Storthes

There are different ways of looking at things. Yesterday, a visitor named Beverley who lives in West Yorkshire, left the following thoughtful response to my "Asylum" post. I hope she won't mind that I have chosen to make it the main body of today's blogpost. Beverley reminded me and others that within those grim psychiatric institutions of long ago there were always dedicated and kindly members of staff doing their best to serve the residents or patients or inmates or victims - call them what you will - with kindness and professional expertise.

Storthes Hall Hospital - the administration building

From Beverley...

"I would like to add some local insight to the above post. My husband worked at Storthes Hall Hospital for almost 40 years. His mother had been a nursing sister and my mother a nurse there over two very different periods in history. My husband and I still live in the next village to Thurstonland.

I'm sure in the early part of the century when there was less knowledge about the causes and treatment of mental illness that there was indeed cruelty to the patients, but from 1960 when my husband was an occupational therapist there, things were very different. Yes, the patients were in dormitory style accommodation but many were permitted total freedom during the day to attend church, or walk in the neighbourhood, catch the bus into Huddersfield etc. They were taken by mini bus to places of interest by my husband and his team. He was in the occupational therapy department but also took his painting/craft materials onto the wards where some of the patients were not permitted to wander outside alone. The work of some of the patients was childlike but some of them made wonderful pottery and woodworking items.

There was a theatre where outside theatre groups came to put on musical shows and dances for the patients. At one point there was a gardening group and patients went willingly to work outdoors tending vegetables that were destined to be taken into the kitchens for cooking.

A friend of mine was a therapist specialising in helping patients to make cakes and even meals for themselves.

Eventually the powers that be deemed that this practice smacked of exploitation and so the gardening and cookery ceased to be.

The patients who are buried in Thurstonland all had relatives in either Huddersfield, Barnsley, Sheffield or Dewsbury areas and so they could have taken their relatives back to the area they came from for internment, but of course it was shameful for families to acknowledge that they had a relative in a mental hospital.

I remember it as a small well knit community and the patients were in a safe environment which was not the case by the 1980's when the large hospitals were closed down in favour of care in the community which did not work in the patients favour at all. They were seen wandering around our town centre just killing their time aimlessly. Many were put into small houses with a couple of staff members to make it more like a home environment but sadly they had lost a lot of their friends from the "big house" as they were scattered back into their own local authorities.

I could go on at length and I do know that it wasn't all quite so idyllic. There is a book written by a lady called Ann Littlewood, who was a senior nursing officer there, and it has lots of photos and stories about the hospital from the 1900's up until its closure so if anyone wants an interesting read I'm sure it would be available on either Amazon or maybe even on line somewhere.

The whole hospital and its grounds are mostly derelict now except for the area where the student accommodation is and it looks so very sad to see it like this. The buildings, tennis courts and cricket field all gone to ruin.

The institutions did have much cruelty in the early days but once people understood more about mental illness then the asylum system wasn't so necessary as when people were much misunderstood and it was thought they should be incarcerated for everyone's good.

I hope that this gives a little perspective to what YP has experienced in a graveyard near by. I have many really good memories about the place from the last 60 years.

YP, the area around Thurstonland, Emley Moor and Farnley Tyas has some glorious walks. If you should ever take the train here again I could suggest some fantastic footpath walks that you would enjoy."

West Riding Lunatic Asylum (Storthes Hall Hospital) in  its heyday

Poem

Doris Hallas (right) died in Storthes Hall Hospital in 1974
following 23 years of enforced incarceration

___________________________________________________

Asylum

Their screams still echo through the years

Their sufferings and bitter tears

Beyond the gates, behind the walls

In shadowed antiseptic  halls

Clocks ticked their  desperate lives away

Till there was nothing left to say

Nailed in pine boxes  later interred

Without eulogy or holy word

In Thurstonland just over the hill

And there my friend they are buried still

Two thousand souls or maybe more

The lost ones in a nameless  war.

At the going down of the sun

And in the morning

We will not

Resurrect them.

___________________________________________________

Remember that plaque that I noticed on a memorial stone in St Thomas's churchyard, Thurstonland? (See the previous post).  It seems that around two thousand former hospital "patients" were buried in unmarked graves in the adjoining field. They had all been residents of nearby Storthes Hall Hospital - previously known as The West Riding Lunatic Asylum. Their names are now unknown and the authorities do not even know the exact number of people buried at Thurstonland.

The hospital was in operation from 1904 to 1992. Most of the buildings have been demolished and the site is now home to, amongst other things, accommodation blocks for university students. In relation to mental ill-health I guess that similar transformations in care provision have happened in other western countries. Now we no longer lock 'em up and try to forget about the sufferers. Nearly all big mental hospitals in Great Britain were razed to the ground late in the last century. And we no longer use the term "lunatic" to describe those whose mental ill-health has driven them into crises.

It was with all of this in mind that I created the poem - "Asylum". 

The memorial stone in Thurstonland churchyard

Shepley

Emley Moor Television Mast dominates the landscape around Shepley.
It is the tallest free standing structure in The British Isles.

When I was at secondary school - what Americans call "high school" - I was a keen rugby player. And I was good at it too. Rugby matches and practice sessions involved a lot of tackling and falling over. On wet winter days you would frequently leave the field - covered in mud. 

I don't play rugby any more. As you know, I like to go out walking, plodding the miles - different paths, different landscapes. And whereas in my rugby playing days I regularly tumbled to the ground without concern, nowadays I am a little fearful of slipping on muddy paths. I walk patiently, doing my damnedest to avoid falling at all costs.

Yesterday I caught a train to the village of Shepley near Huddersfield and undertook a glorious seven or eight mile walk in unfamilar territory. It took me to a village called Thurstonland. It was first mentioned as Tostenland in the Domesday Book of 1086 but it is believed that long  before that it was known as "Thorsteinn's land" in Old Norse. It sits high upon a ridge with The Holme Valley below.

Plaque on a stone in St Thomas's Churchyard, Thorstonland

Some of the paths I took were treacherous and though I picked my way along them very carefully, I managed to fall down twice - as if suddenly flung to the ground by invisible rugby players. Thank heavens there is no video footage of these two falls - I would be a laughing stock I am sure.

There's Emley Moor mast again.

Now when you fall in mud, you get wet and well, muddy. Though I was mercifully unhurt, my left side was brown and soggy. I marched onward to Fulstone and then to Shepley Wood End and Shepley Marsh. Looking at my muddy watch I realised that I would have to keep up a good pace if I was going to catch the 15.30 train back to Sheffield.

I just made it and then bustled along to the last carriage where I plonked myself in a vacant seat. No sooner had I deposited my corporeal vessel than a sweet young Indian woman - no doubt a student at The University of Huddersfield - came over to speak to me, asking if I was okay and pointing out that my left side was muddy brown. Could she help me - did I need some water?

I explained that I had fallen over on a muddy path and that I was okay but I was very touched that a complete stranger would show concern like that. After all, she had no idea who she was talking to. I might have been a crazed racist or an axe murderer which - dear readers - I can assure you I am not.

Leaving Sheffield Midland Station, I remembered to pause by The Site Gallery to take this picture of its illuminated parapet. It is a message we can all appreciate even though some things do in fact stay the same:-

Population

As I begin this blogpost Earth's  population is exactly 7,762,009,632.

Great Britain's last population census was in 2011. Then our nation's population was  63.2 million. Today, in February 2020, that number has risen to 67,886,011. That's a rise of  4.6 million in nine short years. By the way, that is as many people who currently live in the US state of Louisiana.

Here in the middle of this short blogpost Earth's population is exactly  7,762,010,485. The terrible truth is that though people are dying all the time, the birth rate is considerably faster.

It seems to me that stemming this ballooning population growth is one of the most obvious ways in which we could save our planet - reducing the impact on natural resources and the world's climate. The Leader of the House of Commons is a posh, supercilious fellow called Jacob Rees-Mogg. He is the father of  six children.  Ursula von der Leyen is the new President of The European Union. She is the mother of seven children.

Are those in positions of influence really taking the continuing population crisis seriously?  It is rarely top of the agenda when our world's future is under the microscope. And I don't see it taking centre stage when climate activists are justifiably venting their spleens.

As I end this blogpost, the planet's population has now grown to 7,762,011,155. It is now five minutes after midnight and already 1,335 babies have been born today but only 562 mostly older people have died.

Why aren't we more worried? Why aren't we doing something meaningful about it?

____________________________________________________

It is now eight thirty in the morning - eight hours since I first published this blogpost. The world's population has now risen to 7,762,090,125. As I slept, The Earth's population increased by 80,000.

99

"99 Luftballons" by the German band Nena was translated into English as "99 Red Balloons" even though a literal translation would have been "99 Air Balloons". The song  was written in German by the band's  lead guitarist Carlo Karges after he had seen a large group of balloons blowing towards the Berlin Wall during a 1982 Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin. The notion of what might conceivably have resulted sparked his imagination.

Upon hearing the song for the first time, the band's distinctive singer Nena (Gabriele Susanne Kerner) said to the writer, "Oh Carlo, that's the best song you have ever written". She claims she "got really big goosebumps" too.

You might say that "99 Luftballons" is an anti-war song. It considers how a nuclear war might be caused by human error on the basis of something as innocuous as a bunch of party balloons. 

A literal translation of the very last verse finds the narrator discovering the lost balloon -the one that would have made up a hundred - but it is too late, the damage has been done:-

Ninety-nine years of war

Left no place for victors

There are no longer any ministers of war

And also no jet fighters

Today I'm making my rounds

I see the world lying in ruins

I have found a balloon

I think of you and let it fly

It is interesting that the band never really approved of the English version - "99 Red Balloons" and refused to perform it during their active gigging years. As they say, things can often get lost in translation - but somehow, ever since I first heard this song it has haunted me somewhat. The simple message within it didn't get lost.

Gloom

In Cambodia - July 9th 2011

The mood of sadness created by Brexit was exacerbated by Hull City's heavy home defeat to Brentford from West London during  Saturday lunchtime. It didn't help that we had sold our two best players on Thursday night. I watched the match live on TV at the local pub and came home feeling like a man who has just received a coronavirus diagnosis.

For the evening meal, I made a mild chilli concoction containing chopped chicken, kidney beans, chopped red onion, yellow pepper and mushrooms. This we ate in soft tortilla wraps with sour cream and sides of wholegrain rice and salad. But this dinner didn't lift my blue mood.

An Irish convent at Cappamore - August 5th 2011

We have Netflix on our television courtesy of The Beloved Daughter but we rarely access it. Shirley was going out for a social event with other nurses and there was nothing appealing on regular TV. So much that is available via Netflix is utter crap in my opinion but I spotted a 2018 film about the deadly  terrorist attacks in Norway in 2011. It was called "22 July" and I certainly found it watchable. How twisted was the evil perpetrator - Anders Breivik! It's quite frightening to think that there are others like him in different parts of the world - just biding their time. I blogged about the sickening attacks back in July 2011 - just two days after they had happened. Go here.

Of course "22 July" was hardly a happy, laugh-a-minute film . After Brexit and the football match perhaps I should have been watching "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" instead. Ah well, to accompany this post and to perhaps lift the gloom slightly, I have selected three random photographs from my 2011 archive.

A late summer lane just north of Sheffield - September 30th 2011

Sad

So very, very sad to see my beloved country leaving The European Union. How did we arrive at this tragic point?

I saw it all. All the jiggery pokery, the false promises, the scaremongering, the posturing, the lies, the ignorance. Though I suspect Russian interference in the initial Leave/Remain vote in June 2016, I cannot prove it. The results of official investigations into that strong possibility have been suppressed by Johnson and his gang. Those results  should have been unveiled before the December general election happened. It is blatantly obvious why Johnson wanted to keep those findings away from the electorate.

For the last two years The Queen Elizabeth Tower that holds Big Ben has been shrouded in scaffolding. Johnson had the idea that Big Ben should ring once again last night - to commemorate the country's departure from The European Union. But it didn't happen. It would have cost £500,000 to interrupt the refurbishment programme and it would have cruelly rubbed the noses of millions of British Europhiles in  the dirt.

Instead there was a pathetic light show in Downing Street with images playing upon the facade of the prime minister's residence. At 11pm an old image of the clock tower minus scaffolding appeared and there was a recorded illusion of Big Ben chiming eleven times. All false - not real - like the Brexit promises themselves. Even the word "Brexit" is false - a jarring, horrible made-up word in the very land that spawned the magnificent most beautiful English language.

And now we are falling into the abyss of economic uncertainty led by blockheads and nitwits. What can possibly go wrong? January 31st 2020 - a dark day in British history - at least in my very humble but well-considered opinion.