THE EXTRAORDINARY friendship between a Dalton man and a survivor of four Nazi death camps was broadcast to a national radio audience this week.

When Kevin Coulter was a young patient at Ethel Hedley Hospital in Windermere in 1945, he befriended fellow patient Mendel Preter.

The pair lost touch when Mr Preter returned to his native Poland, but incredibly were reunited after a 68 year gap and now speak regularly on the phone.

And this week, Mr Coulter returned to the hospital, which is now houses accommodation for retired people and has reverted back to its original name of Calgarth Park, to be interviewed by BBC Radio 4 about his friendship with Mr Preter, who is now 91 and lives in the USA.

A football mad youngster who played for local club Dowdales, Mr Coulter was taken ill during World War Two and his chest condition was so serious he spent three and a half years in hospital.

In September 1945, he was moved to the Ethel Hedley Hospital, where he found himself in the next bed to Mr Preter, who had incredibly survived being interned in four different concentration camps including the infamous Buchenwald.

Mr Preter had arrived at nearby Calgarth Camp as a group of 300 children brought to start a new life in England by the British Government and who became known as the 'Windermere Boys.'

He met his new British friend after being admitted to the hospital for treatment for TB and typhus and to aid his recovery from malnutrition.

“A rabbi introduced a thin lad with a sunken face called Mendel Preter who had come from a concentration camp," recalled Mr Coulter, who is now 87 and lives in Prince Street, Dalton.

“They said: ‘Will you look after him?,’ and we got on like a house on fire.”

The pair lost touch when Mr Preter returned to Poland before later settling in the United States where he worked in the accountancy field, while his British friend eventually made a full recovery and returned to the Furness area, becoming a dental technician.

But there was a true happy ending when almost seven decades later, the two were put back in touch following research by consultant orthopaedic surgeon Bryan Rhodes.

The amazing story was recalled to radio listeners by Mr Coulter this week, and he also had chance to see once again the verandah area of the hospital where, still fixed to his bed, he spent much of his time in those far off days.

There is a permanent exhibition about the experiences of the Windermere Boys on the first floor of Windermere library at Ellerthwaite.