09 JUDITH HOLT

JUDITH HOLT  C905/09/01-03/VHS 01-01

MENTAL HEALTH TESTIMONY ARCHIVE

JUDITH HOLT

C905/09/01-03/VHS 01-01
Original on DVC-Pro
Copy on VHS
 
Interviewed by Mina Sassoon
Camera by Faye
 
Transcribed by Julie Sharman
August 1999
 

[Start of DVC Pro tape one – Start of VHS tape one]
 
`…Interview with Judith Holt for the Mental Health Testimony Project, C905 tape one…’
 
`Are you ok to start Judith?’
 
`Could be all sort of funny faces…’
 
`[Laughs].  You soon get used it…the camera…’
 
`Right, hi Judith.  Just to start off with, can you tell me a little bit about your… your childhood… and… maybe… maybe start off with say, where your… your mother was from and your father was from?’
 
`Yes… my mother… now Mary Reid, came from the Midlands.  She was brought up in West Bromwich.  Her father was a teacher, and… she met my father, Charles Holt, when she came to London and was teaching at Willesden County School.  He was a chemistry teacher.  Her subject was… biology… and she had a PhD degree.  My… Charles… my father’s parents… lived in… Sussex, and my grandfather was also a headmaster of a junior school and quite strict I believe… and… when I was born we were living in London, in Neasden, in a house.  We stayed there until I was fifteen.  It was nearly… it was just before the war.  We moved round quite a bit during the war, and my sister Margaret was born two years four months later, and… now she was born… oh, I can’t remember.  I think she was born in West Bromwich, but I’m not very sure, and we all lived at Neasden.  Because of the war, my father’s school was moved around quite a bit, so he wasn’t there.  My mother took us to Wales part of the time because her father retired to a very nice house there, in North Wales, near the sea, and, with the mountains behind.  Some of the time we were in Cambridge, where my other grandparents were, and once when my mother had glandular fever, we went to Cambridge and actually went to school there for a while.’
 
`Right.  I was going to ask you about schooling.  I mean, did you go to school when you were in Wales and…?’
 
`Err… no, I was too young… [both talking together]…’
 
`Right.’
 
`I think… I remember going to a… to a… my mother had a job in a boarding school looking after, as a housekeeper [bleeping noise in background]… and… I went to the prep school there.  I remember the school uniform was green, and that was in Northwold, Middlesex, and then when we came back to London, I went and my sister went also, later on, to the local… mixed… infants and junior school.’
 
`In London?’
 
`Yeah, in Neasden…’
 
`Right…’
 
`It was called Brentcroft… [ph]… and I stayed there ‘till I was eleven.’
 
`Right…and what were your school days like?’
 
`I was quite happy at school.  I… it was a mixed school, I got on well.  I was quite good at games.  I had friends.  I was near the top of the class.  I think I was… quite happy.  After school there was a park near the house and we used to go swimming there and we used to play with our friends in the park.  I guess I’d say I… I’ve… I’ve got quite… quite good… good memories.  I think it was quite strict.  When I was in the top form, the teacher there, Mr Turnbull [ph] had a cane, and used to walk up and down, knocking… banging the cane on me… on the desks.  It was quite… it was… I think it was a good… it was, of it’s kind, quite a good… infant… junior school.  [Pause].  From the… from the Eleven Plus… I went to… a got a scholar… what was then a scholarship to an independent girls’, school… which was North London Collegiate School at Edgware, and that was a big change.  When I… it took me quite a long time to settle down there, but when I did I really liked it, and… I had a very good friend later on, and, still I like games, I was quite popular, sometimes I was form captain, sometimes I was hockey captain.  It was a long way… it was quite a long journey to school, which meant that you didn’t have friends that you could visit very easily at the weekends… and there weren’t any kind of after school activities.  But I put all my energy into school I think, and I really did… like it and we were expected to work hard.  I think we were a bit naughty, but… beautiful grounds, very nice building… no problems of… you know, control or anything like that.’
 
`I mean you say you got a scholarship, what did that actually mean, at the
time… ?’
 
`Well, if you passed the Eleven Plus, then you… if you passed it high enough, you took an entrance exam which was set by the school, and if you passed that all right you were interviewed.  It meant that you got a free… you got a free place…’
 
`Right…’
 
`…from the… well, County I suppose it was then.’
 
`Yeah…and how did you feel about that?  It’s quite an achievement?’
 
`Well it was… it was an achievement then, yeah… I think… I’m not sure what the proportion of… fee paying and… I’d… I’m not sure, it might have been a third, something like that.  I look… don’t… remember very well, but at… nobody… there was no kind of feeling about it.  Everybody just mucked in and… nobody, you know, didn’t matter whether you got a free place or not really.’
`So taking you back a bit, the… sort of, as a small child during the war, I mean have you got any memories of what that was like and…sounds like you moved around quite a bit?’ [both talking together].
 
`I remember… yeah, I can remember… I can remember playing on the… on the… bomb sites… looking for shell, and I remember there were VJ Day parties, and I remember, I was quite nervous… when… when… when the sirens went, my mum used to put my sister and used to take… my sister and I out of bed, take us downstairs, and we used to try and sleep with our heads protected in a cupboard, and ‘till the… ‘till the air raid was over.  There were rationing of food, there was a civic restaurant where you could get cheap meals.  I remember after the war, seeing ice cream for the first time, and I’d never seen it before, I didn’t know what it was, and I remember going home, trying to… hard, to describe what it was.  We did go to Wales, for some of the time, and the beaches had… wooden poles all over them, and there were concrete kind of pyramids… great big concrete pyramids stuck along the… front… with barbed wire and… I don’t think… I don’t think we really… knew serious… you know, really seriously what… I did have an uncle who was killed in the war.  I can remember… being at my… grandmother’s at Cambridge, and… the news came, I don’t know if it was a telegram or a letter.  My aunt was there and it was to say that her husband had been killed, and I remember… her opening… her… and my… grandmother opening the letter… if it was a letter.’
 
`And did you know this uncle, well or…?’
 
`Well not very… not very well.  We knew him by name or… not… not extremely well.’
 
`So what… what about your health as a small child?  I mean, if you never need… I mean can you remember… [both talking together]…you know, during the war?’
 
`I think I just… I had the ordinary…’
`[Inaudible]’
 
`I just had the ordinary children’s diseases like chicken pox, mumps.  The only… I mean I wouldn’t say it was my health. I know, when my sister was born, the… there was a story that… I think it did affect me and that I withdrew very much, and wouldn’t talk for quite a long time.  But I don’t think… I don’t know… if anything was… [stutters] suggested for that, then or… what happened.  My mother always said that when I did talk, I spoke in sentences rather than words first, but… I haven’t any… I haven’t any memory of that.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`In fact, my  mother always said, later on said that… she always thought that I would be all right.  My sister was quite naughty at school…’
 
`Did she go to the same…?’ [Both talking together]
 
`…on a couple of… she did… she did, yes, and at one point she was quite naughty and in trouble and my mother sent her to a private school to see if that would do any good for a year, and… she was quite… quite kind of naughty, and my mother, later on, said to me… I think this was after I had been ill, that she always thought that I would be all right… no matter what happened, Judith would be all right kind of thing.’
 
`And how did you feel about that?’
 
`Well, it was funny… I… you know, I must… I was… quite extroverted and going about my business and all that kind of thing, and working hard at school, really enjoying it… [pause].’
 
`So I mean you talked about games and you had… you were captain at… what…?’
`Yes, well I wasn’t… I mean I’m not… not… I… I don’t take a lot of exercise now, but… growing up, I… I was… I was in with everybody, we used to play rounders, netball, hockey… tennis I wasn’t so good at ‘cause a lot of people had had private coaching…’
 
`Oh right…’
 
`And… we just used to get sent to the grass courts to practice… but… yeah, I really liked… I really liked… exercise and… and sport.’
 
`What about sort of… academic subjects?  I mean what was your favourite?’
 
`It was an academic school…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I was never much good later on at maths, and chemistry I wasn’t much good at.  Both  my parents had got scientific subjects that they studied.  Biology I could manage.  I liked French, English… but what I was really keen on was Latin and later, Greek.  I wanted to… I wanted to go to university and study classics [pause].’
 
`Right’
 
`It was an academic school, we didn’t… we didn’t have… hardly any drama or… the music wasn’t very good at that time… and it was… I think we did work hard.  We had a lot of homework in the… later on, sort of three hours homework.’
 
`But it… it was a day school?’
`Yeah… ‘
 
`You used to go there every day, yeah?’
`Yeah.  The headmistress was quite well known, and the second year that I was there, it was the centenary of the school and there were… celebrations to celebrate it’s founding…’
 
`Oh right… oh right…’
 
`But in a way… in a way it was quite privileged.  I mean… I think by being ill, I.. that was a great shock to me’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…and I did go back for a year, but I had to work with… a different year, and I… most of… my best friend left, I think that did con… contribute to me being ill, and… [pause] well, it was… [pause]…’
 
`You were fifteen at the time…[inaudible]?’
 
`Yes, well, the time… the year that I was… the year that I broke down, was… my best friend, who I was… we were really, you know… good friends… she left to go to a boarding school, and I… they thought that I’d known about it and I was told and it was quite a shock.  Another mistress that I’d liked, left to go somewhere else.  It was mock O levels, we worked very hard.  But also, my mother was also intending to leave… my father… and take… myself and my sister to live somewhere else, and I think, you know, maybe that had some effect.  I know that it all… it seemed… at least.  I mean some people may believe that it was a chemical imbalance and it might have happened anyway…’
 
`There’s a lot going on…’
`But I don’t… I don’t believe that.  I think… now… I don’t believe that now, I think those were serious things that predisposed it.’
 
`So how did you feel at the time?  When you say your father… wanted to take you and your sister away?’
 
`No, my mum…’
 
`Oh, your mum want… sorry, I misheard you… right…’ [both talking together]
 
`My mum… my mum was… my mum was always the stronger one…’
 
`…away from your father, right…’
 
`She wanted to leave my father and take us… to live… somewhere else.’
 
`So what happened?  Would you like to talk a bit about what happened around that time?’
 
`Well, I was at school, I was working hard, we had masses of homework.  I just seemed to get quite quickly, very kind of depressed and crying and… I was particularly muddled because we were studying Paradise Lost at school, and…’
 
`What, Milton [ph]…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`And that… that seemed… that really… quite terrified me a lot, and… my mother stayed at home with me a bit at first and a housekeeper used to take me home and give me tea, but in a way, I suppose it was the… it… the… no one in the family had ever kind of come in touch with any of this before, so… in a way, I suppose, my mother didn’t quite know what to do anyway.  Eventually, I don’t remember a lot about it… I stopped going to school.  Eventually I was admitted… she took me to Bethlem Royal Hospital… to the adolescent ward.  I think she had a… a friend who knew there was an adolescent ward, and somehow… I don’t know… the steps were taken and I did go there.’
 
`Is that the first memory you’ve got of actually going somewhere like that?’
 
`Yeah, that’s the first… [both talking together]… hospital I went to.’
 
`You didn’t go to your doctor, or…?’
 
`Well, I don’t know, I…’
 
`Did you see anyone at school for… to talk about the problems that you were going through or…?’
 
`No, I don’t think so.  I don’t think… they were concerned…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I mean I think they were helpful.  They were probably concerned, but I… think I was probably too withdrawn, you know… there was no counselling or anything, but…’
 
`Right’
 
`I’m sure they… I’m sure… they must have known because I was upset at school and… I may have gone to my GP or my mother may have gone to my GP… but… [pause]’
 
`So you… you  ended up in the adolescent… ward?’
 
`There… there’s… at Bethlem Royal there’s… there’s an adolescent girls unit, or there was… I think the ward was called `Tyson East One’… and, it was a fairly modern building.  There was a big wire fence round a garden round it.  But… well, I was quite ill, I thought… I thought food was poisoned, I wasn’t eating… I really thought I’d gone to hell, and… I was there a few months, or maybe not as long as that… I’m not getting any better.  I don’t know if I had medication or what, but I was transferred to another ward where they did this… deep insulin treatment, which was a treatment for schizophrenia then.  I had this treatment…’
 
`By this time had you been given… told… what was wrong with you, or…?  I mean can you remember leading up to the insulin treatment, any contact you had with nurses or doctors or…what they said was wrong with you?’
 
`Well not really because I was out of… I was… not communicating really…’
 
`Right…’
 
`And… I probably, like when I’m in that state, I’m quite immobile and… well used to just go where I was told kind of thing… but… I mean… my mother was the main person in… like seeing what was done and… everything…’
 
`Right… so a few months after being admitted, you then got moved to another ward…for the insulin…?’ [both talking together]
 
`Yeah… it may not have been as long as a few months, I don’t know…’
 
`Right… that’s…’
 
`It may have been just a preliminary.  There was this other ward which was a mixed ward where they did this insulin treatment, which meant that every morning you had an injection in your… behind, of insulin.  This was increased, and insulin takes the sugar out of the bloodstream and stores it in the liver, and so… with no sugar in your bloodstream, you… you perspire… you go what they call soporific… you go into a light coma, and you go into a… deep coma, all of which have got kind of stages which can be tested, and I think it’s quite dangerous if anyone’s in a… deep coma for more than twenty minutes.  Then they… there… they used to… interrupt you by putting a tube into your stomach, with glucose, and then gradually you’d come back to consciousness.  You put on a lot of weight, it’s a dangerous treatment… I got a lot of care.  I did get better… I did get socially better, but I have read… that people… that in a way, you got so much care and attention that people thought perhaps it was the care and attention that made the difference rather than the…’ [both talking together]
 
`[Inaudible]… the treatment?’
 
`…treatment.’
 
`I mean how many times did you have the… that was the first one?’
 
`[Both talking together].  The course was forty… forty comas…’
 
`Forty? Right… all lasting… roughly…?’
 
`That would be each morning…’
 
`Right…’
 
`And you’d… you’d get…’
`Right… every morning?’
 
`Yeah, you… it… well, week days, and then you’d… you’d live… live just an ordinary life in the afternoon, but you… but you had… people kept a… a good watch on you in case your levels slipped or anything.’
 
`And you were still only fifteen at the time?’
 
`Yeah… well, I might have been sixteen, I’m not quite sure…’
 
`Sixteen… mmm?’
 
`…what time of year I went there.’
 
`I mean looking back, how did you remember at the time, this insulin treatment?  Did you… accept it without question or not?  Or did you… I mean was it explained to you at all or…?’
 
`[Pause]’
 
`Except… ‘cause it sounds like you’ve read things since about it…’
 
`Yes, I have…’
 
`What was your understanding of it as a sixteen year old child?’
 
`[Pause]. Well, it was dang… it was dangerous, it was unpleasant in a way.  You had to lie between these blankets and sweat away… I think the attention did make a difference…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I… I think the attention made a difference… I think… I think now, I would say that it’s dangerous… it is dangerous, and it’s not used ever any more…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`And the second time I had it, in  another hospital, I nearly died from a pulmonary embolism, when Oxygen was injected into… my… vein… as… to… as part of this treatment.  But… I think… I was quite a passive person then… I think I did accept it, and I probably was so pleased when I felt better, that I just… joined in with whatever was going on.’
 
`Right…and what other things were going on, in the hospital… apart from the insulin treatment… was there any other treatments?’
 
`Well, you were on the… no… you were only on… you were on this ward especially so you… you… you all kind of kept together, and if you went for a walk, you all had to be together and you had to be with somebody who had a great big jar of glucose, in case somebody passed out.  But there was a bit of OT.  When I… when I went back to the adolescent ward, I was really delighted… I’d never done much at school, with my hands… I really did enjoy the OT, it was a very full programme.  There were old fashioned things like basket work and leather work and that kind of thing, but I really did… enjoy doing them at the time…’
 
`And this is still in Bethlem when you…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Right…’
 
`I used to go home… when I got better and went back there, I think my mum used to come and fetch me and I’d… be taken to our new house… at the weekends.’
 
`And where… where was that?’
 
`That was in Hampstead Garden suburb… that’s where she later lived, and she… she remarried and lived there… she… when I was… she… I think she married… when I was twenty one, and they continued to live at that house, ‘till about twelve years ago.’
 
`Mmm.  So when… when you were in the adolescents unit and the Bethlem, did… can you remember having visitors, I mean, did…?’
 
`No, not really…’
 
`Were you allowed visitors?’
 
`There were a… we were allowed visitors.  A few family friends came, but nobody from school, ‘cause it was too far, but they did… they did write to me from school, and I remember having a picture that someone had drawn and sent to me… but it was… that… I mean that is one of the disadvantages, it’s… it’s out at West Wickham, in… [pause]…’
 
`[Inaudible]’
 
`There was a teacher as well, because we were all young, I think probably they had to have a teacher for… some education.  I remember we… we got together a magazine or something like that.’
 
`So were… were you all, sort of… about fifteen, sixteen?’
 
`Yeah… all… all in our teens, yeah…’
 
`And the… the ward where you had the insulin treatment, you said that was mixed?’
 
`That was mixed… [both talking together]… men and women…’
`Was that the same age, or…?’
 
`No, older… could be a bit older…’
 
`Oh that was… right…’
 
`Fairly… fairly mostly… fairly twenties… something like that I think, usually…’
 
`And can you… can you remember some of the… the people that you met from Bethlem?’
 
`Err… [pause]…’
 
`I mean you said…[both talking together].’
 
`Yes, I remember there was a Dr Tate.  I had a photo of a… quite tall, good looking young doctor called Dr Tate.  There was a sister on the… insulin ward, called Sister Gallagher… there was a young man, I think he was about seventeen, and I think he’d… he’d… broken down because he’d lost his girlfriend and I… I really liked him at the time.  I don’t… I can remember.  I’ve got one or two photos, I can remember the faces of one or two of the girls in the adolescent unit.  There was somebody called Barbara… umm… [pause]…’
 
`So…’
 
`But I remember… one of the things which, you know… which quite horrified me when I first went there was… you were locked in the dining room.  You had your meal, and then you had to sit in the dining room until all the knives had been washed and counted, and then you… the door was unlocked and you went back to the… main ward.’
 
`And that was every…?’
`Every meal.’
 
`And who… who did the counting, was it the…?’
 
`Well, probably one of the nurses that was in the kitchen or…’
 
`I mean, did you have to help out much in the ward?’
 
`No…’
 
`Or not?’
 
`No…’
 
`No…so to go back to the OT… you used to talk about basket… work…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I mean how… you said you found that… useful?’
 
`I was… what… it was partly because we’d never done much of that kind of thing at school… it wasn’t that… I was just quite… quite delighted to use my hands in all these craft like things.  I think I made a skirt as well.  I made a… a needlework basket that was basket work, but lined with felt.  I made a writing case out of leather with stitching all round the edges. I think there was some clay… it was a full programme and… well I did… I did… take part in it.  I think… I also thought it was rather sad as well… I learned to dance a tango there as well.’
 
`You say it’s rather sad?’
 
`Well I don’t think a hospital ward is the place for learning to dance really…’
`Right..’
 
`I should have been out a… well there weren’t discos then, but…’
 
`So in what circumstances did you come to learn the tango, was it…?’
 
`They just had somebody from the OT department, gave us a… a dancing lesson I think… for…’
 
`Oh…[pause]… So you… so you were in… so this was over a few months…?’
 
`Yeah… about nine months…’
 
`And you mentioned earlier on… that you actually went back to… to school, was it?’
 
`Yeah, yeah…’
 
`And how were things when you went?’
 
`Well I wasn’t really well.  I think my mum discharged me against medical advice and… I did go back to school.  I had to work with the year below me.  I had done the work for my O levels… but I was pretty miserable I think.  I was there for a year, and I ended up with one O level, and... well, I don't think... again… you know, nobody knew what to do really.’
 
`Right.’
 
`But then… my… my… oh, I call him my stepfather… the person my mother married, Louis Reid… had a son, who had been a psychiatrist, or who was a psychiatrist then, and he had worked for William Sargent who is quite famous, and William Sargent was the consultant at the Royal Waterloo Hospital, and it was through this connection that I happened to go to The Royal Waterloo.  I think I was there five months.’
 
`And that was… that was after your…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Your O levels?’
 
`Oh well… I did… I did my O levels later, but that was after my not very good attempt at my O levels.’
 
`Oh, so you re-took?’
 
`I… when I… when I… [both talking together]
 
`Took them again?’
 
`When I did… when I started to do nursing, which was later, at the same time as doing the course, I’d done all the work for the O levels, so I revised them, and I took them two at a time, externally, whilst I was doing the nursing. [Pause].’
 
`So… the nursing training that… ‘cause you… would you like to talk a bit about that, how you got involved in that?  Studied that…?’
 
`Yeah… I was… I was five months in St Thomas’s.  I had this pulmonary embolism, I had ECT which didn’t do much good… and… Dr Sargent said `get a job in the open air’.  I worked in a plant nursery for a bit, and then my mother met this… a… a man… a very nice man who was a doctor and a catholic, and he had a little talk with me, and all I had known really was academic… academic life at school and wanting to go to the university, I hadn’t seen much of the world anyway, and he said, `well what would you like to do?’, so the only other places I’d been was hospitals, so I said `nursing’.  So, he happened to know the matron of a small hospital in Oxford… and arrangements were made for me to go there.  I started as a nursing assistant, working on a geriatric ward.  I was… I was quite slow but one or two of the staff nurses kind of brushed me up a bit, and there was a lot of domestic work to do, and after a while I became a student, and I stayed there three years, and did my training…’
 
`Right… and then…’
 
`And stayed as a staff nurse, for a year…’
 
`Right, and roughly how old were you when you started this?’
 
`I was seventeen when I went there…’
 
`When you started the… the training?’
 
`Yeah… I was twenty one when I finished.’
 
`And how… how was that?  Actually working… having been in hospital as a… as a…?’
 
`Well it was strange really, it was… I mean I was… it was… I did manage… I did manage it and to some extent, it… I found the… the lifestyle and the quality of life quite different from what I’d known, but I did join in with it, and eventually I did make my way, I… I… I… some… the geriatric ward was quite an education… it was… I think I was there seven months.  You had to feed, clean… do dirty laundry… it smelt… there were young people that were chronically ill mixed up with really senile people.  There was always this green lion that had to be polished.  Umm… a lot of domestic work.  And quite a lot of… on the acute ward upstairs, quite a lot of violence.  This drug Paraldehyde [ph] was in use then, quite indiscriminately, and had a horrible smell… you could… it was excreted through pores of your body.   It was a quick and safe sedative, and… then there was an admission ward.  There was an insulin unit, so I actually learnt how to nurse people who were still receiving this insulin treatment.’
 
`And what was that like, sort of actually being on the other end of it?’
 
`Well, it was… it was funny really.  I was quite good at it.  I was quite efficient at it, and I don’t know if I cut out… off from what it had been like when I was receiving it myself, but… yeah…’
 
`’Cause… well, am I right thinking it’s about the late fifties?’
 
`Yes.  It’d be… sixty one I qualified, I think.’
 
`Right.’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Early sixties?’
 
`But… it wasn’t a bad time and I did this work at the same time.  I must have been quite… you know, working hard, to… to have done all that revision and taken O levels at the same time.  I used to come home… it was… it was long hours, it was ten and three quarter hours a day… [pause]… but again… again… I think one of the things that runs through my life, is that I’ve never really had much social life, outside working hours, and I’ve lived in rather isolated… bedsitters and… working unsocial hours, in a hospital, I didn’t have any contacts in Oxford, or in the community really.’
 
`So where… were you living in a bedsitter in Oxford?’
 
`No, I was living in the nurses home then, but…’
 
`Oh, in the nurses home, right…’
 
`That was just… but I didn’t really have any contacts… outside the hospital.’
 
`And… did you tell your colleagues, or other nurses in training  that you’d been in an adolescents unit and you’d… yourself had insulin?’
 
`No, the matron knew.  No… I… no, not at all…’
 
`Right…’
 
`The matron knew, but she was… she was quite nice.  And she… I think she may have… she may have said to one or two of the staff nurses perhaps that I’d had difficulties… maybe, I don’t know…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`With… with her discretion I don’t know at all, but I didn’t… tell anyone.’
 
`And… before you went into your training, you mentioned ECT. Did you actually have ECT before you went to train or was that at a later period?’
 
`I’ve had E… I had ECT… I’ve had it later, quite a lot… but the first time I had it was in The Royal Waterloo.’
 
`Right… and how old roughly were you?’
 
`Seventeen or eighteen.’
 
`Right… and… can you remember much about that?  Is…?’
 
`Err yes… I know… well I know quite a lot about it from both… both ends…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`But latterly, in Friern, the anaesthetic really used to frighten me, and… I was quite… quite nervous… quite nervous a lot of the time, going to have it, although once or twice, I have had just one… umm… shot of it, and it has made a dramatic difference, but I have had a lot of that.’
 
`Can you remember the very first time… [shouting in background] you had it?  Was that…?’
 
`Well I think it was, I mean I didn’t know then, it was probably just… all I knew was an inject… the injection, the muscle relaxant and the anaesthetic being given, and going to sleep.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`But… [shouting in background]… [pause].  But I remember seeing it in Friern and there were no curtains or screens between the beds, and they just got… people one after the other to… that had had it, laid out on the beds, and I was quite appalled… I think I said so.’
 
`Was this when you were in Friern?’
 
`Yeah, that was late… much later…’
 
`Oh right…’
 
`When I was in Friern.’
 
`So it had it changed over the years, the way ECT had administered… was given, administered?’
 
`Well I don’t really know technically,  I mean I know…’
 
`Right…’
 
`…when I was at the Warneford, we used to have people who… received ECT…’
 
`The Warn…?’
 
`The… the Warneford was the hospital where I did…’
 
`Is that in Oxford?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Right…’
 
`But… and probably the machines have become more refined… [pause]. 
`I mean, can you remember it helping at all when… the first few times you had it, when you were younger?’
 
`No… I had it… I had it at The Royal Waterloo and it didn’t make any difference.  That was why they gave me the insulin afterwards, again…’
 
`Right…’
 
`But there have been times, when just one… perhaps three times, when just one… has… somehow… shaken things up, or completely caused a dramatic… difference…’
`And is that one as part of a programme was that?’
 
`Usually… quite often, there used to be, I don’t know… well, it depends on the person, but a course used to be six… something like that [pause].’
 
`And can you remember any other treatments, you used to have, or…?’
 
`There was one… when I was in Belmont, when I was about twenty two, there was a consultant that I liked very much, and instead of giving me ECT, there was a drug called Leptizol, that could be injected, and it produced a convulsion, and I remember he did this, and I think he gave me gas first, and I couldn’t stand the gas… and then I… at a… maybe at another time… he used to the Leptizol and apparently I had two fits… afterwards, out of the blue, which… kind of frightened everyone, and as a result of that, or one of the things that was suggested was that… which has been looked at sometimes… was that I had some kind of temporal lobe epilepsy.’
 
`As a result, or…?’
 
`Not as a result of it, I mean… I… because…’
`Because…’
 
`Because I had these fits, perhaps they were produced because there was something not quite right in…’
 
`Right… and what did you think at the time?’
 
`Well, I didn’t know anything about it… it was supposed to be investigated.  Much later it was.  I had a sleeping EEG at The Royal Free, and all they said was that there was something a bit irregular in the left temporal lobe, but it was nothing that could be… that was diagnosable.’
 
`Mmm.  I mean it sounds like as a young adult, you had a lot of different sort of treatments like the insulin, ECT and this…this…?’
 
`Yeah… well it was… you see, this… this Dr Sargent, his method of treatment was physical treatment… ‘
 
`Right…’
 
`That was what he believed in, and in a way I suppose that my… stepfather’s son… followed his line and… later on, I did go to an analyst and I was well for quite a few years.  But at the time I suppose that was what people thought was…’
 
`Right…’
 
`Was… umm… [pause]… in the fore… or important or…’
 
`So…so when you sort of had a meeting… when you met up with the psychiatrist, this Dr Sargent, is that what you talked about, the physical treatments, or did he ever ask…’
 
`Yes’
 
`…you how… about your… where you thought your problems stemmed from, or…’ [both talking together].
 
`Well, in micro bits… yes… yes… I mean…’
 
`…things going on in your family, or…’
 
`…they… they would have… they would have like taken a case history when you went there, and… but…’
 
`Can you remember much about the… being asked about your case history?’
 
`I can remember some of them.  Maybe not the early ones, but…  Another thing which, I was thinking yesterday that’s… continued all this long time, is… is the thing of ward rounds.  When I was… when I went to the Royal Waterloo, I shared a room with a… a student from Bedford, and… they used to have these ward rounds with all the doctors and staff in, and we used to call them `the Circus’… and… it’s more or less… just the same now…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I… I think… I mean I… I’m sure they’re good teaching… they’re… you know, they’re good for teaching and… but I think they cause quite a lot of suffering from… for the people that have to attend them.’
 
`So what… what’s your memories of the ward round and…?’
 
`Well at Friern it was a big… ritual.  The consultant would bring cream cakes, take them in… the room was ‘specially prepared.  It was a big day when it was ward round.  They’d have coffee and cakes or whatever it was.  You’d be summoned… you… you… they decided who they wanted to see, they… the consultant would… say good morning, there’d be a empty chair next to him, he’d say `sit down’, and they would say `how are you getting on?’.  We propose to do this, or do you think this, or just any… any review or… treatment that was going.’
 
`And this is not so long ago, is it?’
 
`No…’
 
`Cause this is Friern…’
 
`No, it’s still… and I think at Jules Thorne [ph], we used… the day hospital, there used to be a ward round every Friday.’
 
`Right… and was that the same as when you were an in patient or…?’
 
`Well, same kind of… it is the teaching and for… you know, for… for like seeing how you’re getting on.’
 
`I mean, you mentioned earlier that you don’t think they’ve changed much… I mean how would the ward rounds, say… I don’t know, when you were in… The Waterloo, or… in your earlier hospital admissions, how would the ward… did they have ward rounds, that were similar or…?’
 
`There has… there has been in the Royal Waterloo, and they were similar, yeah…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I should think they’re bigger now.  They may be bigger now, they’ve probably got more people associated and working, you know… with the consultant, or on the ward…’
 
`Mmm… mmm… [pause].  And can you remember…?’
 
`I do think as well, I think that… has made a difference to me, has been… I mean the architecture of the hospital is important, but also, to me… some kind of nature or green is important. I think… St Luke’s Hospital, where I’ve been relatively recently, is about the nicest architecturally, and… physically… that I’ve been in I think.  It’s got Highgate Woods adjoining it.  Even when I’ve been quite ill I went… used to go for walks in Highgate Woods… and… the ground… I think the grounds do make a difference.  In the Huntley Centre, occasionally we got taken to a square, in London… it’s not the same thing at all… and I… at Friern… the grounds were… massive.  I mean, in some ways, the way the hospital was built may be… wasn’t all that… you know, it’s… had got its failings, but… there was some green and some trees.’
 
`Mmm… and how… how did… that… I mean how did that feel, sort of being in hospital, big surroundings… at the time?'
 
`What, like Friern?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Well it’s quite frightening in a way, in a place like Friern, in a way… [pause]… and also, the building… the main building of Friern was… I used to find… quite frightening, the… famous long corridor and… [pause].  In a way, it is a little empire on it’s own, like… quite… they had their own… own fire engines, or did have.  They got this little man that takes all these trolleys round with the food for each… each ward.  It was… it was fast… it was too fast in a way.’
`So what… how old were you when you first went into Friern?  ‘Cause this is a… relatively recently recent admission…?’
 
`Ummm’
 
`Am I right in thinking that’s your last place, where you were actually in hospital?  Friern?’
 
`No… no… no, The Huntley Centre.’
 
`Oh, The Huntley Centre, right…’
 
`Let me… I went… I did the nursing, I came home… I did two A levels in year to get into university.  I was only at university… I did get in, but I was only there two terms.  Then I was in Belmont Hospital for about eighteen months, then I was in The Middlesex, for a few months… then, I think my mum didn’t know what to do again, and she consulted a colleague of her who was an analyst.  I got a job in  a shop, I lived away from home and I went to see her, and I paid her a third of what I was earning, which was £9.00 pounds a week.  And I did stay out of hospital for quite a long time.  I worked in this shop, then I went to a dance studio… then I went to college to do teacher training, ‘cause I’d always… I had this idea that I would like to work with children.  Twice during the course I was in hospital in St Luke’s… for a very short time and just went straight back and got on with the course.  Passed that all right, taught for two years, quite unhappily, because it wasn’t a very good school the first one… then I had… then I got a job based on my nursing qualification, working in an elderly persons’ home for three years.  At the end of that I was ill, and I went to the Camden Day Hospital, which is in the grounds of Friern, and then later I was in and out of Halliwick [ph], which is also in the grounds of Friern, and I think… on a later occasion, Halliwick [ph] was shut, and… I was in the actual main building of Friern.’
 
`So, to take you back to when you were… you were doing A levels, you said two A levels, which… and round about that period of time.  I mean how were things at… then?’
 
`They were very good, I’d… I’d finished my nursing, and my mother said she’d have me at home, and I could do two A levels in a year, which was…’
 
`And home was still London...’
 
`Yeah, that was in…’
 
`In Hampstead?’
 
`And I could do my A levels in a year, to get into University…’
`Right…’
 
`And I still had this hankling [ph] from school… ‘
 
`Greek and…?’
 
`You know… that… that was what I wanted to do.  I worked hard, it was jolly hard work, it was a crash course, no time for anything else…’
 
`What… sorry, what subjects?’
 
`English and Latin.  And… [pause]… I got into the university… it was the University College of North Staffordshire, then… Keele, but when I went there it was in the early stages… there was red mud all over the place, it was still being built… and again, it was more something social.  There was nothing wrong with my work, it was just that I was worried… and… just got terribly depressed.  I went home at Christmas.  I think I went… I went to see somebody and they put me on a bit of Stelazine, went back there… there was no counselling then… a nice chap, a blind… Classics tutor… used to… I used to do babysitting for his kids, and… at the end of the second term I… I just was… I just was… I had… I had one or two friends, and a Christian group took me under their wing.  Also, I think I… I gave… I gave some blood and I got really… I got really run down and boils all over the place… I think that didn’t help, and… at the end of the second term I just… kind of gave up, I suppose and said I didn’t want to go back.’
 
`Right.  And what happened… then?’
 
`And then I went into this hospital in… Sutton.’
 
`And can you remember, at the time… getting a diagnosis or… discussing…?’
 
`Well, I kind of knew.  I kind of…’
`You said you got very depressed so, yeah…’
 
`Yes.  I kind of knew from like reading around… first of all I mean they thought… maybe I was schizophrenic or schizophrenic and depressed, and… I think it was later on when I’d been in Halliwick [ph].  I still think that there was a doctor there who decided he was going to try and treat… schizophren… schizophrenia with Lithium, and that was why I started to take Lithium.  But since then, my diagnosis… I know ways of assessing and that change… but my diagnosis has been manic depressive and… when I was at Jules Thorne [ph], it was psychotic depression.  I think it’s manic depression… manic depression again now.’
 
`Mmm… and how do you feel about these… different… [inaudible]?’
 
`Well since… because… because over the last ten years I’ve been to studio upstairs and I’ve been having psychotherapy, I think… my… I… I… I don’t know enough about it to kind of go into it, but my views have changed now.  And I think that a lot of my… well not a lot of my trouble… one of the main things, has been anxiety, and over the years, over the last thirty years, I have suffered from panic attacks.  I was given a few Valium tablets for them… they weren’t even diagnosed.  I suffered them when I was teaching, when I was… quite acutely… and it wasn’t until about… I think it was about six years ago, I was in St Lukes with them badly, and… a nurse… helped me… and we found that if, in the early stages of an attack, if I could listen to a tape, or listen to her doing a relaxation… of a certain sort, it did help me, in the early stages, physically and otherwise…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`But I have been… and… I have been quite plagued by them.’
 
`Did you get the panic attacks when you were younger or is that something that’s developed over the…the years?’
 
`I got a… I’ve… may… not… not very young.  I should say… [pause]… I should say… in… in my thirties… sometimes in my thirties.’
 
`I mean I was interested in what you were talking about… which you mentioned a couple of times, like going to see an analyst in your thirties…’
 
`Yeah… yeah…’
 
`…that your mother… knew about?’
 
`Yeah… and she did… she did keep me out of hospital a long time.  I did the job… I did the job in the… in the shop, it was pretty boring, but I stuck at it.  The dance I really liked.  A colleague of hers had connections with The Larburn [ph] Art of Movement Centre in Addleston [ph], and I went there.  It was hard physical work, I was much fitter… and I… I did… I loved the work.  Teacher training college, again… I didn’t have much social life.  I worked… I didn’t work very hard.  I got through, I got an average mark, I got an above average for my practical teaching.  I didn’t really work very hard, but I completed it.’
 
`And all the while, all while this was happening you were going to see an analyst?’
 
`Yes.  Yeah, I used to… I… I can’t… perhaps twice a week, something like that…’
 
`Twice a week… and how… what was that like… your memories of it?’
 
`Well, it was quite… quite upsetting in a… you know, quite… can be quite emotional, but I was quite… attached to her in a way.  But I think… yes, oh, it definitely… it definitely did make a difference.  But I think when I… when I… when I left the teaching, I kind of went down hill a bit and just… went to work in this old peoples’ home.  It was pretty… it was pretty… I worked there three years, but it… again, I knew nobody outside, it was funny hours, and it was really depressing.’
 
`And were you still seeing the analyst at this… this…?’
 
`Well, I kind of… I was… kind of like this, you know, I didn’t… I just…I can’t remember exactly how… how… I think I just went and said that I didn’t want to go anymore.  Something like that.’
 
`After how many… how long… can you remember, roughly?’
 
`Well, it was… it was a good while…’
 
`Mmm… ‘cause I mean, analysts… it’s quite a long course isn’t it?’
`Yes, yeah… yeah…’
 
`I mean, sometimes a number of years.’
 
`Yeah..’
 
`And can you remember sort of how it was different say, from insulin treatment or ECT, all the physical treatment?’
 
`Oh yes, I would much prefer that kind of… like, if it could do some good.  To do with… a relationship with people… rather than a pill, or an injection or something like that.’
 
`I mean how did you find going to see the analyst, I mean what…?’
 
`Well I was… I… I mean I was… I was dev… I used to get up really early, go there… I used to go there.  Sometimes perhaps I would not speak, sometimes I would cry, sometimes I would… perhaps be angry afterwards, I don’t know… but I felt… I felt there was some ongoing… something happening, ongoing kind of thing…’
 
`Sort of link?’
 
`Yeah… [pause].’
 
`I mean…can you… remember what kind of… did it make a difference to your life at the time, it sounds like you were involved in lots of different things, like the dancing and the shop work and the… and…?’
 
`What, her?’
 
`Yeah, going to see an… an analyst?’
 
`Definitely, I was on the point.  My mother was on the point of really, having me put somewhere.  It was a last resort that she asked her I think.’
 
`Mmm… and were you happy to go along with it at first?’
 
`It… it wasn’t good in some… it… I mean… I’ve never been very good about clothes and all this kind of thing, it… and things like that… you know, weren’t all that good, but… it definitely… definitely did have some… I mean, to… to take a teacher training course, to be able to take a teacher training course, from what I’d come from, through working in the shop and the dance had helped, and that kind of thing… must have shown something [pause].  I… I mean I… I feel… even… now that… that in a way, it is… a great sense of isolation in a way, that it’s… it’s… it’s an isolation to do with knowing how to do things in the real world, and… companionship with people and… I do need to practise things like… well not to practise exactly, but… perhaps my perseverance isn’t very good or…  well, all sorts of things still could… need to be done, but… I definitely think, like… the atmosphere at the studio, over the last ten years, has softened, and made my view point towards psychiatry… different.  Psychiatry in hospitals, anyway, although I know… I know that in some cases they’ve made a difference to me.  But I think… I still find it quite difficult to take… to use initiative, and I think that in hospital you can become quite institutionalised, and at one point I was coming out of hospital, discharged, and there wasn’t as there is now, a care plan assessment, which to some extent is a good thing.  I was… it was… I was left to my own resources, what I did when I came out.  Except, sometimes if you were sent to a day hospital or something like that.’
 
`And how long ago was that… before pre-care plan days?’
 
`I don’t know exactly.’
 
`So you were in hospital and then you were just let out?’
 
`I remember coming out once, and I was told I was going to be discharged, and I thought, you know, what am I going to do?  And… all I could do was, I went down to the Camden Institute and booked a cookery class on a Wednesday afternoon, and that was all I had.’
 
`And how was that?’
 
`Well, I went there.  It was quite good, but I have always found it quite difficult spending time… you know, constructively, on my own.’
 
`During the admission to hospitals, the longer ones, what was life like on the hospital wards?  When you say like when you were in St Luke’s, I mean, what was…?’
 
`Well St Luke’s is quite small it’s not a… it’s not a… it’s fairly family… it’s all… you know, family in a way…’
 
`And what was that like?’
 
`I did… I think… I did have a room to myself, which was quite nice.  There was a meal… there was a kitchen where you could have your breakfast individually.  There was a room with television.  There wasn’t an… there wasn’t all that much OT, I used to go to pottery on a Monday, I liked that.  There… there were a few OT things, quite nice… the grounds were pleasant, the… as far as I remember the nurses were quite nice, and I remember I used to take a little sketch book and a… a paint box, and try and make a routine for each day, and as part of the routine, do a little picture in my sketch book.  But… I wasn’t there… I wasn’t there all that long, I mean… compared to somewhere like Halliwick [ph], there’s like… a big dormitory, a long corridor… a big canteen, serving four wards for meals… still people… emphasizing the bath book… and…’
 
`The bath book?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`And what was that?’
 
`Well, I mean, it’s… that’s another thing that has… like… it’s… I’m sure it’s necessary but… like in a hospital and in the old peoples’ home… the bath book with everyone’s name written down, you… to be ticked off when you had your bath for the week and that kind of thing… was part of the… part of the programme.  And… I think they did have… they might have just started a… a ward meeting once a week.  They did have a disco now and again… occasionally they had a day out somewhere like South End… but… quite contagious, when there was like violent… violent behaviour could be quite contagious… not contagious, infectious… and…’
 
`Can you remember any particular incident of… violence?’
 
`Well I remember… I remember in Friern, I was on… there was a ward called Six Oaks, and it was really astonishing.  I was in one dormitory… it happened over about a fortnight… that every time, about five o’clock… something, I don’t know, something just seemed to happen that somebody would… break a window, or cut their wrists, or take an overdose.  There was this atmosphere, and… oh I think one of the nurses said to me, `you’re the only one that hasn’t lost your rag’… because, well I didn’t usually behave like that particularly, but it was… it was really astonishing.  The… atmosphere at the same time, half past five to six, every evening.’
 
`And… weekends included, was it?’
`I don’t know, I might not have been there at the weekend but it was… a definite kind… seemed to be a definite pattern for a while.’
 
`And what did you think it might be, at the time… did you just…?  Did you…?’
 
`Well, it’s very difficult to say, you know it’s just… it’s sort of tension where there are a lot of people together and… [pause].’
 
`And, was this mixed, this ward?’
 
`Yes…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Mmm… we’ve actually come to the end of the first… first tape, so…’
 
 
[End of DVC Pro tape one]
 
[Start of DVC Pro tape two – VHS tape one continues]
Interview with Judith Holt, C905/09 tape two.’
 
[off mike] `…what I could remember and also what I couldn’t…’
 
`…when you’re ready…’
 
`Ok, Judith… hi…back after our break… ‘
 
`Ahh’
 
`So, yeah… going to see the analyst… what… what were the rules about it all and… how did it work?’
 
`[Pause].  Well, one had to be careful to go… arrive on the dot, because there wasn’t a waiting room.  I remember once going early, and walking around, and… knocking, and she was quite irate, and put me in the bathroom, but it was not… on.  She had a… she had a, ground floor room, and… I think, a lot of the time I did lie on the couch, and she… sat behind my head, in a chair.  She smoked quite a lot, she smoked during the time, and… [pause]… well, I think there were long silences sometimes on my part… [pause].’
 
`I mean, was the process explained to you?  Did you…?’
 
`I did… I often used to go out of there and… she lived quite… quite near Dillon… well, the Dillon’s had a psychology book shop…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…quite near, and maybe something she’d mentioned, or… something that I’d heard of, I would go and read for hours in this psychology shop, but I… it may not… I did at the time take it in, and it was quite interesting, but maybe it wasn’t a very positive thing to do.  I think… I think that… one of the things I regret, both with her, and the person I see now, is that I don’t really know other people in psychotherapy or… that I can… talk… to…’
 
`Right…’
 
`… ab… you know, about… I don’t mean, I don’t mean that I would want to… necessarily pour out everything, but just… get it in perspective and hear about somebody else’s experience and that kind of thing.  I just… I’m rather isolated that way.’
 
`Of the actual process of it, you mean…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…of what…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I mean you mentioned doing therapy now… is… is that… ?’
 
`Do you mean at… at… at… Studio upstairs?’
 
`Is that where you have your therapy?’
 
`Yes…’
 
`Right…’
 
 
`I go to… I go to Doug at the Studio upstairs…’
`Right…’
 
`…’cause he’s got his practice there, as well as being the founder, together… with… umm… Claire, of Studio upstairs.’
 
`Right. And how’s…?  Is it different kind of therapy to what you had when you had when you were in your thirties, or…?’
 
`Yes it is, because… and partly because of the… the situation.  His… his training I think is based on R D Laing, and, I did try to get into one of their group homes, but wasn’t accepted.  But his office is right next to Studio upstairs, and when I first… it… in the building now, it is… and when… when that first happened, I felt quite embarrassed in a way, at seeing him in the Studio, and not just going to a room and going away and not seeing anyone… but that did change… over a… over a length of time. I don’t know if there was any particular reason, that did change and I felt much more at ease if I saw him out of the… consulting room, or… not entirely… I still perhaps was at a loss what to say, but it… it… there was a definite feeling of change, and the Studio is right next to… his office, and it is more of a community as well.’
 
`Mmm… and would you like to talk a bit about what Diorama is? As a…?’
 
`Well Diorama…’
 
`Diorama Studios?’
 
`Yeah.  Diorama is the art centre.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`It’s a charity, and… it used to be in what is now a listed building, which was a proper Diorama, nearby… and… under the heading of Diorama, are artists studios, there’s a `Physical Disability Association’, `Survivors Speak Out’… a theatre there, a gallery there… and, Studio upstairs is part of that, it is in itself a charity, and it was… it’s got a… it’s got a studio there… it’s also got a drama depart… drama department, and uses the theatre.  It has tried, I think, music… a music course… it is… it… it’s a place for people who are interested in art, and it says on it’s leaflet, that maybe these people don’t want to, or don’t choose to, follow the normal… paths of art training.  It is a very liberal and tolerant atmosphere… the people who work there are art therapists mostly, they’ve got volunteers as well, but I don’t altogether, can’t really say exactly what art therapy is, but it isn’t… it isn’t practicing art therapy, although the people who are there are art therapists.  Some people who come there have… have an opportunity for psychotherapy from a… person there.  They have put on exhibitions from time to time.  That’s been a great educative experience as well.  The first one was in the old building and was quite a thrill to me ‘cause I’d never done anything like that before.  The drama I take part in.  Also, I’d never done that at all before.  I didn’t do it at school, and I do find that quite… I’ve… I’ve learnt a lot from… I’ve learnt a lot from it and it’s… therapeutic and a definite… a definite… widening… of experience, in performing.  People can come there… they come two or three times a week.  It’s quite… they can… possibly be funded by the local authority but they also encourage people who perhaps can’t get funding and want to come… independently.  They… in a way, in a slow way, I think it has meant I’ve… used my initiative a bit more, that I’ve had to get on and do things instead of perhaps being told or expecting to be told what to do.  If… also I have been there when I’ve not been well and I’ve found the people treated me… nicely. I found it was a holding situation and… on at least two occasions, I’ve been able to go there during the day, and… also with help, manage outside, whereas maybe otherwise I would have had no alternative but to go to hospital.’
 
`Right.  I mean, you said… that you’ve… you’ve been into hospital while, in the last ten years…’
 
`Yeah’
`…while you’ve been at Diorama.  What… what were the circumstances surrounding that… and what was that… like?’
 
`I can’t all together remember.  I know I went to St Luke’s from the old… I went to St Luke’s from the old building, that was when I was getting bad panic attacks.  Umm… [pause]… I had… I think they… it… there have been occasions where I’ve just become… kind of immobile… not able to communicate and perhaps in danger of injecting myself and… [pause]… on a couple of occasions in the last two years I’ve been able to go to my mum’s to sleep, and to eat… and go to Diorama in the day time, and it has been pretty horrible but… it has… I managed, and I think I’ve become a bit more strong because I’ve had to do it in spite of… of feeling… feeling…’
 
`Right…’
 
`…like that [pause].’
 
`I mean, how… how was… being in hospital?  What was being in hospital like, compared with say, somewhere like Diorama… or Studio upstairs?’
 
`Well, it’s completely different.  If you take the Huntley Centre, that’s very structured, you’ve got a nurse allocated to you now… everything’s done for you, food’s provided… you have to ask about everything.  You may have to share a room… I had to share a room with somebody who was… older than me… up all night, turning on the light… it’s much more acute… people are more acutely ill in hospital, but you… the thing… you don’t… occasionally something happens at Studio upstairs which is a little bit out of the ordinary, but… they’ve always, because of… I think because of their training and because of their experience, they’ve been able to deal ok with it.’
 
`And how was it dealt with when you were in hospital? When something out of the ordinary happens?’
`Well, it’s medication… it’s... [pause].  I’ve seen violent episodes in hospital where, you know, maybe six nurses… take a patient down the ward and… [pause]… I think Diorama is much more… it’s much more flexible and… there’s no… there’s not really… they wouldn’t say… I mean there is some management, there is some hierarchy, but a hospital ward has it’s definite and strict hierarchy.’
 
`And how did you experience that hierarchy? How did it feel when you were a patient?’
 
`Well, I suppose in a way… in a way you might feel quite safe, if you know who your nurse is you can ask whatever you want and… and then… on a… in another way, it can be quite irritating ‘cause you might want, say, perhaps you haven’t got a toothbrush or you might want a toothbrush, and you’ve got to ask about three people, and get someone to unlock this and… there is much more paperwork now, you get passed from one person to the next.  There are some very hard working agency nurses, quite nice… it… it’s just a different pattern of work really I… I… at one time I suppose, I… like my mother and other people, believed that the doctor knew everything, that the hospital was the right place and that was all… there was to it, but I don’t think people quite believe that so much now, and especially with… complimentary medicine and… umm… I mean you do get things now in OT like, aromatherapy, which is… you know, quite… it’s quite nice, and… [pause]…’
 
`I mean when… when you were at… University in Staffordshire and you… you went into hospital after… was it two terms?’
 
`Yeah’
 
`Yeah… I mean how was… how was that stay, say compared with now, or what was that stay…
 
`Well, I wasn’t really all that ill.  The consultant said to me `will you come into hospital?’, and I said `yes’, ‘cause I didn’t know what to do… and… it was a big ward, a big open ward with beds everywhere.  There was another young woman, I think she was twenty one, called Barbara, and she’d always wanted to do art, more so than me an she drew cartoons.  When I got better I think, in an institutional way, I quite enjoyed myself.  There… there was the… the consultant had two little daughters that I was quite fond of, they used to come up to the OT department on a Friday afternoon, and I taught them pottery, and was quite fond of them.  I don’t know what I did with my time.  There wasn’t… but I think also, I may have stayed in hospital during that time because I think my parents were abroad, part of the time, and… I think, you know, that might have been part of it.  But I know at the end of it, this girl, Barbara and I, went to the local art school in the evenings to art classes, and I loved it… and… at the end, the… there was a very nice man who was the Head… he took us both on to do a course there.  But again… I was discharged.  I got a room in Sutton.  I didn’t really look after myself properly… didn’t know anybody outside the college… my work just gradually went downhill.  I only stayed a term, and I… first, I did really love it, and I’ve got a… I’ve got a report saying I was talented and this, that and the other, it was…’
 
`This is in… in art?’
 
`Mmm.’
 
`The Art School?  So did you…did you leave University all together after the two terms…?’
 
`After two terms, yeah…’
 
`And then… going into hospital…?’
 
`Yeah… ‘
`…and coming out again, and… and… and is that when you got involved… in the… I mean what happened then?  Sorry, I’m just trying to fill in…’
 
`What, after… after the art?’
 
`Yeah, after…’
 
`After the art, I went to The Middlesex, where they were supposed to investigate this temporal lobe epilepsy business.’
 
`Right, that’s it, yeah…and how did…?’
 
`And after that… nobody quite knew what to do, and I think they were kind of… you know, looking for somewhere permanent to put me.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`But that was when… that was when I con… my mum contacted…’
 
`The An...?’
 
`The analyst…’
 
`Right.  So can… can you talk a bit more about… I know you’ve touched on it earlier on, about the temporal lobe and what happened?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I mean what exactly…?’
 
`I don’t know.  People have…’
 
`From what you can remember?’
`People…people have said there’s… there was an abnormality… some kind of abnormality in my EEG, and… when I was at the Camden Day Hospital, as I said, they sent me to The Royal Free for a sleeping EEG, where you were unconscious, and… all I… all I know is, they said from it that there was some… something not quite right, or some abnormality, but it was nothing that could be diagnosed.’
 
`And when you say sleeping EEG, what was that like?’
`That’s what… they gave… I think they gave you… I think they gave you some sedatives, I don’t know what they gave me, and then they poked needles through the roof of… I think it was through the roof of your mouth, into your brain or something, and they send you to… you were… you’re unconscious, and they do this… they do an EEG in that state.’
 
`And how long were you… unconscious?’
 
`I… it took them… took me… I don’t really know.  I went… I was home… I went there in the afternoon and was home at tea time, something like that.  It wasn’t very pleasant.’
 
`And can… can you remember sort of talking to anyone about the results of that?  I mean you said…?’
 
`Yes, I met the… but that… but that was… that was all they said at the… at the Day Hospital I think.’
 
`They just said there was something… slight abnorm…’
 
`Nothing… nothing was…’
 
`Right…[pause]… and what happened then?  After that?’
 
`What, at… at Friern or…?’
 
`Well, after you…’
 
`At the Day Hospital…?’
 
`After… yeah, after you’d been… you’d had this investigation for the EEG…?’
 
`Well that was only in passing… that was only just a… investigation that they did while I was there…’
 
`Right’
 
`I went there… I went to the Day Hospital after I’d been working in the old peoples’ home, and I was quite depressed… and… I had some kind of anti-depressant, I think it was Nardil and… I did get considerably better, I lost quite a bit of weight… I joined in everything… but there was nothing… nothing for it… it didn’t lead to anything outside at all… that was… I mean… I think that’s one of my criticisms, I know it’s so difficult to find things, but… all that energy I spent running round the Day Hospital in Friern, doing this, doing that, the life and soul of the party.  In my opinion, that should have been channeled into something in the community kind of thing.’
 
`And what happened instead?’
 
`Well I just… you… you just got… get… got… got more used to the Day Hospital and… no friends at home, nothing else.  In the end… I think when I left there, a friend of my mother’s… did a pottery class in a… in a rehabilitation place in East Finchley, and I think she actually got me a kind of… voluntary… well it wasn’t supposed to be a voluntary job, but I never got paid for it, that’s another thing… helping in the OT department.  I used to go up there… I did quite a lot.  I went… I went to that rehabilitation place, one day… some of the time I went to the National Hospital another day, and… also to Maida Vale, and that was what I had when I left the Camden Day Hospital.  But it was voluntary, and they never paid me, and I think my work went downhill a bit because there was no extra training or anything.’
 
`And how long were you doing that?’
 
`About eighteen months.’
`Right. [Pause]… so how… how did your life look after you left that… that job… or doing that work?’
 
`Well, it was very lonely.  I was… I was living in Goldhurst Terrace [ph] in West Hampstead, in a room in a house where I didn’t know anybody else, and…I found it quite difficult to pass the time.  I used to go swimming… I think they had a club, somewhere, where we cooked a meal once… a week, or something like that.  [Pause].  I don’t know… but I did have more… I think I did have more kind of hope and energy then, that I wouldn’t be ill again, or I would find something, or I didn’t mind what I did.  I got a job as a tea lady once, because somebody said get a job or go back to hospital.  But I think, I also think that if you’ve… if you’ve been ill, maybe it’s just your kind of low esteem of yourself that you’re… you think that’s the only kind of job you’re fit to take, kind of… you’ve got to take, you know…[pause].  Worked in a factory for a week… fortnight… [pause].’
 
`You mention being on anti-depressants…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I mean have you ever been prescribed any other sort of medication… I think you’ve mentioned a couple of others as well… that I mean…?’
 
`Yes, I’ve had anti-depressants quite a lot.  But the main one that I’ve been on for years, is the Lithium, it’s a mood stabiliser.’
`And what do you think about that?’
 
`Well, I don’t really know, because I think now… I don’t… I don’t really know what… you know, technically what all the jargon means, like if they say I’m manic depressive, somebody just this last couple of… a month ago, said something about they thought I’d been hypermanic.  Well to me, I’d been anxious.  Maybe there’s a connection between the two, but… I wasn’t… to me, in my way of thinking now, it was… it was anxiety, you know.  I really don’t know.  I have been… there’s only one occasion I think, that I’ve been really high… I… I do get depressed, deeply depressed… but I… no doubt… I mean I don’t… I don’t know on what grounds and for how long they make diagnoses and change them, but…’
 
`Can you remember the very first diagnosis you were given? It sounds like when you were young…?’
 
`Oh I don’t know… I can’t remember… didn’t tell you that… if you…’
 
`No…’
 
`…were in… in Bethlem… I think it was probably schizophrenic.’
 
`Mmm… but you can’t actually…?’
 
`And at different type… there were different kinds of schizophrenia I think.’
 
`And what… what about your sister at the time?  I mean when you were in Bethlem as…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…when you were sixteen, seventeen…’
`Yeah…’
 
`What was happening to your sister?’
 
`Well my sister was… she was at the same school.  She got into trouble, I think she used to muck… muck around…’
`The naughty one?’
 
`Yeah… [laughs]…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`And nearly got expelled.  But… they put her in a higher form and she had to work hard, and she was all right… she liked school.  She was more extroverted than me.  Umm… I don’t know what subjects she liked particularly… err…’
 
`Well did she come and visit you when you were in…?’
 
`Well, I used… you see I used to go at the weekend.  My  mother would… used to come and fetch me in the car, and take me to the new house, and she would be there.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`But… she wouldn’t make that journey on her own…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…down there… I don’t know what she thought she… thought of it… you know, and what she…’
 
`I mean, can… do you talk to her now?  Are you close to her now?  Do you talk to her about…?’
 
`Not a lot.  It’s never mentioned at my… hardly mentioned at my mum’s… or… at her…’
 
`Right.   ‘Cause it… I mean from what you’ve been saying, it sounds like your mum’s had a quite a influence on your treatments over the years… I mean…’
 
`Yeah… well I suppose she had to, you know… it wasn’t…’
 
`And how do you… how do you feel about that?’
 
`Well, I don’t know how to talk about it really.  I think I’d just rather say that I’m sure she did… what… she felt… was best or… you know, at that time.  In… in retrospect perhaps I wouldn’t think some of those things… were the best thing to do, but probably… not so much as available then, or she didn’t know about it.’
 
`How did she get…?’
 
`I think… I think… I think I… I still do feel that I’m treated a bit as a… you know, as a ill person, kind of thing…’
 
`And what do you think about that?’
 
`[Sniffs]… Well, I feel quite… I feel quite… bad about it sometimes, because you know, sometimes I’d just like to go there and… be spontaneous and have a good chat and… [pause]… well it’s… very difficult to talk about really [pause]… [sniffs]. [Aeroplane noise in background].  She is… in her way… she is quite a remarkable person [pause]… but there’s also the fact that she is getting… frailer… and… [sniffs]… [pause]…’
 
`Is she…still… with your stepfather… is he still alive?’
 
`No, my stepfather died about… err… twelve years ago.’
 
`Right.  So, how did you feel when you were twenty one and they… your mum married your stepfather?  Was that…?’
 
`Oh, I think it was all very quiet.  We knew about it, I mean… I think they’d known each other for about… five years before that.  They worked together… and we kind… as kids, you know, not fully, but we kind of knew about it.’
 
`But he also, it sounds like from what you were saying earlier, he had a bit of an influence on… on how your… your psychiatric treatment was going to unfold?’
 
`Well not really, I would… I mean he may have made suggestions… I should say my mum was always the… the one that took the action kind of thing.’
 
`Right [pause].  So how did you come to hear about… Diorama, ‘cause it sounds like that’s helped you… a lot.?’
 
`Well, oh… I haven’t mentioned… Portugal Prints have I?’
 
`Oh right… yeah, Port…’
 
`No well… originally… originally I think I was in Friern and somebody told me about Portugal Prints so I asked about it… and I and somebody else went there for an interview.  We got in… and… again, it’s… [squeaking noise in background]… sometimes I just cannot stand change, you know… although people have kind of… graded it a bit, and… so for the first day I went there… and then the next day I was back in hospital.  So then, I think… later on when I got better… I went for another interview to go there, but they turned me down.  But… Doug, who works at Studio Upstairs, was working there then… ‘
 
`Ah, I see…’
 
`…and he was just starting Diorama, so… I was very disappointed, and I said so, and… I think he said, `I can see that’ and he gave me a… sheet of paper which had got the details of Studio Upstairs on it, so I took them home and I had… again, there was… there couldn’t have been any care plan thing then.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I… went to it… in the original building, soon after that.’
 
`Oh, I see… so you got to know of it through going to Portugal Prints?’
 
`Well, ‘cause he… he… he was working at Portugal Prints and when they… they… they… they turned me down, so he gave me this as some kind of alternative.’
 
`And you’re still there?  Right… that’s good.’
 
`[Sniffs] [Pause].’
 
`I mean, you were talking earlier on about how it’s changed your outlook on perhaps what happened… what’s happened to you over the years and… how you’ve…the institutionalised… sort of feeling and… you’ve kind of looked at that again, I mean…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…would you like to talk a bit more about… about that? Sort of what being at Diorama sort of made you think about… your past treatment…?’
 
`Well, it’s… it’s… really that the… like the ethos of the place there, the people and how they treat each other, how they speak to each other… I mean, it… in hospital you’ve got professional relationships with people… all sorts of different boundaries and this kind of thing, and it… it… I just… I just feel… that… in contrast to that, this is just… more free, where you… you find… you find your own level, there are people around you.  In a way you’re responsible to the group.  It’s very tolerant… on… on… sometimes, sometimes I… I get quite… perhaps critical of someone and that kind of… but the way… just the way of treating people is… really…  I think, really humane, kind… sort of thing… and in… in a way… perhaps in the past I would more like to be… formally taught, you know, what to do next and all that kind of thing… I think… I hope… it does… it has, you know… gone the right way, that people don’t do that… you’ve got to find your own way, and when you do, you  may be slow, but it seems to be more permanent, and part of you.’
 
`I mean you… talked about OD… OT departments in different hospitals you’ve been in…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I mean… what was that like… compared with somewhere like Diorama, I mean…?’
 
`Well, I think it’s more… I don’t know exactly, I don’t… I’m sure OT’s got it’s ideals and… the way…  I think it was more… more a programme of occupying you.’
 
`And what was the building like?  I mean think of one hospital that you were in? [crackling on microphone]’
 
`You mean for OT?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Err…’
 
`And can you remember sort of… [crackling on microphone]… what it was like to go in there and…?’
 
`There was a nice… it wasn’t… it was… it was partly OT… there was an Art Hut at Friern which was quite nice to go in.  That was a pre… pre-fab… but I…’
 
`Art House?’
 
`An Art Hut’
 
`Hut? Right.’
 
`Yeah… [crackling on microphone]… where there was a pre-fab and… that was a… not a bad flexible atmosphere for pottery and painting.  That was quite nice [pause].  I don’t know what… I… I think there is a difference, I think… umm… [pause]…’
 
`I mean could you choose to do art?’
 
`Where?’
 
`At Friern…? At the… in art house?  Did you just go along there or was it…?’
 
`It was… well it was quite… it was quite free, you could go in and paint, or you could go in and do pottery and there were… there were people that would… help you if you wanted to do particular things…’
`Right.’
 
`But I’m… I think… it sounds a bit… damning, but I would say that somewhere like The Huntley Centre and other places… I’m sure it’s to do with what the function of OT is and all the rest of it.  The programme that used to be quite… quite full, is not as full… I’m sure they have more meetings and more analysis and… all this kind of thing, but I know, in The Huntley Centre, I think I was there once, and it was ages before anyone came and even… assessed me… and I think, when someone goes into hospital, unless they’re in a state where they can’t do anything, they need something straight away.’
 
`Mmm.  I mean was that different from your experience though when you were… you were younger, and…?’
 
`Yes… but it’s probably that… may… that the ideals of … you know, the method… all… you know, the theory of OT has changed in a way’
 
`I mean…’
 
`At Friern there was a very full programme because there were big grounds, there were a lot of facilities for a lot of people, so they could offer quite a lot because it was such a big place, but we were expected to do things from about, you know, quarter to ten in the morning, all day…’
 
`So what did the average day look like when you were at Friern?’
 
`Oh, I can’t remember but they had… they had… they’d have movement or exercises, they might have cooking… they might have pottery, they might have… oh, quite… quite a lot… a full… you know a really full programme… whereas at… I… and… and at St Luke’s, the same. There were fewer… what they had was good, but it was just one or two things, a day…’
 
`Not a whole programme of activities?’
 
`No, but it must… it must be the way… you know, things are… developed and taught… I should imagine.’
 
`And what about in the… sort of early six… late fifties… early fifties, when… you were a young adult?  I mean you… you said at the beginning of the interview that your… I can’t remember exactly your… the words you used… but I didn’t get a sense then of a programme of activities, apart from the teaching and… the… you had some creative… activities.  What about things like movement and…classes like that…when you…?’
 
`In where?’
 
`In…in Bethlem and the one you were in afterwards?’
 
`No, I don’t think…  I don’t think they had so much… we… we had the dancing, but I…’
 
`Right…’
 
`I don’t think they had so much… I mean I know nowadays there’s… there’s things like that Sesame [ph] Group.  When I was at Camden Day Hospital, that is… that’s a drama therapy group I think, that come round and do things with people… perhaps… well that… that started quite a long time ago, I… I expect it’s still going [pause].’
 
`Shall we…?’
 
`I think… I think really… maybe… Studio Upstairs is a bit more… perhaps it’s more, in a way… don’t know if this is the right word… kind of self directed… you know, that you… that you go at your pace [pause].’
`Whereas… your experience of hospitals…?’
 
`More than… more than being told this is here for you to do this, and this is here for you to do this, and… [pause].’
`And I suppose there’s no…treatment as such there?’
 
`Well there’s not… there’s… only the… I mean there is psychotherapy for some people… but in a way, I mean, it depends what you mean by treatment, by… in a way… the… actually being there…’
 
`Medical [???]’
 
`…is the treatment…’
 
`Yeah… mmm…’
 
`…you know.  There’s Portugal Prints as well,  and like.. that is… that is a sheltered workshop… that had little art lessons.  They also have computers, they teach you computers if you want to learn, and they’ve got a number of presses, where they print… greetings cards and try and sell them. That is quite… structured… that is quite busy and structured… [pause].’
 
`Now, do you have any involvement with that now, or is it…?’
 
`I’ve still got… I… I can… I think they’re having an exhibition, and they said would I like to put some… put a painting in.  I haven’t been down there yet, I’ll perhaps do that on Monday.’
 
`Mmm… [pause]… Would you like to take a break, for lunch?’
 
`Yeah… all right, yeah…’
 
`Yeah, I think we’ve… well thanks very much…’
 
`That’s all right…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
[Break]
 
`…take you back to… what mid eighties… late eighties…?’
 
`We’ll say that, yeah…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I don’t know whether it is or not…!’
 
`[Laughs]…[talking in background]… yeah, sure…’
 
`Now, we must be about half way through this tape are we?’
 
`[Camera: Got twenty six minutes left…]’
 
`Ok then, so…’
 
`[Camera: We’re running…]’
 
`Right… hi again Judith… right, so I’d like… I’d like… to take you back to the eighties…’
 
`Yes’
 
`…you know the time we were talking about when you were in… the Halliwick [ph]…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…for quite a few months, and some of… yeah…?  Just… talk in general about your time there…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I mean can you remember what led up to being in… the Halliwick?’
 
`I think I wasn’t particularly doing anything, it was probably… like, just deteriorating because… I wasn’t positive and doing anything.  I was living in… Goldhurst [ph] Terrace… and… not doing very much at all… but I must have got… I was probably depressed, I was probably, mis-perceiving things, which I do when I’m not well.  I was probably just sitting around, and… feeling… I’d just… like that, when I get like that, I have an excessive feeling of guilt, which isn’t justified, but I feel terribly guilty, and I also think that there is a kind of hidden meaning in everything, and... everything has exaggerated associations, so usually I’m quite slumped and withdrawn and not communicating at all, but… in Halliwick [ph]… there was a dormitory, a big dormitory… and people usually went there first.  I think there were a few single beds.  It was upstairs.  I think the wards were named after trees.  There was Cedar, which this was… Cedar, Ash… Beech… can’t remember the other one.’
 
`And did you admit yourself to… Halliwick… or did you…?’
 
`No, usual…usually…’
 
`…get admitted or…?’
 
`I have been… I have been sectioned.  I can’t remember on this occasion what it was, because I was probably quite unwilling to go to hospital or… or… passively res… resisting it anyway… or else, again… probably my mother taking me in and me just acquiescing I should… probably…’
 
`Mmm…’
 
`But… usually… usually when I’m admitted like that, I really… don’t do much for myself at all.  Somebody has to prod me out of bed, dress me, take me to be washed, take me to the… to the canteen… more or less hold me by the hand and take me everywhere.  But… it’s not a… it’s… it’s a horrible feeling… and I don’t know… I don’t know if it was during… I think it was some time during this time, I don’t know if you remember, there was a… there was a really… heavy storm one night…’
 
`I do remember…’
 
`I think I… and… at that time I was in Halliwick, and I can remember that night.  We were in this dormitory, and there must have been about eight beds, and we were woken up in the middle of the night and the building was shaking and the… I think… the beds were moving… and there was this terrible wind, so people were awake… wakened, and… I don’t know if people went back to sleep or the storm… I think it subsided, and then next morning… we went for a walk, and there were all these trees, which were often… I think they were imported, rare victorian trees, in the grounds, which had been damaged and broken, and it was an amazing site… but… anyway, I usually continued in that kind of state.  There’d been a pattern by which I used to have ECT and I think this was probably one of those occasions, when it was recommended again.  I really… was… quite frightened, latterly, about ECT.  One had to go… one was taken, down to the main building, where there was a special room for it.  In the entrance hall I remember there was a picture of Princess Di’s marriage… and there was an… anaesthetist in there, who was fairly pleasant, but I just… probably felt absolutely hopeless and in despair, and hated the whole thing, and I know… I think… I don’t know if they changed the anaesthetic they used or it had a different effect or something, but it really terrified me, and I think I used to scream.’
 
`The actual anaesthetic terrified you?’
`Yeah, before the… they give you an anaesthetic before they give you the shock, and… I don’t know how long this would have lasted.  I think six or eight, something like that… and when I… sometimes, it did make a dramat… it did have an… dramatic effect on me.  Sometimes it didn’t make much difference, but I did feel so relieved.  Sometimes it might have a dramatic effect on me, for a short time, and I’d slip back, so they’d give me another one.  But… err… I… really umm… I really don’t know, what I think… I mean I think it’s quite barbaric in a way, and when I was in The Huntley Centre, once… I had ECT and they couldn’t get into my veins.  They tried my feet, my legs, everywhere, and they must have given me the shock without the proper anaesthetic, and I was really… in a state, with two nurses there for about… three hours afterwards and… I was awake when they took me out of the treatment room. [Pause].’
 
`That must have been pretty terrifying?’
 
`But anyway, at Halliwick… once I got better, it wasn’t… it wasn’t too bad.  It was big place, you didn’t feel… it felt impersonal in a way… it was… pretty hellish going for meals when you weren’t well.  It was such a big place you just queued up at a counter, and took your… tray and… and… sat down.’
 
`And what was the food like… in…?’
 
`It was… ‘
 
`Was it…?  Was there much choice?’
 
`Institutional… not… mod… moderate.  Not too bad, but you know, no… no… kind of extras really.  [Pause].  I used to explore the grounds.  Used to explore the hosp… used to explore the hospital.  I used to go to… art quite a lot… art and pottery… cookery… umm… one or two of the OT’s were quite nice.  I was quite friendly with.’
 
`And did they live on the grounds?’
 
`No… ‘
 
`The OT’s?’
 
`No they didn’t…’
 
`Or…what about any of the nursing staff?’
 
`There were… there were… there… there was a row of little prefabs near the road, and I think some of the staff lived there, but I don’t think… I don’t think any of… some of the nursing staff lived there.  I don’t think any of the OT’s lived in…’
 
`And was there any sort of social life?  I mean did they organise… activities?’
 
`They… they did have… they had the occasional disco, and people grouped together in a way sometimes, and especially in the summer you’d see people sitting out there sunbathing, and… there was a… there was a café, a modern café, built in the grounds called `The Willow’, where people used to go and they could buy snacks and… have coffee.  I remember going along the main corridor, which was huge, once, exploring… and seeing the kitchen and these huge… machines they had for boiling and… peeling potatoes… it was quite a site, and also… [coughs]… the laundry, with these huge white boards for pressing… sheets, and… racks… with the laundry on.’
 
`So, did you ever do your own laundry or was it always sent down to the launderette?’
 
`No, that was… that was the… things like the… like the sheets…’
 
`Oh, the bed linen… right…’
 
`[Coughs]’
 
`What… what about your own…?’
 
`Own bed lin…. I think most of… most of our own… I think there were facilities for hand washing it on the… on the ward. There was probably… there might even have been an iron and… but it was a… one of the… like, the rituals was… you know, changing… changing the sheets and the counter panes [???] once a week. [Pause].  Also, nearly everywhere where I’ve been I’ve seen these… these big… polishers that polish the lino… that seems to be a…’
 
`Go on…’
 
`A mark… of… and the little man that goes round the wards polishing the floors.’
 
`Did you… I mean there’s… you know there’s sort of… must have been workers in the kitchen and workers on the grounds.  I mean did you have much contact with them, when you were an inpatient?’
 
`No not really unless… unless I was feeling fairly… no… no I wouldn’t say in the kitchen or the…  I mean you might know… you might… you might have a social worker, there might be nurses… and there might be, people OT departments, and other patients.  That would be all I should think.’
 
`And what was your contact like with them, and did you have a… social worker for example…?’
 
`Well… a social… yes… yeah… I had several… several social workers, all quite… all quite… pleasant.  I think they were mostly men.  But… it was a such a cross section of people there in a way.  [Pause].’
 
`What sort of people?’
 
`Well, the patients or the… the staff or… you know, and people from different walks of life… [pauses].’
 
`Can… can you remember any… one in particular or any…?’
 
`Well, I was just trying to, I can’t… I… I did come across people, you know, now… again, that I’d known from somewhere else.  I think the more you… the more you’re kind of in the system, the more you know, you… you tend to meet people from the past or… [pause].  In fact there’s a chap that walks round here, I must have known him about twelve years.  I didn’t… I don’t know if I was on the same ward as him in Halliwick or Friern but he lives somewhere round here, and every now and again, we kind of pass each other and we just… acknowledge each other and… I think occasionally he’s asked me for a cigarette but I don’t smoke any more… and… it’s really quite strange.’
 
`Oh wow…’ [Pause].  So have you kept in contact with anyone else that you met, in the Halliwick? Or…’
 
`There’s one person that I still know, a woman that I knew there who also went… she… when we both went to be interviewed at Portugal Prints, she… she went there, where I didn’t… [coughs]. She lives in Kentish Town, but she’s got more family life, much more family life than I have.  She’s got… two daughters and a son, and… she was… she did do… a couple of voluntary jobs, and she did do a paid job, in a shop in Camden Town… but…she’s retired from that now… and… I think, unknown to her family, she goes to… a day centre…’
 
`Right…’
 
`In the mornings… and… when she feels like it, but… and she’s interested in creative writing.’
`Mmm. [Pause]. So, while you were in the Halliwick [ph] did you have much contact with… with your family? I mean… your mum…?’
 
`Well my mum will come and see me.  Liva… my sister’s never visited me much when I’ve been in hospital.  Umm… I don’t think any other members… my sister’s got… three daughters… but, I… I don’t think they ever… would visit me in hospital.  I remember once, not being well, and the eldest… I think it was her idea, took us… it was her idea that we should go and pick strawberries, in Hertfordshire, so I was taken… and I got on and picked the strawberries and… I came right out of the… awful mood I was in… ‘
 
`Mmm’
 
`It was really strange.  [Pause].’
 
`And what happened then?  I mean how…?’
 
`I don’t know how long it lasted but it was… you know, it was strange.’
 
`You were actually in hospital and you went…?’
 
`I was in hospital and they… they…’
 
`… to pick strawberries?’
 
`…they took us out to… wherever the strawberry [horn in background] fields were or… for picking, and just… in the course of being… out, picking these strawberries, I just…’
 
`Right’
 
`…seemed to… regain my senses.’
`And do you have any contact with your sister’s children now?’
 
`Well, it’s difficult, ‘cause Jane… Jane, the eldest is married, and she’s in Australia… Heather’s got two children, she’s in Cairo… having married an Egyptian businessman.  They came over at Christmas… and Bryony… I don’t… I see her… sometimes… if I go to my sister’s for lunch… she’s in the Navy now, she used to be a teacher but she’s in the Navy.’
 
`So you’ve got three…’
 
`Three nieces…’
 
`Three nieces, right… mmm… [pause].  So… do you talk with your family about what you do, say now and some of your life over the years… being in and out of hospitals… some hospitals and…?’
 
`No… I really… I really…’
 
`…what you’ve achieved at Diorama and…?’
 
`I really regret it… you know, I feel… I don’t know… I can’t quite explain how I feel I’m… treated in a way, but I don’t feel I can easily go there and…that… I’m valued for what I am managing to do…’
 
`What do you think might change it?’
`Well, I don’t know at all.  I am quite shy about having people here… maybe if I made an effort.  I have done it in the past… but not for quite a while [pause].  I don’t know… I suppose… I feel that they… still see me as, you know, the sick little girl kind of thing.’
 
`I mean you said earlier in the interview that it’s not talked about…?’
`No, not at all…’
 
`But I mean, it sounds like you’re still in fairly regular contact with your mother, I mean does she know…?’
 
`I go… I usually go and see my mum every Sunday, although I… in the summer I cut that down while I was at the… City Lit… and I sometimes… sometimes I feel quite upset for a couple of days, when I’ve been there so… I didn’t go last weekend, but… [pause] err… I really… I… I really have thought you know, what can I do?  I think I ought more to stand up for myself, but it’s quite… you know…’
 
`Stand up with yourself with…your family?’
 
`With my mum, yeah…’
 
`With your mum?’
 
`And kind of… but maybe I’ve just slipped back into the usual pattern of behaving…’
 
`Like we do, yeah…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Mmm…[pause].’
`I think you know, it’s… and… and sometimes I feel quite… I feel… I feel quite kind of angry at… I mean in a way, you can see why it’s happened that I’ve… I’ve been ill… she’s had to pick up the pieces and do things for me… but she’s… she has the telephone numbers of most of my friends, and the places… where I go… and… I am…sixty one and I feel… I mean I… I’m paranoid when I’m ill, but there is a basis for it when that happens. [Pause]’
 
`Was she like that with your other sister?’
 
`No, I mean I… I don’t know… I don’t… I used to… when I went home I used to ask about how Margaret was and was there any news, and… she didn’t like it… and she stopped mentioning her… and so I… I don’t… I just get little crumbs sometimes, or occasionally Margaret rings up, but… Margaret is much… is… well… apparently a much stronger character… she’s quite bossy.  She’s quite concerned and… well… not concerned exactly, but she’s… she’s… her life.. is with her children really, she’s often popping over to Australia or to Cairo, or goes to see Briany [ph] at the weekend and she works as a… part time practice nurse. [Pause].’
 
`So she kind of followed in… in your footsteps?’
 
`No… [both talking together]… it was… she…’
 
`[Inaudible]’
 
`That was her really… she was always originally the one that wanted to be the nurse… I never… I never had that originally…’
 
`Did… did… did you ever take that up again, I mean since your… early twenties, when you did that training?’
 
`What, the nursing?’
`Mmm..’
 
`Not the psychiatric nursing.  I did the… working in the old peoples’ home.  That was… I mean that was the way I got into that.  But it wasn’t a very… I don’t know why I did it really, I don’t think… I don’t think anybody saw any opportunity or I didn’t have friends or… to do something a bit interesting or imaginative or fun or young… when I think of four years in that old peoples’ home… [pause].  But there again I used… I used to get things… and my attitude was, I must keep doing… you know, I must plot… I suppose I am a bit sort of conscientious… plodder kind of thing.  Same with the teaching really, that… the first school I went to was awful, but I just felt… I just sort of said I… I thought I had to do it.  Somebody offered to get me a different job… I should have said yes, but you know, I just thought I had to keep doing it.’
 
`What… what were you actually teaching?  Was it general teaching?’
 
`Yeah… for primary…’
 
`Primary school…’
 
`Yeah… but the school that I got sent to was very rough… a difficult school in King’s Cross and the… like, the methods that we learnt at college weren’t at all the kind of methods that worked there.  I did learn that, but a long… you know, a lot later.’
 
`So, going back to the… your stay in Halliwick, when you got dis… or towards the end of your stay there?’
 
`Yes…’
 
`I mean how were you… how were things then?  I mean did you feel you were getting better while you were in hospital or was it just…?’
`Yes, usually… but the thing was that I got us… I got better in that environment, I seemed to kind of be able to absorb that kind of environment and function in it well, but sometimes when it came to being discharged, somehow I couldn’t make the transition, because I got so used to the hospital, that I wasn’t used to any… you know, outside… and managing on my own.’
 
`So did you…?’
 
`People… later on, when I was in a different… like at… I think I was… when I was at Jules Thorne, people used to kind of try and stagger it, so that I do… I wasn’t just discharged one day… I did something for a few days and then… you know, that kind of thing.’
 
`But at the Halliwick you were just discharged?’
 
`I think so, yeah… I think we were.  [Siren in background].’
 
`And you mentioned something earlier about going… that’s when you tried out Portugal Prints?  And…’
 
`[Siren in background] No… I went to… I went to Portugal Prints from Jules Thorne.  I went to Portugal Prints but they wouldn’t have me.  They accepted me and then I cracked up, then I went again and they wouldn’t have me, so I went to Diorama, and then just in the last six years I went to Portugal Prints after I’d been in The Huntley Centre… at… no… after I’d been at Jules Thorne Day Hospital.’
 
`I mean how…did… it sounds like you’ve been in two or three day hospitals over quite a long period of time… how…do you find…?’
 
`Yeah… there was the Camden Day Hospital, I’ve been in the Felix Brown [ph] as well, but that wasn’t for long… that wasn’t for very… that was… about nine years ago.’
 
`And then there’s this Jules…?’
 
`Jules Thorne is a Day Hospital…’
 
`I mean I’m quite interested to know… the… how… was it different, say, like going to hospital every day on a day… daily basis and not staying there over night, to what it was like when you were actually inside the hospital?’
 
`Yes, I would say so.’
 
`In what way was it… different?’
 
`Well the Camden Day Hospital… I was living at home.  I was living in two rooms in Hampstead Garden suburb. I did look after myself all right… used to do my washing, fed myself… but I didn’t know any of the neighbours… and I… it had been suggested that I didn’t go… to my mums.  I used to go up there… I was always a good attender, and conscientious… I always went up there and joined in things. [Pause].  I suppose it’s… it’s… it’s not such an enclosing thing as being twenty four hours… on a ward, and perhaps it’s not so much break… with every day life.  Jules Thorne [ph]… at Jules Thorne [ph] I… I was not well for a month once, and… about a month.  I didn’t go to hospital and somebody used to ring me up and say, something about `are you coming down?’, or `come down for your medicine’, or something, and I would actually stagger down there and… this chap talked to me and that went on quite a long time and eventually I did get better.’ [Pause].  But no… this… I think there’s more… there’s more… if… if you’re at a Day Hospital you’ve got the evening, not that I had much to do, but you… and… if you’re living at home you’ve got your family… and it’s not such a… it’s not such an intense… set up really, ‘cause you can get away. [Pause].  Jules Thorne [ph] was very… a lot of groups… groups for this, that and the other.’
 
`And what sort of… groups?’
 
`Oh, goal setting groups… [???]… they used to have a group for current affairs… pottery… probably changes, you know, according to what… what’s available.’
 
`I mean would the… kind of groups they had in the day hospital different from… ones at Friern Barnet and Halliwick [ph]?’
 
`Yes.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`Yeah… more… more of… a programme and… worked out and… ‘
 
`We’re actually nearing the end of this… this tape…’
 
[End of DVC Pro tape two]
 
[Start of DVC Pro tape three – VHS tape one continues]
 
`Right… interview with Judith Holt, C905 09 tape three]’
 
‘Hello!’ [Laughs]
 
[Break in recording]
 
`Yeah, I mean…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`You were talking about the course of… your life now and what…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…you’re doing?’
 
`Well… for the last, I should say for the last three years… I haven’t been in hospital.  I had… I’ve had one or two wobbly patches, but I feel… that I have made progress, especially… last year… when I… when I left Portugal Prints I went back to Diorama and put together a portfolio and enrolled on this portfolio course at the City Lit.  It was hard work, it was evening… two evenings, and alternate Saturdays.  It was… hard work and I was quite nervous ‘cause it was with, so called `all right’ people… a bit hesit… hesitant about what I was going to say what I did, and all this kind of…’
 
`This was at The City Lit?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`But I persevered.  I got a lot out of it… and… I was a bit disappointed in the… in the second year, a lot of people dropped out, but I still learnt a lot in these last few terms about working on your own, and at the end, I really felt… quite… that I would like to be more social with the people that were left, but we’d never… we’d… we’d never much had coffee with each other or any of that kind of thing, we had no breaks, so I felt a bit… I felt that had all fizzled out rather.  But… I… I… because… most of those were applying to go on degree courses, part time, for next year, I think I wasn’t quite confident enough to do that… and I thought well I would try for a foundation year, and I just had this idea… it had been mentioned about the art school, Byham Shaw… I did… ring up and go and see it on the off chance, and I had a really nice interview with one of the staff there who took me round… filled in an application form, sent it in, and got someone from the City Lit, who presumably wrote a referee… reference, and got an interview.  I got quite anxious about the interview I think, and in the end I did… I put it off a week, got myself together, went up there and did get in.  So that is under my belt and I have the place for September, but…’
 
`This September?’
 
`This September, but it’s full time, which I haven’t done for a long time.  I… I just don’t want to get too anxious between now and then, I want it to… you know, move… because it means that after this long time, I won’t be able to go to… Studio Upstairs, except perhaps in the holidays.  I don’t know a lot of people in the community and I am quite isolated sometimes, but I do feel that, in a way, when I’m involved in some of the art, although I’m still a bit rigid and tentative, it does sustain me quite a lot, and it is an interest, and… [pause]… if… if I know enough people or… go to things, I think I do have a… an enthusiasm for it.’
 
`I’m interested to know where… ‘cause you’ve mentioned art, you know, on and off throughout the interview…I mean particularly…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…when you came out of… that hospital up…’
 
`Yes…’
 
`…up North, and you went to the art school, so where did your love for art actually come from?’
 
`Well I don’t… I think it’s always been there but rather superficially…’
 
`Right’
 
`’Cause I was never much good at art at school… I did little drawings and paintings at home, but… art was never considered much of a subject at the… secondary school I went to.  I think it always has been there but just rather, conventional and su… superficial and… when I went to these classes in Sutton, I knew I did really… I did really like it…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`And I… odd… at odd points during my life I’ve been to evening classes, but it’s not the same all… all… all adult education classes, but this port… this portfolio course opened my eyes more that it was something much more connected with life, and… could be really satisfying.’
 
`And what did it actually involve, I mean… portfolio…’
 
`A bit of…’
 
`… course?’
 
`…sculpture… diff… drawings, still life… your own… working on your own theme… collage… a lot of… a lot of… fairly directed things in the first year, rather thrown at you.  Some… sometimes you think, you know, I can’t do that, and then you’d make an effort and you’d find you… do something and you weren’t thinking did it have to be good or bad?  And you’d come away really satisfied.’
 
`Mmm… and you said that the Studio Upstairs helped you put… put together…?’
 
`No… when… when I left Portugal Prints [aeroplane noise in background]… the… the woman there, we’d suggested that I tried for the portfolio course but you had to have an interview, so I was leaving there… I was going back to… Studio Upstairs, so I had to get some work together to show them at the interview…’
 
`Like, a pre-portfolio kind of thing? Right…’
 
`I started… I started that at… at… Portugal Prints, and… people helped me at Studio Upstairs to mount it nicely… and…’
 
`Right…’
 
`…you know, that kind of thing.’
 
`Oh right… [pause].’
 
`No, I have… and pottery… pottery I liked and… I haven’t done much pottery lately.  I’ve got… I have got quite a superficial… superficial knowledge about things in a way, but there are… I can… I think… I think, you know, I can see how it can change as you learn something…’
 
`Mmm… ‘cause it… I mean it was interesting, this morning, when we were just chatting about… you said something about… you had a… your mother had a kiln in the basement…’
 
`Yes’
`…of the house where you grew up…?’
 
`Yeah… yeah…’
 
`And… ‘cause that’s one thing we haven’t… didn’t really talk about what… apart from you moving around quite a bit…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…because of the war… but I mean what was your home life like, sort of… as a…?’
 
`Do you mean as a teenager or…?’
 
`Well, yeah, when… round that time when, with the kiln and the basement, and…?’
 
`Well, you see, I… I went to that house, it was funny… I… I went to that house when I left hospital… that was…’
 
`Right…’
 
`…the strange thing.  I felt… I felt kind of quite… not sad exactly, but… or a touch, but… that you know, my mum was so anxious to… she, she let me choose the wallpaper for the room that I was going to have, when I went back there and… First of all I went to school from there.  It was quite… it was a… it was a nice hou… nice hou… house… but actually, I wasn’t there all that much because… I was there when I did my A levels… my mum used to have parties for her students, that was… I remember that was a feature… umm… my stepfather planned the garden.  I used to mow the lawn, regularly.’
 
`And did you used to go to these parties, with the students or…?’
 
`Yeah, sometimes, ‘cause we’d help get ready, and they were a feature, you know, she used to do it for her students, twice a year, something like that.  My stepfather was living there… when I was twenty one.  I was… you see, I wasn’t… I wasn’t all that… there… I was there for a year, then I went to Keele, then I came back again.  It was never very… it wasn’t a… continuous living there really… ex… and… it… and people advised me not to be at home quite often, and… but I was there at times when I wasn’t well [pause].’
 
`So did…did you… do any art, sort of, at that age? You know, sort of early twenties, late teens?’
 
`I did… I remember… when the… the… the Christmas… when I’d been a term at Keele… a Chinese student came and… this was to help… try and help me really, and… he taught me a bit of pottery, in the basement as… he… he was from… the institute where my parents worked, and they’d asked him… paid him presumably, just to… to come and… give me a bit of… teaching.  I used to do little things. I remember when they had a party and the house was going to be decorated, I… I decorated all over the basement and the bits that were going to be decorated with beer mugs and bottles and… this kind of thing, as a… as a decoration…’
 
`So your creativity started young?’
 
`[Laughs].’
 
`So how… how… how…how is it… does it feel to be going to college in September?’
 
`Well, I don’t really know what to expect.  I hope… everything I’ve had to do with that… the… with the college has been really pleasant…’
 
`Mmm’
`And… I don’t know, it says in the prospectus, they kind of look after you well and… I mean I don’t need to be looked after but the… but it is a… most of them will be much younger.  I quite… I do quite like younger company, it’s… except… you know, sometimes, but… or… if it’s… if it’s interesting and I can… work hard, I will… you know, I… I don’t… I just don’t know what to expect really. [Pause].’
 
`What would you like to happen… when you… when you start there in September?’
 
`Well, I’d like to… to be able to work within my capacity.  Get on all right with some people.  [Pause]… I don’t mind, I’m just prepared to… like, if… if I can do it, come here and gear myself up to going there, ‘cause it will be full time and I’ve no idea how tiring that will be.’
 
`Mmm’ [pause].  I mean, looking back, I mean…do you think… I mean what do you think your times in hospital have… I mean what have you learnt from them, and what’s… how have you changed do you think from…sort of… your experiences in hospital?  And how do you reflect on your times?’
 
`Well, it’s… quite difficult to say, I… I think… I mean I think quite a lot of it was unnecessary, all the times when I was well… jumping around Friern and the Camden Day and that… I don’t think that was necessary at all.’
 
`What do you think would have been… better…?’
 
`I think…’
 
`…or more helpful?’
 
`I think some kind of community living, or group living. I was once, offered the Richmond Fellowship, but I didn’t… in actual fact, nobody explained what it really was.  I had this flat and I… I just thought oh no, go back to your flat.  But I think maybe, some kind of living in the community or… I don’t know what’s available really but I… quite… would have liked to have done that.  I did go to… before I went to teacher training college, I went to The Netherlands, to a folk high school, which was a community, where they do residential courses for all sorts of things… and… I helped in the kitchen and I helped at meals, and I helped with… housework… and… it was a lovely old house.  There must have been about… I should think there were probably about nine young women that were… helping over all… and… I really loved it.  I would have… in retrospect, I wish I’d stayed there longer.’
 
`How long were you there?’
 
`Only about six weeks.’
 
`Mmm…’
 
`I did really like the living.’
 
`And that was a community sort of spirit…?’
 
`Yeah… yeah…’
 
`And you also mentioned earlier that you tried to get into another group home… [both talking together]…’
 
`That was…’
 
`…through Diora…Studio Upstairs…?’
 
`That was… that was through… that was through the Philadelphia Association.  I did go to… meetings at two of their places.  You had to go to the meetings once a week, where… all the… all the residents were at these meetings, plus a couple of psychotherapists, but… I don’t know… I didn’t get in.’
 
`Did you feel it was for you?’
 
`Well, I don’t know… I mean I… I did… I half wanted to get in but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my flat… if I had gone… what… what would I have done with my possessions and my flat?’
 
`I mean, The Philadelphia Association, you’ve mentioned that in conjunction with Studio Upstairs…?’
 
`Yeah..’
 
`So is there a link between the two or…?’
 
`Well only…’
 
`…or is it just philosophy?’
 
`No… well… yes, I think there is in a way, I mean the living… like it… the community living in the… in the studio… in a way is still, I think, still… I don’t know a lot about it theoretically, based on the principles, that… the… of… err… the RD Laing training, which is what Doug has done… to become a psychotherapist…’
 
`And RD Laing was… actually… a psychiatrist?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Mmm… but a radical one?’
 
`Yeah… I mean it’s not… I mean I’m sure it’s changed since his… time in a way, it’s all changing, with all the people that… have trained… there…’
 
`But do you find… it sounds like from Studio Upstairs you do the art, but you also have therapy there, is that…[inaudible]? [both talking together]
 
`Yeah, but that is separate’
 
`That’s separate?’
 
`I go… I go to Doug, and I pay for that myself.’
 
`Right.’
 
`Some people go to Studio Upstairs and perhaps are in difficulties and ask can they see someone… and one of the people that… oh, I don’t like to say… well, it is work, that works there for money… I mean they’re probably trained art therapists or… give them perhaps an hour a week or something like that.’
 
`Right.’
 
`I don’t think they pay for that.’
 
`Is that the first time you’ve had some sort of therapy since the analyst in your thirties, or…?’
 
`Yeah… yeah…’
 
`Mmm…’
 
`Much nicer, just the humanity of a person.  I mean it is… perhaps painful sometimes but… just the… you know… for somebody who’s isolated, just to know somebody who is like… who they think can… they can trust and it’s… very human, sort of thing. [Pause].’
 
`So will you still carry on with that when you go to the…?’
 
`Yes, I think so, I don’t quite know… what the times…’
 
`…the college?’
 
`…what the times will be.’
 
`So how… how long is the course?’
 
`It’s only a year…’
 
`Right, and what do you hope to do afterwards?’
 
`Well, I don’t know… I’m not sure if… like, if I… if I got on all right, I know I’m getting old now… but I wouldn’t mind doing a degree course, but again… I don’t think they do part time ones there… it might mean moving…’
 
`Or finding…?’
 
`Yeah… but in… a way, even… I mean I’m… I still… I mean I’m hoping, definitely hoping to go, but… when I feel in good spirits I think even if I didn’t, I could find something now… even if it was going back to the City Lit… but I know, if I could find the right thing, it would keep me going, kind of thing.’
 
`What, the sort of… one… short courses and…?’
 
`Yes, I suppose… there… I think there’s a…’
 
`One year courses?’
 
`…I think there’s a fine art course at the City Lit… I wouldn’t… but it would depend on the… on the tutors and the way of teaching and that, but… it is around, I suppose.’
 
`What does your mum think about the way… your life’s been the last ten years, getting involved in the Studio Upstairs and drama and… getting into college and…?’
 
`Well she’s never said much about it.  I think she’s all for… she’s all… I think she approves of Diorama now… and she gave them some money.  She donated them some money… and… I think she’s very doubtful about me going to college.  I feel… well I suppose, like somebody pointed out, she has reason to be, that… you know, she’s… she’s had to pick up the pieces, time and time again… and… you know, in a way, I have been enthusiastic about it, because… in the past, I… can’t… I mean, for instance, I’ve seen in my notes it says something about that I’m in a persistent state of psychotic this, that and the other, and when I’m well, it’s just a remission.  Well, I can’t really live like that, I don’t… choose to live life like that…’
 
`Not fair…mmm…’
 
`I can only say, that I’ve… have been… I’ve tried the last three years, and I say this theoretically, but I would be… you know, if anything did happen, I probably would be devastated, but… if anything happened again then I’d just pick myself up and try again.’
 
`Mmm. Which notes did you… what… was that recently you saw this in your notes?’
 
`I saw that once at… The Huntley Centre…’
`The Huntley Centre… is that the day…?’
 
`That’s the UCH…’
 
`Oh, UCH Hospital…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Did you make any comment on it at the time?’
 
`Yes I did. I was… I was quite anxious… I used to be quite… very anxious when I had to go and see the consultant as an outpatient, and I think the fire alarm had gone off in the middle of this CPA meeting, and we’d all had to been evacuated, and when I got back I think I started talking… I was anxious, and I… I think they also wanted me to go to a day centre rather than… Studio Upstairs… so I more or less told him I wasn’t going to… and… I added this… I added this at the end, that, you know, I didn’t like to be thought of in this way…’
 
`And what… how did they take that?’
 
`A bit patronisingly…’
 
`I mean you’ve got every right to s…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…to say… have an opinion on that…’ [pause]
 
`No, I can understand… I can understand it… I mean I feel… I feel I was terribly pleased with the news at first and I told a few people.  Some people I feel are a bit envious of me, and… some people are… a bit doubtful, and all I want is… one person that I can chat over with, and say, `it might be great’ or… `what shall I do if this…?’, or… but it’s… I don’t know… [pause].  I don’t know, it is… I mean I am getting on now…’
 
`But you’ve got a place… you’ve got… got in…’
 
`Yeah… yeah…’
 
`…and that’s great…starting in September…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`No one knows what happens when they go to college… you know, I mean…’
 
`No, I think… somebody said to me I always had to… work out that things were right…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…before they happened or something.  I know there’s something in… that is part of… I think that’s part of the anxiety.’
 
`Mmm’
 
`I know I did this party last year for my sixtieth birthday, and again, the same thing happened.  I got really anxious about it, and I needn’t have worried at all, it was all taken care… I’d done all I needed to do… but I was just… in a way, couldn’t delegate or… continued to worry unnecessarily over… over it.  I would like to… to learn to do things in ordinary life a bit more, practically and efficiently.  I do procrastinate a lot, and it takes me ages to get going sometimes, and sometimes I think I might like this, and I’m not quite sure how to go about  getting it… I think I do need to be a bit more determined.’
 
`I mean, over all… do you think… or… what do you think’s been the effect of having periods…?’
 
`In hospital?’
 
`In hospital?’
 
`Well, I feel very… sometimes I feel very depressed about it…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`And I think, maybe I haven’t sorted it out or talked to people about it.  [Pause]… I definitely think there is a stigma… and I think sometimes perhaps you feel that… you may feel that worse than it is.  I think… in the beginning when I was young I thought it may not happen again, I may get better, and I think more people were prepared to give you a chance.  I have had… people give me chances… but as you get older it seemed to get more difficult.  I’ve lost friends through it… I  think you can get quite… you can get quite ingrained into a hospital life and… you know, what are professional relationships and that… and it’s not the same as having friends kind of thing.’
 
`I mean what… what are your… what is your social life… like?’
 
`It’s not very existent [laughs]… Well I’ve got this… this woman that I go and see that I see her occasionally that I’ve known a long time.  It doesn’t… it’s not a… all the summer I’ve hardly been out in the evening.  I do got to… gallery… well that’s not social really but… I don’t do much at all.’
 
`Well it is kind of so… I mean, social as in…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…out in the community and…’
 
`I mean… I mean more like… I mean… I wish I was more of a… truly social person, I don’t just mean parties and… I mean social to do with people and friends and… living kind of thing.  I do… I feel… I do feel now more the need… you know, to have… to just be able to have ordinary conversation with people and that kind of thing.’
 
`And what’s… what’s helped you out of all the…different… places, the day centres… day centres, day centres, day hospitals, in patients… what’s helped you the most to be able to do that? ‘Cause I mean you’re being very articulate here today…’
 
`I know, people say that…’
 
`[inaudible]’
 
`But when it comes to… you know, when it comes to… in a group or… [pause]… oh I don’t know, I think… I think the last ten… years… [pause]… really.’
 
`Is the tape… all right?’
 
[Camera: `Yeah, it’s just…]’
 
`I think the things is that with… with the… with the psychotherapy, it’s really you who initiates and tries to say something.  Words are important.  [Pause].  I mean I have, at times, when I’ve been in hospital, been… really… withdrawn, not speaking and all that kind of thing.’
 
`Have you… the one thing I haven’t got a sense of which… just crossed my mind, is that when you’ve been in hospital you haven’t mentioned much about the nurses or how…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Sort of what… what your relationship with them was?  I mean whether they…?’
 
`Well I think mostly, I’ve been a good girl…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`You know… [pause].’
 
`So that… are they… just people who gave you medi…?’
 
`But I’ve been somebody probably passive that they look… that’s looked after and when I’ve got well I’ve tried to make some kind of relationship with them and perhaps been… quite perky and… [long pause].  I mean, if you’re… if you’re in a hospital ward, there are certain nurses that everybody thinks are ok and… other ones that they don’t like so much and… [pause]… [sniffs]… I have seen… I have seen some be… quite rough… in the time… but again, you know, you say well what… what is the… alternative?  I’ve… had some that have taken the trouble to talk to me sometimes… and I remember… I remember one, took me aside and had a long talk with me and… this happened once in Friern with a social worker as well… just had a real… a good talk and… managed to… make contact… which lifted me out of the state I was in.  But I think on the whole they’re kind… a lot of… you know, a lot of them are… kind.  I’ve seen hard working ones…’
 
`What was it in particular about this nurse… the way…about… the one that talked with you… what…?’
`Yeah… there… well, you just… he just… I think he must have just decided he’d try and talk me out of it.  I can’t remember what he said now, but it was…’
 
`Talk you out of…?’
 
`The state… well, the…the kind of deluded state I was in… [pause]….’
 
`But, you said you haven’t been in hospital for three years now?’
 
`About three years, yeah…’
 
`Yeah, so do you have any contact with any of the medical professions, I mean… psychiatrists or…?’
 
`I’ve got… umm… you see I’m… I’m never quite sure how legal this is.  I’ve got a… there was a new consultant who’s a woman, instead of a consultant that I’ve seen for about six years.  She’s now… I saw her… recently, and she says I don’t have to go for a regular outpatient appointment, I can just… ring if I need to see her… which is an improvement… [pause].  I’ve got a social worker… that’s the social services… [pause].  I don’t go to any hospitals for any groups or anything… [pause].  But the more… like, I feel… usually, I mean not just now, but… when I get better, I suppose it’s a bit selfish, that the more I can be with people who are ok, the better I feel, in a way.  But I think… I think it’s… important… it… I think it’s nice to have… if you can have somebody that is a bit better… well not exactly better, but… more functioning that you are…’
 
`[inaudible]’
 
`…you… you can… you’re a bit uplifted and you’ve got something to work towards.’
 
`And is that one thing you’re looking forward to going to college… or not?’
`Well I don’t know… I mean they’ll be much younger. [Pause].’
 
`Have you met any of them… that… that you’ll be at college with?’
 
`No.’
 
`It sounds like an adventure’
 
`Well it is really, isn’t it?’ [Pause]
 
`Shall we… take… a break?’
 
[Camera: Yeah…]
 
[Break in recording]
 
[Camera: `And… ok, when you’re ready…’]
 
`Hi Judith [laughs]’
 
`Hi…’
 
`Would you like to talk us through your… beautiful paintings here…’
 
`This… this one is a lino cut.  It was done at the City Lit… about… I think it was in the summer term of the first year, and we had to… get the design from drawing a still life, and then… abstracting it a bit, and then… it was hard work cutting the lino.  It was the largest piece of lino I’ve tried with… and… it turned out quite successfully.’
 
`Mmm… beautiful…’
 
[Camera: `Shall I stop there? Ok…’]
 
`This was part of my personal work, for the personal project that we did at The City Lit.  I experimented and went to… Homebase to get particular inks and paints, and did quite… quite a lot of pieces using oil paints, hammerite paint, enamel paint, and… dripping them, as you can see…’ [Pause].
 
[Camera: `Ok…’]
 
`This is development of the last one… the paint is still run and dripped, and the colours… are more sensitive and aesthetic really, it’s more of a design.  [Pause].’
 
[Camera: `Ok..’]
 
`Well thanks very much Judith… it’s been really interesting hearing some of your tales over the years and… and sharing your paintings with us, and… is there anything else you’d like to add?  One thing that we were thinking about… the rabbit [laughs]… in the grounds of Friern?’
 
`Yeah… well it’s just an anecdote, that comes to mind sometimes…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`I had a friend who was also on… a ward, called Six Oaks… and… outside there was a small garden…quite overgrown… and… I used to make it part of my routine to go out of the kitchen door, into the garden… after every meal, and I used to open the door, go out, walk a few paces, and then stand very still.  And after a few seconds, all these little rabbit heads would appear… so then I would walk a few more paces, and they’d all disappear… and then I’d stand very, very still, and gradually… the rabbits would appear again…’
 
`[Laughs]… Wow… Thank you Judith.’ [Pause]
`And… the moral of the story is…’
 
`What?’
 
`I don’t know…’
 
`Bring your gun?’
 
`Stand… stand still and…’
 
`Mmm’
 
`…the world stands with you…[both laugh].  Someone told me a good one the other day… `worrying is like…’ what is it?… `Worry is like being… rock…’’
 
[End of DVC Pro tape three of three – End of VHS tape one of one]