4 Comments Posted by expatbrummy

Hi Blue Lamp, what David Salt wrote is correct. What you have to remember, although it was cramped, and horrible really. If you have ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest, well, it had a little authenticity about it, patients kept drugged to keep them quiet was accurate but not a lot else. Very few of the residents were sane enough or had the mental capacity to know anything was wrong and could not even dress themselves. Many would scream day and night like savage animals.

Dean t's comments were so accurate of the place. I felt compelled to go and help those helpless souls. Many were abandoned because of birth defects, hidden from society by their parents. It was a very sad place, but there were many people, including me, who tried to bring some joy to the lives of those poor helpless creatures, often left by staff to lie on excercise type mats all day, without ever talking to them. Some of the happiest and saddest days of my life. Thanks for your wonderful pictures.

This was one of several kitchen areas on the wards, all basically the same. We used to prepare some awful slop of weetabix and hot milk for the children who were incapable of chewing or feeding themselves, in these kitchens, your picture took me right back there and to the smell of that stuff which I hate to this day, almost 35 years later.

You are correct about the children's wards. I was a volunteer there for 9 years and this wonderful picture took me back to the many times I walked that exact path. The bitter sweet memories of many children no longer with us. Thank you for such evocotive memories of a place I loved to go