The wounded Ridley was compelled to lie out in the tenuously held trench for 12 hours, drifting in and out of conciousness. When he regained conciousness he was dismayed to find that his "hand was still on", and he feared that it would mean that he would be compelled to return to the trenches. Eventually he was brought in, and his wounds would have been dressed at a forward aid post at this point, a few yards further up the lane from the Battalion HQ dugout. He was eventually evacuated to a Canadian hospital, where he received the first of 5 operations on his seriously damaged tendons. His fractured skull was not diagnosed until later. He never did return to the trenches, and survived to fight in another war, being evacuated, traumatised by his second exposure to the horrors of war, from the beaches at Dunkirk in 1940. He subsequently served in the Home Guard, an experience that was no doubt to inform his part, many years later, as Private Charles Godfrey, the gentle, much loved, urologically challenged character in 'Dad's Army'.