MacIndoe set out to make their lives relaxed and socially productive.

They were encouraged to lead as normal a life as possible, including being permitted to wear their own clothes or service uniforms instead of "convalescent blues", and to leave the hospital at will.

There were even barrels of pale ale in the wards – partly in the interests of re-hydrating patients whose injuries had left them dangerously dehydrated, but also to encourage an informal and happy atmosphere.

The club was not disbanded at the end of the war, but continued to meet for over sixty years, offering practical support and a sense of community to former patients.

The best known, and most influential in raising public awareness of McIndoe's work, was Richard Hillary's The Last Enemy, originally published in the United States as Falling Through Space (1942).

[7][8] A bronze monument commemorating McIndoe, sculpted by Martin Jennings (whose own father was a Guinea Pig), was unveiled in East Grinstead High Street in 2014.

[13] In November 2016, a monument honouring members of the club was unveiled by the Duke of Edinburgh, its president, at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire.

[28] Charles MacLean, himself a Guinea Pig, published a novel, The Heavens are not too High, in 1957, telling the story of a fighter pilot who suffers severe burns.

Foyle's War, series 3, episode 2, "Enemy Fire" (2004) features a stately home converted to a burns unit in which the patients are encouraged to drink beer, wear their own clothes and organise entertainment.