"WHAT are those horrible scars on your leg Woody?"

"They're varicose veins actually."

"You're joking! I thought it was just pregnant women and old codgers who got those."

"No, they're quite common in young people as well."

"We should start calling you grandad'. Hey lads come over here and look at these disgusting veins on Woody's leg you'll kill yourself laughing!"

Exchanges like this were for many years a regular occurrence whenever I pulled on a pair of shorts to play football. My bulbous veins were a constant source of amusement to team-mates.

I was thick-skinned enough to take the flak, and gave plenty back. Of far greater concern was their potential impact on my already barren love life. Consequently, knee-length shorts were a must during the summer months to hide my condition.

I was 13 when I first noticed a small vein beginning to protrude through the skin at the top of my right thigh.

It grew in length and depth over the next few years until it snaked half way up my leg. To add insult to deformity, more varicose veins developed at the back of the beleaguered limb, looking like a family of blue worms playing Twister.

I was reassured by my doctor. He said that as I felt no pain, the veins could be left alone, but warned that, "they may become more noticeable as you get older."

In fact, by my mid-20s, friends joked that the leg resembled a road map, so visible were the little blighters.

Enough was enough.

After a thorough examination, I was placed on an NHS waiting list to have them removed. Eighteen months later I went under the knife and within a few hours my leg was blemish-free for the first time in 17 years.

Now, just three years later, cases like mine are to be outlawed on the NHS. Why? Cost-saving, of course.

As part of its continued rationing, the debt-ridden York and Selby Primary Care Trust (PCT), have announced that varicose vein operations will not be available on the NHS in the future unless there is a "clinical need".

In other words, if the treatment is mainly for cosmetic reasons, the veins can stay put. It will be a similar criteria for, among other things, vasectomies and treatment for bunions.

Personally, I fear it could be a worrying development if not handled delicately by medics on the ground.

There are about 12 million people blighted by varicose veins in the UK. The wealthier among them can always go private it costs up to £3,000 for a removal operation.

Those remaining will have to hope that health managers adopt a sensible, pragmatic approach, taking each case on its merit.

Not every teenager with varicose veins will have thick skin.

Being in constant fear of verbal abuse if your legs are exposed may not be a clinical enough reason to operate, but surely needs addressing?

Doctors have warned me that there is every chance varicose veins will again invade my leg in the future.

PCT bosses don't have to worry in my case I couldn't face the operation again. The three-inch scar running down my groin is a permanent reminder of the ordeal.

An incision was made there, my surgeon told me afterwards, to give him access to the offending vein before he literally pulled it tight like spaghetti and snipped.

A skin-tight stocking then had to be worn over my leg for two weeks, the itching was torture.

The ultrasound scan prior to the operation was by far the worst part. The male surgeon informed me in that matter-of-fact medical way that a warm gel would be applied to my groin area and the scanner slowly rubbed around it so the veins could be located on screen.

Fine, I thought, we are all adults in here. How quickly my mood changed when in sauntered a young, red-headed female beauty in a white uniform.

"My assistant here will carry out the procedure," the surgeon told me, a satanic grin on his face.

"Pop your trousers down and go and stand over there, please Matthew."

Let's just say she was very professional, and what you're thinking happened didn't happen.

Despite the warm gel.

Is my experience an answer to saving money in the NHS? Make operations so embarrassing, on top of everything else, that a map of unsightly veins is preferable to a red-head's clinical foraging.