20 ROBIN DANIEL

ROBIN DANIEL
 
C905/20/01-03/vhs 01-01
 
 
Original on DVCPro
Copy on VHS

Interviewed by Judy Mead
Camera by Faye

Date of interview 27/10/99
Transcribed by Julie Sharman
January 2000

[Start of DVC Pro Tape 1 of 3 – Start of VHS Tape 1 of 1]

`Ok… ok Bob?’

`Yeah…’

`So can I start off by asking you, some… about some of your earliest memories? Can…?’

`You can… you can do, yeah…’

`So, can you tell me where… where and when you were born?’

`Born in Bideford. I don’t remember where… the actual place but… nursing home somewhere, somewhere in Bideford.’

`And when were you born?’

`1959.’

`And, did you have your… both your parents?’

`Yeah, my father was… was away at sea when I was actually born. He was in the Navy for twenty five years you see… Royal Navy.’

`But your mum was at home was she?’

`Yeah…’

`And… where abouts do you come in the family? I know you’ve got a sister…?’

`I’m the eldest, just me and my sister.’

`Just the two of you?’

`Yeah.’

`Uh huh… and what… what’s the very first things, if you look back to when you were a young boy, what… what are the first sort of memories that come into your mind?’

`Going out rabbiting with my grandad… catching rabbits with my grandad. I used to do that when I was about five, you know. I remember that.’

`Where abouts would you have done that?’

`In the woods where we used to live in Bideford… in Bideford back then…’

`And did you have other grandparents or just your grandfather?’

`Well he was the one that lived the longest. The other grandparents died when I… well when I was quite small really, when I was sort of growing up, sort of five or six… four, five, six… they died then, you know. But he used… he… he didn’t die until I was about nineteen or twenty, you know, so I… I… saw more of him really. That’s my mother’s dad.’

`And did he live nearby?’

`He lived with us.’

`Oh, he lived with you? Uh huh…’

`Mmmm…’

`All the time?’

`Until he got a bit older and then he… got a… got a bit of… got a bit ill and couldn’t walk hardly, so they… they put… he had to go into a nursing home, you know.’
`And did… you got on well with him did you?’

`I got on very well with him, yeah…’

`What other kind of things can you remember doing when you were a boy?’

`Well I went to Singapore when I was… when I was six, until I was eight… lived out there with… dad was in the Navy, that was quite good, went to school out there.’

`Can you tell me about the school?’

`Royal Naval School. There’s nothing special about it, just ordinary sort of Royal Naval… but the good thing about that was, you start school about eight o’clock in the morning and then by twelve, one o’clock you’ve finished for the day like, you know, so it was quite good really.’

`And what do you do… what did you do after school had finished for the day?’

`Went swimming and all sorts, I… went swimming a lot really…. different things. There was always things to do there.’

`And who was at the school? What were the other pupils… were they all boys or…?’

`There was girls as well.’

`Uh huh… and were they… all children of people who were in the Navy?’

`I think so, yeah…’

`And that was when you were about what age?’

`Six ‘till eight. Then I came back to this country again then… didn’t really want to come back really. Like… liked it, it was a nice warm climate out there, I quite liked it really.’

`Can you stop a moment, Faye?’

[`Yeah…’].

`I just… [pause] ok… so you were in… out in Singapore until you were about eight…?’

`Mmm.’

`And… what can you… what sort of place did you live in there?’

`Like a little… like a little bungalow sort of place, you know, and… then I came back to this country, I was about eight, I… I went to school… went to this ordinary primary school and then… and then when I was eleven I passed my eleven plus, and in 1970 I went to Grammar School for five years. Nearly five years, you know. ‘Cause I got ill just before I was sixteen, I had to go to Dryden Clinic, see… but I had a car crash when I was thirteen… a car… a bad car accident when I was thirteen.’

`Can I ask you about the eleven plus? Do you remember taking that?’

`Yeah, I remember taking it. I thought it was quite easy really.’

`But only the brightest people really passed that didn’t they, so…?’

`Yeah, top twenty five, top twenty per cent I think.’

`And what about the school that you went to before the Grammar school, what… what was that called and…?’

`It was the School in Bideford… nothing special about it, I just… went there and… did lessons and things, you know.’

`Was it a small school?’

`Not that big, no. None of the schools in Bideford were very big really.’

`How many pupils roughly do you think?’

`About a hundred, hundred and fifty.’

`In total, in the whole school?’

`Yeah, well in the Grammar School there was about two hundred and something.’

`Is that a school that your sister went to as well?’

`Yeah, but she didn’t go to the same Secondary School as me.’

`Where did she go then?’

`She went to the Secondary Modern… ‘cause she… she did well for herself afterwards you know…’

`Does that mean she… she didn’t pass the eleven plus?’

`No, she didn’t, no.’

`When you say she did well for herself after, what do you mean?’

`She got O Levels and A Levels and a Degree in Nursing, you know. I haven’t got any qualifications myself.’

`Because your education got interrupted?’

`It did a bit, yeah. I didn’t feel like doing it afterwards you know… to just… didn’t feel like concentrating on it you know…’

`Did you have a happy childhood?’

`Yeah, quite happy, yeah…’

`What did you used to most enjoy doing?’

`Well I used to… like… after… when I was at Grammar School, we… we used to… used to go… as soon as we finished school we’d play football for like two hours before everyone went home you know. That was quite good, knocking about in a field there, playing football ‘till… for about two hours before I went home. Sometimes I didn’t even… sometimes I was late for my tea ‘cause I played football so long, you know… there was a place to play football and… have a crafty fag round the bike sheds and you know, as what one does at school.’

`And, what else would you get up to, say at the weekend… when you were a child?’

`We’d go cycling, swimming, things like that, you know. So it was quite good really. When I was a bit older I went to parties and things like that, when I was about sixteen you know. Just coming up sixteen they had… had all night parties and stuff like that you know…’

`And that would have been in the sixties, would it?’

`Seventies.’

`In the Seventies?’

`Yeah, seventy five. Seventy four, seventy five.’

`So what sort of music was around then?’

`It was T-Rex and Slade and all that sort of stuff, you know.’

`Is that something you’re keen on?’

`Well I prefer the Sixties music really… prefer Sixties to Seventies, but… I don’t mind the Seventies. But it was all glam rock in the Seventies wasn’t it?’

`But you preferred all the Sixties stuff?’

`Yeah I’ve got a load of… loads of it at home on vinyl. I have got CDs as well but… there’s something about vinyl you know, it’s just… it’s very collectable you know.’

`And they were nice big record sleeves?’

`Yeah.’

`How… how many records do you think you might have then?’

`About three hundred LPs I should think. I’ve probably got four hundred singles.’

`I heard that you have a very good knowledge of pop music and…?’

`Well I… I like to think I have yeah… I always win the quiz up there they have on… on a Thursday, Alexandra Road…’

`What… what sort of quiz is that?’

`Oh it’s a place that does [???] music nights, you identify the music, the artist, the year it came out and you have to… I’m setting the quiz for this week. I’ve got to do it when I get back tonight, I haven’t done it yet. So I’ll have to do that when I get back.’

`Give an example of the sort of question that would…?’

`Well you just have a snippit of music and just ask who the artist was, and who’s… and what the music… the piece of music was, you know. So I’m quite good at that. I know virtually all this music from the Sixties, ‘cause I’ve… I’ve heard it so many times you know.’

`And… you were telling me that… I was going to ask you a bit more about what you remember about your home life with your sister and your mum and grandmother… grandfather that was living with you?’

`Yeah.’

`What would a sort of average day have been like at home… when you were young?’

`Get up, go to school, have… come home and watch telly. Liked to go out for a swim in… at the weekend you know, nothing… nothing special you know…’

`Were you… was your mother very strict with you?’

`No, not really, no. My father was when he came home, but… I used to get away with blue murder with my mother really.’

`So how can… can you describe your father to me?’

`Well, he’s… he’s quite tall, quite stocky, you know… dark hair going… going quite bald.’

`And what about his personality?’

`He’s quite a good laugh actually when he gets going you know, he’s quite a good laugh.’

`And you said he was a bit stricter?’

`Well he isn’t that strict, I mean he… he doesn’t stand any nonsense though.’

`So how did you… how did he show that when you were a child?’

`Oh he just used to say, `Do… do this…`. We… had to be in bed by a certain time and things like that, you had to be home if I was out when I was young. At school I had to be home, in by a certain time and things like that you know. But it was reasonable, it was… I mean at fourteen I had to be in by ten, which is reasonable really wasn’t it?’

`It’s certainly later than some people would have been allowed I think.’

`Mmm… [sighs]…’

`Did you get on well with your sister?’

`Yeah, very well. I go up… I go up there… once a year to see them in London and stay for a long weekend and… they… they… it was my fortieth birthday back in April and they took me to… Majorca as part of my birthday present for a long weekend. I enjoyed that. Nice and hot out there.’

`So you’re quite close still?’

`Yeah, still close, yeah…’

`Did you get on well when you were younger as well?’

`Yeah, to a certain degree. We used to fight a bit sometimes when we were younger, but not… not serious you know. A little bit of banter you know. I used to wind her up basically.’

`Give me an example?’

`Well I used to… say stupid things to her, you know, and just… I can’t really give a for instance but I just used to say stupid things and just wind her up basically.’

`Just like children do?’

`Just like children do I suppose, yeah.’

`And can you tell me about your grandmother…grandfather sorry, that lived with you?’

`I mean he used to… used to… he used to do the garden and all things like that you know and… he was quite helpful really. He did the washing up, the gardening, made cups of tea… you know, he was quite useful really. But then in nineteen seventy… seventy two or three he got… he got a bit ill, so… instead of getting a little… going down hill a bit, so they got… they advised him to go in an old people’s home, you know. But he lived… he lived for quite a few years after he went to the old people’s home, he didn’t die until… he died in nineteen seventy nine I think. [Pause] So…’

`Did you still see him then?’

`He died in nineteen seventy nine.’

`Uh huh. But did.. but did you still see him after he’d left your home?’

`Yeah, I used to go and see him once a week. Mum used to drive me there to the old people’s home so I could see him.’

`Are… are you happy to tell me… something about the circumstance of the car accident that you had?’

`Well I can’t remember anything about it, that’s what they… I only remember what people told me, but apparently I… I was going… on my way to school and I went to cross the road and all of a sudden this car appeared and it just hit me you know… and I went up straight over the back of the car and hit my head on the pavement, you know. That’s basically all I know, ‘cause I… I can’t remember the actual day it happened you know. Can’t remember anything about that day. Can’t remember getting up that day you know. That’s all I can say about it really.’

`And what happened, did you just get up and walk away from that or…?’

`Went to hospital and stayed there for a few days, had a few… bit of time off. ‘Cause I had very bad headaches after the accident, I remember that. Very, very bad migraine headaches after the accident. I don’t get them now though. But I had them for about eight or nine years afterwards.’

`And do you remember being in hospital?’

`What, in Bideford Hospital when I had the car accident you mean? Yeah, I do remember that. I woke up in bed, and… and I was in a ward with all these old men. I’d no… I didn’t know why I was there and I asked somebody why I was in hospital, you know, and they told me.’

`And what sort of damage give you, or don’t you know?’

`Well slight fracture of the skull I think. I’m not really too sure of… x-rays and that though they were… they weren’t… I had a… I had an EEG… EG… is it EEG or ECG?’

`I’m not sure…’

`[Both talking together] When they put electrodes in your head. I had one of them done and they reckoned my… there was brain damage you know, slight brain damage you know [Sighs].’

`And did you think there was?’

`Well, my school work went down a bit, the grades and that you know. Wasn’t too bad.’

`Were you off school for long?’

`I can’t remember now, it was a couple… maybe a month or so.’

`And then you went back to school and carried on…?’

`Yeah…’

`As best you could?’

`Yeah, best I could. I wasn’t so good as what I was before. [Pause].’

`What can you remember about that school? [Coughs] Excuse me. Was it a modern school or…?’

`Quite an old school. Built in nineteen… nineteen forty five I think… and it… it was an old boys’ grammar school you know so there was a lot… there was a lot of mickey taking going on and things like that you know, and fights and things like that you know.’

`And how did you relate to that?’

`Well I used to join in you know, that was… I was one of the lads you know. And then when I got to the third year, they started having girls there then.’

`How did that feel for you?’

`It was all right.’

`Did it change the feeling of the school much?’

`I think… a lot of boys showed off in front of the girls like what… about what they could do with other boys and… how hard they were and all that, you know, the showing off you know. It was basically what boys do in front of girls, isn’t it? It’s the same everywhere isn’t it really?’

`Did you make any friends with the girls or…?’

`I did have one or two friends with the girls yeah… I used to… I used to know this girl I was quite friendly with, she used to have all night parties, and I used to… went a couple of times to one of them you know.’

`But it was a day school was it, and not a boarding school?’

`It wasn’t a boarding school, a day school, yeah…’

`What kind of thing did you wear to school? Could you just go in your own clothes to school or…?’

`We had to wear a uniform… terrible uniform. Black, black uniform… black blazer, black trousers, white shirt, red and black tie.’

`Were they fairly strict about things like the uniform and other rules?’

`They were quite strict about uniform, yeah. If you turned up in a pair of jeans they’d… they’d send you home again until you came in the right clothes, you know. They were… ticking me off ‘cause of what colour socks I wore, you know, they didn’t like me wearing pink socks or lime green socks, I mean you’re supposed to wear either grey or… grey or black you know, and there was me coming to school in lime green socks, it used to really wind the teachers up I tell you.’

`You did it for fun did you?’

`Yeah.’

`Were they fussy about the length of your hair?’

`Oh, I was always getting told to get my hair cut, yeah. I always think I’ll have it short now but I… I used to have it long in them days, I was always getting told to get it cut. I didn’t take any notice of them though… until it got really long and then I had to get it cut then.’

`And would you have sat in… did you have your own desks at school?’

`Each had your own desk with a lid to keep all your books in there you know. But people used to nick things out of your desk, that’s your trouble. They used to nick your slide… if they hadn’t brought a slide rule to school they’d nick yours or something like that you know. It was a bit aggravating really.’

`And would you have had lessons in sort of silence or…did you have to keep quite quiet and…?’

`You were supposed to, but nobody ever did you know, and you weren’t supposed to eat in class either, but everybody did. We used to chew Mars Bars and stuff. You were not supposed to eat in class, eat sweets, and… and if you used to chew gum they… they used to hate you chewing gum, you know, didn’t like that.’

`So did you get into trouble a lot with the teachers for disobeying one or two of the rules?’

`Mmm. I did… I did once or twice, yeah. A bit of a rebel at school really I suppose I was.’

`Any more than anybody else or…?’

`No. There was quite a few of us that were like that, at… you know, so I wasn’t the only one that did you know.’

`And so you had quite a few friends there?’

`Lots of friends, yeah. Some of them I still see now, like, you know… sort of keep in touch occasionally, and they’re all right yeah…’

`Who was your best mate at school?’

`A bloke called Simon Hollis but he… he went to university but all… and after he finished at university he got a mental illness as well, so… I see him sometimes in… he lives in Barnstaple.’

`Did that surprise you, to find that he’d had a similar experience?’

`Well, it did ‘cause… I tell you what happened was, I hadn’t seen him for a while, so… and I just happened to be in Barnstaple one day, was told by one of my mates that was in hospital, so I went to see him and then I found out he was up there, you know. I didn’t realise that. Hadn’t seen him for years and he… and there he was in Browlease like, you know.’ [Pause].

`When you were a… a youngish boy or a teenager, what… did you ever think oh when I grow up I want to be a…whatever?’

`Well, I fancied being an RAF fighter pilot actually , to tell you the truth.’

`That was your dream… yeah?’

`Mmm.’

`Any other things that you had ambitions about?’

`Not really no. Well I… the thing about… wouldn’t have minded playing football for a living and things like that, you know, or being a… or being a professional cricketer you know, I wouldn’t have minded doing that, you know…’

`And did your mum or dad have any…did they used to… have any expectations that they..?’

`When I… they expected me to get at least about six or seven O Levels I think and about three A Levels, at… at least, you know. I didn’t get any of it you know.’

`With a view to what? If you got those… if you had…?’

`University. I think they wanted me to go to university… they would have like me to have gone to university, I think, if I’d carried on at school.’

`And… and what did they want you to study there, or what did you want to study?’
 
`Well it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have found something to study there you know but…I didn’t even get to the O Level stage let alone the A Level stage.’

`Why is that? What happened?’

`Well I… I went… I went into hospital didn’t I in nineteen seventy five… ‘cause three weeks [inaudible] at the Dryden Clinic.’

`So what… what circumstances led you to… to Dryden Clinic?’

`Well I was just uncontrollable, you know, I was just ill you know. Complete nervous breakdown, you know. I was impossible to live with at the time, I mean I… they had to do something about me. ‘Cause I was up… I was up all hours of the night and things, and not sleeping and… getting drunk at six… fifteen and three quarters, you know.’

`What age were you then?’

`Fifteen and three quarters. I was just coming up sixteen. Three weeks before my sixteenth birthday you know.’

`So can you remember how you felt at the time?’

`I didn’t feel very good. I knew there was something wrong… just… just hyperactive you know. And then I… all of a sudden I’d go a bit low and that… I’d get high and low in the same day you know. So I… they had to do something about me you know.’

`What sort of things are you… would you do, say, when you were going high when you were… a youngster?’

`Oh I’d… chuck things about or break things or… you know…’

`Where did…at school? Would that be…or at home?’

`At school, at home, at school… wouldn’t be fussy what I did. I used to just basically was high, you know, high as a kite you know. I… I’d answer the teachers back and things like that you know.’

`And you… so people that wouldn’t know what high… going high meant, how would you… tell them?’

`Well just being up. Being up in the air, rather than down on the ground and would have been hyperactive you know. Talking a lot and things like that, you know.’

`Talking a lot about what?’

`Load of rubbish really, but it seemed important to me at the time.’

`And you… you were saying you couldn’t sleep either?’

`I couldn’t sleep. I was up all night virtually, for quite a few days you know. And then I think I was up all night for about seven days and I slept for about five days after that. It was one thing… it was one thing or another isn’t it really? No happy medium like, you see, so I didn’t really… I mean I wanted to sleep, I just… just couldn’t settle in bed, you know, I was… couldn’t lie there and sleep you know.’

`Can you remember anything about what was going on in your life… at the time, or did it appear to just…happen that…?’

`It happened, just sort of thing. I think it was to do with my car accident. After… aftermath of that really.’

`How soon after?’

`That was about… in the second year when… when I had the car accident, so about three years afterwards I suppose.’

`Can you remember the first time that you went high or… did…?’

`Well I… it happened… it didn’t happen that Sunday, it sort of built up to it really. But mother said that she didn’t think I was right in the September before I went to the Dryden Clinic in the March you know. She didn’t think I was right in the September really.’ [Sighs].

`And did you think you were right or… did you think…?’

`I didn’t think I was right, no…’ [pause].

`Was there anyone that you tried to… talk to about the fact that this was happening to you?’

`Well nobody at the time. Mother took to see my doctor and he recommended me to see a Psychiatrist see… and he said… that’s why I went into Dryden Clinic, Psychiatric Hospital.’

`And where’s that?’

`In Exeter. There was nowhere to go in Barnstaple in them days see.’

`And is Dryden Clinic especially for young people?’

`Adolescent, under eighteen, yeah.’

`So it’s the adolescent unit of a hospital in Exeter?’

`Yeah. Whether it’s still there I don’t know. It probably isn’t. I think it is still there. They call it under a different name now.’ [Pause].

`Can you remember what you felt about the thought of going to see a Psychiatrist?’

`I was a bit frightened I think, I… but I knew I had to see somebody but I… it seemed a bit… it seemed a bit odd to me, you know, going to see a Psychiatrist, you know. But I had to see somebody ‘cause I… I wasn’t right, you know.’

`So you did feel that you wanted some sort of help did you?’

`Did really need help from somebody, yeah…’

`What can you remember about this Psychiatrist then?’

`Well he was a bit eccentric but then all Psychiatrists are aren’t they?’

`In what way?’

`He was just a bit eccentric. Well the first one I saw was all right. But then I… when I… when I was… at Dryden Clinic I was under a Psychiatrist called Dr Wardle, and he used to fall asleep when he was talking to you, you know.’

`Really?’

`[Laughs]. He used to peer over his glasses at you as well. He used to wear the little glasses and he used to peer over the top of them at you you know. He was quite an old bloke, about sixty odd I suppose. Something… early sixties I suppose… late fifties, early sixties. [Sighs]. We used to have group meetings… virtually every day, you know, and… ward meetings and things you know, all the things going on. Used to play a lot of sport at Dryden Clinic… go swimming and play football and cricket and that.’

`Did you enjoy that bit?’

`Yeah. Used to go into Exeter on the bus and… with the nurse and go shopping and that, it was quite good really. They’ve got the… there was always things to do. You weren’t bored there like, you know.’

`When you were first told then that…so you went to see the Psychiatrist and… how did he explain that you were going to have to stay there?’

`Well he just… he just sort of… told me I was. He said because I wasn’t… oh, I’d only be there about three weeks. And I was. I was there three weeks. I went home again and stayed at home for a… I couldn’t concentrate, I was on Largactil tab… you know, Chlor… Chlorpromazine tablets and I… and I couldn’t concentrate on my school work when I was taking them, so I stopped taking them and I became ill within another three weeks and I was back there for nine months then.’

`So the Psychiatrist at…the adolescent unit, he was the first one… was that the first psychiatric treatment you’d ever had…?’

`It was…’

`Instead of tablets?’

`Yeah, it was yeah.’

`Mmm…[pause] and can you explain a bit more about those side effects of Largactil?’

`Well you can’t go out in the sun on them. If you go out in the sun you just go completely bright red on them, you know… and they do make you very thirsty.’

`And why did they… why had you taken them? How did that affect your school work or why did it affect your school work?’

`Well… it made… it calmed me down so much. I was so lethargic, I couldn’t think to do school work, you see. See what I mean? So that was that. I didn’t take them in the end for… the last week I… I was home and then within… in a few days I was ill again, you know, ‘cause I didn’t take my tablets. I didn’t know I needed them, that’s why I didn’t… I used to flush them down the loo, you know.’

`And when you say you became ill again, what… what do you mean? What actually happened?’

`Hyperactive and… like I was before, you know.’

`And did you agree to go back or… or not?’

`I did agree to go back, and I quite enjoyed it there really. I was there for nine months then.’

`Did you not mind missing school?’

`Didn’t worry me. Didn’t worry me, I… least… that was the least of my worries at the time wasn’t it really?’

`What other things did you enjoy about Digby then?’

`That was Dryden Clinic, Digby came later.’

`Sorry, Dryden Clinic.’

`Oh there was nice girls there and… it was quite sort of, as I say… it was… nice food, it was quite a nice place really. And then I… and then I went… went… back home and stayed there for a couple of years and then I… in nineteen seventy seven I went to Digby.’

`Can I ask you a bit more about… the adolescent unit again?’ [Pause]. `Were you… did you have your own room there?’

`Dormitory… dormitory… I was in a dormitory, and that was all right, ‘cause I got on well with the other lads in there like, you know…’

`How many of you in a room do you think?’

`There was eight of us. It was a big dormitory though. It was all right.’

`And what kind of privacy did you get in terms of having a wash in the morning or bath or whatever?’

`There was a sink… a sink in there. You’d use the bathroom when… if you had… you’d have a bath on your own, there was… you had those washing facilities in… in the actual dormitory, but most people had a shower or a bath in the morning, on their own like, you know, they didn’t… it wasn’t a communal shower or nothing like that.’

`So you had enough privacy there?’

`You did really. And they never got you up too early. I mean you didn’t have to get up until about eight o’clock, half past eight you know. You didn’t get up at the crack of dawn, you know.’

`And what would happen after they got you up?’

`You’d got to OT. Go to OT ‘till twelve o’clock and then you had to have lunch and went back to OT in the morning… in the afternoon from one ‘till four.’

`What did you do at OT?’

`Well I used to come out of OT, so then I’d do sport instead. We used to make things, like rugs and… but… trays and things like that.’

`Out of what?’

`Like… like… like trays out of a… weaving like, you know, and different things, and… painting things or doing woodwork, or you could do what you liked really. Always did something. Did… do an art work or painting or… woodwork or anything like that.’

`Pottery perhaps or…?’

`Yeah, I think they did pottery there… didn’t do it very often though.’

`Was it something you liked doing?’

`It was all right, yeah. I liked the woodwork side of it really.’

`But you’d say that sometimes you would sneak out of that in order to play sport instead?’

`Well you could play sport as well if you wanted to, you could play sport any time, but… I used to like playing sport ‘cause it was a way of getting rid of my aggression you know.’

`So did it… did you go to a sport centre to play…?’

`No, we… we had a… proper playing fields and that at Dryden Clinic, the… football pitch, cricket pitch…’

`It was all on the premises?’

`Yeah.’

`Then you said you’d… you’d go and do that and then you’d come back for lunch?’

`Yeah, then go out and do it again in the afternoon until four… you could do what you liked in the evenings, you got… they let you stay… you out to the cinema and things like that. We used to go to the pub but they didn’t know that until we came back drunk one night, and they realised we were then, like you know…’

`So you were drinking on top of medication?’

`Drinking on top of medication is not very advisable but there you go…’

`Why isn’t it advisable?’

`Well it all depends how much medication you’re on. I mean if you’re on a lot… ‘cause I mean I’m not on much now, so I can drink but I mean in them days I was on a hell of a lot, you know, and it wouldn’t have been advisable to drink really.’

`Why, what kind of effect would it have had?’

`Well like, if you were on a lot of Largactil, if you drink one pint, it’s like having three pints isn’t it? Same effect, you know.’ [Pause].

`So you got caught doing that?’

`Mmm… well we didn’t get caught in the act, of actually drinking it in the… on the premises, I got caught when I was coming back drunk, didn’t I? Well not drunk, tipsy really but then they… they knew we had, they could smell it on our breath. They knew we’d had a drink. They didn’t seem to mind that much.’

`So you didn’t have any restriction at all on what… what time you went out or came back?’

`I think you had to be back by ten actually.’

`And was that freer than life at home would have been, or was it a bit more restrictive than life at home might have been?’

`About the same I would say. And I was allowed out ‘till ten or eleven when I was at home you know, so that’s… much the same really.’

`Do you want to take a break?’

`Take a break.’

`Right…’

`Let’s have a break.’

`Bob, we were talking about Dryden Clinic just before we had a short break…’

`Yeah…’

`Take me through an average day there.’

`Well I already have, haven’t I? Get up in the morning about half past eight, have breakfast, go to OT about nine, nine or nine thirty. I’d either do OT or sport in the morning and the same in the afternoon… have… have an hour off for dinner, and then in the evenings you could do what you liked. You know…’

`And in what way were they… trying to help you with any psychological problems that you might have had?’

`Well they… they used to have therapy there and they used to give us counselling and… they used to give… give you regular injections and tablets and stuff like that you know.’

`Can you remember the name of any of those injections, that were…?’

`Well I was on Modecate for quite a few years… it’s Largactil based… Chlorpromazine based injection you know… but that was better than taking… it wasn’t so strong as taking the tablets, it wasn’t so bad you know.’

`You found the injections better?’

`Yeah, I’m not on injections now though.’

`But this… but this is when you were sixteen?’

`Yeah.’

`And were you ever given… what sort of information were you given about those?’

`Well I was told if… you mustn’t go out in the sun on it, in it… when you’re on them otherwise you burn up, that’s one of the side effects of it see, and you was told you mustn’t drink too much on them either.’

`And… did they explain what they were supposed to do?’

`They was to calm you down and keep you on even keel you know, so it was to see… so you weren’t all over the place you know, you weren’t sort of hyperactive sort of thing. They’d quieten you down a bit.’

`And were you quite willing to take those and have those injections or did you object to it in anyway?’

`No, I was quite willing to take them, they let you [???]… anything for a quiet life you know. Though it wasn’t just that, I just… just knew I needed to take them really otherwise I… I wouldn’t sleep and things like that you know. [Sighs].’

`I mean, the counselling sessions, in what way would they try and help there?’

`They’d try and sort out your problems for you and… advise you on different aspects you know.’

`Did you find that helped at all?’

`I did find it quite helpful, yeah…’

`And that was a time where… you were a young… young adolescent, and that… all the friends that you had had, would have still been at the grammar school, presumably?’

`Yeah, well they were there ‘till the September, no, to the July, end of the July and then they went… then they went to sixth form in September like, you know, and I was… even when I went back to the sixth form I was still at Dryden Clinic you know. Didn’t get discharged ‘till the December.’

`And how… so how long were you there until, about nine months did you say?’

`About nine months, yeah.’

`And did you miss your friends at all? Friends from home…’

`Well they said… when I… when I started getting better I used to go home for long weekends you know, and see them then.’

`And how did your friends react to the fact that you suddenly stopped going to school and were… were going elsewhere?’

`They were quite upset about it I think, they were quite taken aback by it. They… they understood, they were quite understanding really.’

`They didn’t reject you then or…?’

`Didn’t reject me, no…’

`They didn’t take the mickey or any of those horrible…?’

`No, they were… they were quite good about it really.’

`Did you have any sense of any stigma going to that place or not?’

`Not really, no… ‘cause you were… you were there to get better see?’
[Pause] .

`Did you miss anything about home when you were there?’

`I missed mother’s cooking. I missed the fact, you know, I was… wasn’t in familiar surroundings and things like that, you know, I missed that you know.’

`Did you miss your schoolwork at all?’

`Not really, no. Well, I… I missed the fact that I wouldn’t get any O Levels and qualifications, I missed the fact that I wouldn’t get… get that at the end of it, you know, I didn’t… I missed that a bit I suppose really… and they said I could have done quite well with O Levels I think, I’d probably have about six or seven I expect.’

`And at Dryden…’

`[Sighs].’

`…did you not have to do any academic work at all?’

`Well I did a bit to start off, when I first went there, but it didn’t last very long because… they ask… give you the option to… of doing… of doing work experience, so I did that in the end.’

`And what was that then?’

`Making concrete slabs.’

`You did that at Dryden?’

`Yeah. Well that’s doing it… out in the actual concrete sheds by the Walford Hospital it was, with a bloke called Harry Baker who’s a… he’s an ex-nurse, who’s doing that, now… who’s retired like you know. He was very nice to me, you know. He used to give me cigarettes and cups of coffee and things he did.’

`And how would you have normally got hold of cigarettes and… sweets or whatever you might have wanted?’

`Had to pay for them out of my own pocket, but I didn’t always have the money you know, but I… father would send me money sometimes in the post, a pound note or whatever you know, couple of pound notes. We could buy a lot for a pound note in them days.’

`What could you have got for a pound?’

`About two ounces of baccy was a pound then. You’d get about an ounce of baccy and about two pints for a pound as well. So it was quite good really.’

`So the money that you had, it was just whenever your father… sent you some? You weren’t getting any regular sort of pocket money?’

`No. But, I was too young to get social security really. Once… once I got discharged from Dryden Clinic, I… I got social security you know, but… I didn’t… didn’t while I was actually in there, you know.’ [Pause].

`And did you have things like a record player or…?’

`I had a record player but I didn’t… didn’t actually have it… have it in Dryden, I had it at home, but I used to take the records in and play them on other peoples’ record players, you know.’

`At Dryden?’

`Yeah.’

`So you didn’t sense… you didn’t have any sense though that you were missing out what the kids at school were doing ‘cause you were doing things at Dryden?’

`Yeah, I was… I made some… quite a few good friends there, you know. [Pause].’

`And… do you think most… young boys, they would miss their parents quite a lot if they went away?’

`I missed my parents, yeah. You do miss your parents when you go away, if I was… especially at that early age of nearly sixteen, you know, it’s… a young age to be away from home isn’t it?’

`So how did you keep in touch with them?’

`Well they used to come and see me, and I… when I’d got a lot of [inaudible] I’d go home for long weekends like, from Friday ‘till Monday or whatever, you know.’

`Did you ever write to them?’

`Sometimes, yeah.’

`Or ‘phone them up?’

`I ‘phoned them up quite a bit. I didn’t really write very… that much, very rarely wrote, but I used to ‘phone them up.’

`And you never asked to go back home or anything, you were…?’

`I wasn’t… I couldn’t of if I’d wanted to. I had to wait ‘till I was discharged, you know.’

`Did you want to go back home?’

`I did eventually, yeah. I was having a good time at Dryden Clinic really.’

`So you actually kind of preferred it did you?’

`In some ways, there was more freedom I suppose, but… it was… it wasn’t everything, you know, being at Dryden Clinic, ‘cause I mean you’re cut off from your friends that you went to school with and all that, you know.’

`What were the worst bits about being there?’

`I… [pause] I think having… [pause] having to tow the line a bit more, you know. They were a bit stricter with you than be… being at ten o’clock and things like that you know. Like I just said, when I was at home I used to stay out ‘till eleven or… eleven, you know. So that… being in by ten o’clock was a bit strict really.’

`And the people that worked there, were… who… what were they? Were they student… nurses?’
 
`Nurses, yeah.’

`And did they wear a uniform?’

`Didn’t wear a uniform, no. Ordinary clothes. [Breathes deeply].’

`Were you there under… a section?’

`No, the… no, not under section. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t on a section, I was… informal I think. [Takes a deep breath].’

`So you were informal but you were saying that you couldn’t have left because you were waiting to be…you had to be discharged?’

`Well I could have discharged myself. I didn’t think it was ad… advisable at the time, you know. [Pause].’

`So tell me what happened when you did get discharged, what happened after that?’

`Well, mum… mum come and picked me up and I… and I went home and a few weeks time it was Christmas, and I had a nice Christmas at home, you know, about ’75 you know. Family Christmas with mum and dad and my sister, and that you know.’

`And were you… is your grandfather… he was still alive? Still around…?’

`He… he was in the home by then.’

`What about other… aunts and uncles and cousins?’

`I saw all them at Christmas. I… I keep in touch with all my family now really, still keep in touch with them all.’

`Did you get on well with them?’

`Fairly well, yeah.’ [Pause].

`And when did your father come out of the Navy?’

`In 1973, so before I went to Dryden Clinic, and I went to Dryden Clinic in ’75.’

`So he’d come out just a couple of years before you went into Dryden…?’

`Yeah… yeah… yeah, so he was home all the time before I went to Dryden. He used to come and pick me up you know. Whenever I went home for a weekend, he’d always come in the car and pick me up. Then when I got a bit better I came back on the bus, from Exeter to Bideford, and mother picked me up from… from… from the bus in Bideford and took me home. But she… she always drove me back on a… on a Sunday or a Monday when I was going back you know.’

`Can you remember, whether life changed much at home when your father came back full time, as it were?’

`Not… not really, no.’

`Did it make any difference to life at home?’

`He was a bit… he was a bit stricter than her, but he… he… he was fair, you know. I just thought he was fair. I had a good time really, quite a good laugh with him. He’d take us places in the car and that, we used to go out sometimes weekends.’

`Did it seem strange having him back?’

`It did to start with but we got used to it. It was nice… nice really, ‘cause… you know we could do more, you know… as a family like, you know. Used to go… used to go… used to go… when… when he was in the Navy he used to go away… away to sea for two years at a time you know.’

`And you wouldn’t see him for two years?’

`Mmm.’

`So how did you keep in touch with your dad during those times, when…?’

`Well mother used to write to him and he used to write to her, you know.’

`And what… what about you, how did you keep in touch with him?’

`Well, I used to send… send a message with mother like, you know, in the letter like, you know. [Takes a deep breath] It… it was… it was all right, Dryden Clinic, I mean I didn’t mind it, you know. It was quite good fun really. Then I got discharged from there… and I… I stayed home for another couple of years and then I went to Digby in ’77.’

`And Digby is the… the local psychiatric hospital?’

`No, it’s in Exeter.’

`In Exeter?’

`’Cause… in 1977 there was no facilities in Barnstaple as… as yet you see. They didn’t open at the Barnstaple Hospital until like ’78, ’79 I think Barnstaple’s Psychiatric Unit.’

`So you were about eighteen when you went to Digby?’

`I was eighteen, yeah. [Sighs].’

`Can you remember what was happening just before you went into hospital then?’

`I got the same thing as I did in ’75, I got a bit high, you know. Hyperactive and that, you know. Couldn’t sleep and things like that you know.’

`And did you expect that you might end up going to a psychiatric hospital?’

`I thought it was on the cards, yeah.’

`So it wasn’t a great shock for you… when you were admitted?’

`No. [Breathes deeply].’

[Pause].

`Can you remember that first admission though, to Digby?’

`Yeah. I was… I was in Harvey ward, which was… which was a men’s ward, but it… but it wasn’t a locked ward. I got in a locked ward, I ended up on a locked ward a few… few months later, well about a month later.’

`What… what did that entail, being in a locked ward?’

`Being locked up all the time. Not allowed out off the ward unless you got accompanied by a couple of nurses you know.’

`So the main door of the ward would be locked?’

`Yeah.’

`Or were you locked into an… individual rooms?’

`I was at one time, I was locked… one night they locked me up in… locked… locked me up in the clinic room and I couldn’t get out, even to go to the toilet, you know.’

`Why did they do that?’

`I was a bit… playing up a bit I suppose. I was playing up… so they shoved me in there like, you know.’

`Playing up? What were you doing?’

`Well just… throwing things and generally hyperactive you know, and… you know, the… giving the staff a load of grief and that, you know…’

`In what way did you give them grief?’

`Swearing at them and things like that you know, so they decided I’d… best they locked me up for the night, you know…’

`Can you remember what made you feel like swearing at them or throwing things?’

`Well, I was just so… so fed up with being locked in see, I couldn’t get out, and I didn’t like it very much, you know.’

`And when you agreed to go there, ‘cause… you’d had a… you’d agreed to go to Digby had you?’

`Yeah… I was all right, I was on… and… I was only in a locked ward for a couple of weeks, then I went back on the open ward then. You know…’

`When you’d agreed to go, had you anticipated that they might put you in a locked ward?’

`No… no idea of that, no, I didn’t really think they probably would… I didn’t really… I didn’t… I knew they had locked wards there but I didn’t envisage me going in one though.’

`And if you had known, would you have still agreed to go in?’

`I expect so, yeah. ‘Cause it was… sort me out, didn’t it? Sort… I was quite well after I came out of Digby. I’d had about three months there, I was quite well when I came back again.’

`Can I ask you a bit more about the locked ward?’

`Yeah.’

`How many people would have been on there?’

`About twenty, thirty… twenty… twenty… twenty, twenty five of us probably. All male. There was all… well the female locked ward was all females, see.’

`And did you have your own bedroom, within the ward?’

`Dormitory…’

`[Both talking together] Dormitory?’

`Dormitory.’

`So… how were the beds arranged within the dormitory?’

`Just like they were in any…of the other wards, that… the front door was locked so they couldn’t get out, the windows were all locked, you know.’

`So were the beds in a row?’

`Yeah, they were, yeah, and… they used to lock the main part… the main part of the building… main part of the ward off at night, but there was a… next… next to the dormitory was a place you could… was… was a toilet and a bathroom you know.’

`Can you describe the bathroom to me?’
`It was a normal bathroom, bath and… washbasin and that. You could lock it, you all went in individually, it wasn’t communal like, I said… I said you know at Dryden [???] it wasn’t communal or anything like that.’

`So you just took it in turns did you to have a wash and…?’

`Yeah.’

`…shave or what have you?’

`Yeah. Yeah.’

`I know some… some of the older psychiatric hospitals, they’d have all the hand basins would be in a row, and several people might be washing at the same time for instance.’

`Mmm..’

`But it… was it not like that?’

`No it wasn’t like that there, no.’

`What did you… can you remember your first impressions as you came up, say to the hospital?’

`Umm…’

`As you… what were you… what would you have seen?’

`I saw… I saw the four walls and I thought it looked a bit like a prison you know. That’s what I thought to start with, but it was all right inside, you know. I mean… when I was well and I was on an open ward there was a… there was a disco every Tuesday and things like that, you know, we used to play… play football for them. I’ve travelled all over the south west playing football for them.’

`And you enjoyed that?’

`I enjoyed that, yeah.’

`Who did you play football with?’

`Oh the… some of the other guys who were at the hospitals like, you know. Younger people, you know.’

`And did the staff join in with that, football?’

`Yes. A few members… three or four members of staff in the team as well. [Takes a deep breath and breathes out loudly].’

`Going back to that locked ward again, what… what kind of beds were they?’

`Just ordinary beds really. They’re not… nothing… nothing barbaric about them or anything like that. So, just like a bed you’d get at home?’

`Yeah.’

`They weren’t iron beds?’

`No? They were just ordinary sort of wooden framed beds were they?’

`Yeah.’

`So was that a bit more modern…? Was that quite modern inside?’

`What, Digby? It was quite modern inside. Just the… big doors in from the outside looked a bit like a prison from the outside.’

`What made it look like a prison?’

`With all the old brickwork and that you know, and the big building, but it was a huge building.’

`From what sort of era was it?’

`Built in Victorian times I think.’

`And did you think it was a prison or did you know it was a hospital?’

`I knew it was a hospital but you… you… anybody who didn’t know, might have… might have mistaken it for a prison you know.’

`And the staff there… did they have a uniform or did they wear their own clothes?’

`Wore a uniform mainly. Wasn’t like Dryden Clinic where they wore their own clothes. A few of them could get away with not wearing a uniform. Most of them wear… wore a uniform though.’

`Did that… how did that make you feel, the fact they had a uniform on?’

`It didn’t bother me.’ [Takes a deep breath]. [Pause].

`Were you voluntary there?’

`I think I was, yeah.’

`Did… did you ever get put under a section, that first time?’

`I don’t think so, no. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t. I might have been in a locked ward, but I don’t think I was on a section.’

`So you weren’t sectioned, so you were free to leave if… if you wanted to… leave the hospital, you could have left?’

`I could have done, yeah, but I didn’t.’

`So how would you have got out if you’d wanted to leave?’

`Just told the nurse I suppose, I wanted to leave…’

`[Both talking together] And they’d have unlocked the ward?’

`Yeah, but I… I felt I was ill and I needed some help, you know.’

`So you were quite happy to stay in there?’

`Yeah. I was only in the locked ward for a couple of weeks and I was out again, then. Probably not even a couple… probably about ten days I was in there for.’

`And then where… and then you went onto another ward, did you?’

`Same ward I was on before, the open ward, Harvey ward.’

`Harvey ward?’

`Yeah.’

`Can you describe it for me?’

`It was like… like a… there’s… there’s Harvey ward and Ross ward, and Ross ward was the females, and there’s a… Harvey ward was like upstairs, and Ross ward was like downstairs, and the… we… it was all commu [ph]… commune all of us, the females on the… in like… in like a veranda place, so we could watch TV down there and that you know.’

`So the women would… they’d be upstairs, the females?’

`Women were downstairs, in…’

`Women were downstairs and the men were upstairs?’

`Yeah. They used to mix together though, in… in… in the like veranda place and watch telly and that.’

`And what if you’d… were the men allowed to go into the female bedrooms?’

`They weren’t supposed to. I know it went on, but I don’t think it was… they were supposed to, you know.’

`How… how did people manage to… to get onto the female wards?’

`Well they sneaked their way in, you know, that’s about… the basic… the basic truth though really. Sneak your way in, you know.’

`Did you ever manage to do that?’

`I didn’t manage to, no.’

`And… was there any restriction about men and women sort of seeing each other or making relationships or friendships?’

`There wasn’t any restriction on it, no. They were quite encouraged to make… have friends you know.’

`And what about if people wanted to have a sort of sexual relationship say with a… female, was that… allowed, or…?’

`Well, I don’t know what… what they would have done with them like that. They… they try and discourage that I think. Well all they’d do is… [???]… it’s been… been all right as long as they don’t have sex on the premises like, you know.’

`So if people wanted to, where would they have gone?’

`I don’t know really, it was… I don’t know where they’d go really. But they’d find some way round it though, people always do don’t they?’

`Did you know of anybody else who’d managed to get round that?’

`I did yeah, a mate of mine did, yeah.’

`So where would they go?’

`Well he… I think he went in his car actually. That’s a bit cramped though but there you go…’ [Sighs].

`So… did you share meals and breakfast and so on, or so with the females?’

`Yeah, breakfast… lunch, evening meal like.’

`And, so the only times that you were separate was… in bed was it, at night?’

`Yeah.’

`Shall we take a break?’

`Take a break. Get those…’

[End of DVC Pro Tape 1 – VHS Tape 1 continues]
[Start of DVC Pro Tape 2 – VHS Tape 1 continues]

`We just had a short break and you were telling me that you felt that it was important to do this because people who don’t know about psychiatric hospitals wouldn’t know what went on in them?’’

`No.’

`So what sort of things were you thinking of… what… what sort of things do go on that people don’t… might not know about?’

`Well, not a lot really, but it’s just the general running of them I suppose, and that all the pills and that they have to take and things like that… things like… psychotherapy and all this, you know.’

`So do you think people are given more medication than people would realise?’

`I think so…’

`Is that what you mean or…?’

`I think so, yeah. I’ve been, what I call drugged up to the eyeballs, you know.’

`And what effect would that have on most people there that you’ve seen?’

`Make them lethargic, wouldn’t it? Make them sleepy, wouldn’t it?’

`And is that how a lot of people were, while you were there?’

`Oh, ‘cause they… they came across to me as being like that, yeah. I wasn’t too bad myself because I wasn’t… never been on an awful lot but… when I was at Dryden Clinic I had a lot of medication. Not… not so much when I was at Digby, but…’

`And so what would the other patients at Digby be doing most of the day?’

`A lot of them would have quite a… quite a few sleeps you know, things like that, you know. They did a… their OT and everything they were supposed to do but… quite often early evening, they got… between six and eight they’d go to bed for a couple of hours, you know.’

`And then in the day rooms, if… if I was to be… say, you took me there right now and we went back to those days, and I looked around, what would I have seen?’

`Well, some of the old dears might have been knitting and… people watching television, people generally chit chatting, smoking, drinking cups of tea. Normal things that go on in ordinary life really.’

`Was smoking a big part of hospital life?’

`Most every… everybody used to smoke, virtually… although, hardly anybody didn’t smoke of the patients you know.’

`And did any of the staff smoke?’

`Most of the staff used to smoke as well.’

`And they smoked while they were on duty?’

`Yeah.’

`There was no rule against that for them or…?’

`No, I think there is now, but there wasn’t in them days.’

`And I think you said something about cigarette rationing… is that right?’

`Only when I was on the locked ward, they rationed me to five a day.’

`So how did you get them?’

`Just ask… ask for them every… every… every so… so many hours, that I could ask for a cigarette you know, and I asked for it early one day and the bloke kicked me up the arse… he kick… he kicked me he did, the charge nurse, ‘cause I asked for a cigarette, and about… it was only about a minute or a couple of minutes early you know. But he didn’t like it though.’

`And he physically kicked you?’

`Yeah.’

`Was that quite… did that happen more than once that the staff…’

`That’s the only…’

`…would be aggressive or…?’

`That’s the only time he was aggressive, all… most of the time he was all right, you know, but I think he was a bit wound… somebody had wound him up that day a bit and he’d been on… on a short fuse, you know?’

`Did you react to that?’

`Just said “Fair enough, I’ll come back in a couple of minutes…”. He said, “Have your cigarette…” he said, “…now.” So he gave it to me and I had it, but I mean… I didn’t make a big issue of it, you know.’

`Did you think that was… ok that the staff did that to you?’

`[Sighs]. It was unreasonable behaviour really. It was only a couple of minutes, I mean what’s a couple of minutes you know, it’s nothing is it?’

`Did you put in a complaint about that?’

`I didn’t, no. Should have done really I suppose.’

`If you had wanted to complain, would you have known how to go about it?’

`I don’t really know that I would or not, you know, don’t think I could tell really.’

`There wouldn’t have been any posters up advising you on how you could put in a formal complaint or anything?’

`I didn’t see any, any when I was there anyway, no.’

`Did you ever see the staff being aggressive to any of the other patients at any time?’

`I seen… seen them shouting and things like that and… the sort of… forcing them to have injections and things like that, you know.’

`Can you describe what would have happened it someone was being forced to have medication?’

`Well it just… turning them, holding them down and… oh and then the other one, while somebody was holding down the other one give them an injection up the arse, it’s as simple as that, isn’t it? Someone, one of them was restraining and the other person was giving the injection. They were big blokes, and that’s not a bad thing you know [???]…’

`Where abouts would they have done that...?’

`On the bed or whatever, you know, up in the dormitory.’

`And under what circumstances would the staff have felt it necessary to do that?’

`It was… unruly behaviour I suppose, getting a bit high and aggressive or whatever, you know.’

`And what made people feel aggressive, from the patients’ point of view?’

`Well… what you’ve got to remember is people were locked up about twenty four hours a day, and if you were locked up twenty four hours a day, you’d well… you want to get out, don’t you and have some fresh air and things like that, don’t you? You want to go out and… and… go to the… go to the canteen or whatever, want to shop and buy some fags or… whatever, or have a cup of tea in the… out at the hospital… or over the motel for a drink or whatever, you know.’

`So people got really angry because they were so restricted?’

`Yeah.’

`And then they’d take it out and they’d get an injection?’

`Yeah.’

`And what other kind of behaviour was not tolerated by the staff?’

`That’s a… that’s a… that’s about… it really. Even like you ask… give them cheek or anything like that you know. But apart from that they were fairly reasonable really. [Pause].’

`With the… cigarette rationing, you said you had… you… how did… how was that agreed then that you’d have a cigarette every so many… hours?’

`Two or three hours I think it was.’

`So you’d have a set time?’

`With cigarettes, yeah.’

`And only five in a… in a whole day?’

`Yeah. When I was on… when I was… when I got… when I was on the open ward, the Harvey ward, they let me smoke as many as I wanted, you know.’

`It was just on the locked ward?’

`Mmm.’

`And what kind of… were you allowed to have your own lighter and matches with you?’

`I can’t remember now, it’s so long ago, seven… ‘77 it’s… twenty, thirty… twenty odd years ago isn’t it, twenty two years ago. I think you were allowed to carry a lighter or matches or whatever.’

`And did you have your own clothes with you?’

`Yeah.’

`All the time?’

`Yeah.’

`And what about other patients, were they mostly dressed in the day or…?’

`Most of them were dressed in the day. Some of… some of them went about in pyjamas, but not many [pause].’

`And can you remember the meals there?’

`The meals were quite good. Meals were quite good. They used to come in a trolley and the staff used to dish it out on plates to you, you know, come in a hot trolley like you know.’

`So did you queue up for that or did they bring it round to the table or…?’

`Sat round the table and they brought it to you.’

`And what sort of choices did they give you for you to eat?’

`It was a set menu I think, the sort of… used to get roast, couple of roast meals a week, always a roast meal on Sunday. Used to get snacks in the evenings, like sausage… rolls and beans or whatever, or… or… maybe we had a cottage pie or roast beef or whatever, you know.’

`And did you have a choice or was it just a set, particular meal every day without any choice?’

`Set… set menu.’

`So if you didn’t want that or you didn’t like that, what would you do?’

`You have to ask… you have to order something else the day before you know.’

`So you’d find out the day before that the next day is going to be roast beef for instance, but if you didn’t want that you’d have to say…?’

`Yeah [yawns]. [Pause].’

`Did you ever feel that there should have been a bit more choice with the meals?’

`There… there should have been. When I was on Brownleas in… later on, when I was in Barnstaple Hospital, they give… give you a menu card with a choice of about three or four things and then we could decided what we wanted each day like, you know. That was quite good.’

`And did you find that better?’

`Yeah.’

`And what about if you were hungry for a snack in the middle of the day, when it wasn’t lunch time or dinner time…?’

`Well you had to go out and buy yourself something didn’t you?’ [Both talking together].

`And you could be quite free to go out and go down the village or whatever to get that?’

`Well are we talking about Digby or Brownleas now?’

`At Digby?’

`Umm… they had a café… they had… the café place in… in the hospital… grounds of the hospital we could go.’

`So you could go and get some sort of snack there?’

`Crisps, or whatever… get a cup of tea there.’

`And how would you get your money in order to buy those things?’

`Well people used to have social security but I used to… I used to work. I used… I used to work over in the cleaning… clean… cleaning the actual ward. They were giving you five pound a week for doing that. So I was better off than most people.’

`So you had your benefits plus the five?’

`Yeah.’

`And how would you actually get the money? Was it sent to you in a cheque or did you have to go and get it?’

`I used to have to go down to the office and… and sign for it and pick it up in a wage packet. I had a fiver every… every Friday or some, whatever it was.’

`And that was your wages?’

`Yeah.’

`And what about the other money, the social security money?’

`It’d come in a giro cheque.’

`And… and where would you get that cashed?’

`[Inaudible] send it home, my mother used to cash it for me and send it or bring it for me, you know.’

`And then you were free to just spend it as you wished were you?’

`Yeah. [Takes a deep breath].’

`And what would people have done about money if they hadn’t had a parent say, that they could get it… how did they get their cash, the other pair… the other patients?’

`I don’t really know, I… it didn’t concern me…’

`[Coughs]. So you did the work, and that… was that every day that you did the cleaning?’

`Yeah, Monday to Friday, I didn’t do it weekends.’

`How long would it have taken you every day?’

`Oh about an hour. I think, give or take a minute or two.’

`And did you do any other work, when you were there? That you got paid for…’

`No, I didn’t, no. That was all.’

`Thinking of work type things, you mentioned OT at Digby, what sort of activities were on offer in the OT department?’

`You usually do drawings and paintings or you could make things out of wood or whatever. [Pause] Do basket weaving and things like that, and making rugs and things like that…’

`Did you do any of those things?’

`Did a bit of woodwork with the painting, but I didn’t do anything… only making rugs or whatever, you know… found it a bit tedious you know, doing things like that all the time, you know.’

`What, those Redicut rugs was it?’

`Yeah.’

`You have a sort of implement and push it up through and…?’

`Yeah.’

`…stick the wool round and…?’

`You know the one, you know…’

`I do, yeah…’

`[Sighs].’

`And what about, was there…anything like a library in the hospital?’

`I think there was a library and… and… and… and there was… several… a couple of OT buildings and there was like a leisure centre there, where… where you… you go near the juke box and the pool table and a table tennis table, and you… you’d play the… play the… the juke box, have… a cheap cup of coffee and tea and that, you know.’

`And was that quite well used?’

`Oh very well used, yeah. A lot of us went up the motel in the evenings, had a drink.’

`And where was the motel?’

`Just up the road…’

`But out of the hospital?’

`Yeah.’

`And did any of the staff live around… in the hospital grounds itself?’

`I don’t think so, no. They all sort of had houses up… [inaudible] or what… or near abouts… near enough… near abouts you know.’

`I heard that… sometimes, it would… there would be a situation where patients might end up having a relationship with a… one of the nurses… is that something you ever came across?’

`I have known it, I… I didn’t but I have known people who have done. But that’s sort of frowned upon really. [Pause].’

`Thinking of other areas of the hospital… you said there was the canteen, and also you mentioned a… in the research ‘phone call we had about a… laundry there… in the hospital, is that right? There was on at Digby?’

`There was a laundry, yeah… and that… there… they used to have… discos there very Tuesday in the ballroom like you know. There was a stage that… has been a… they… they… they did quite a… put quite a few things on for people to do like you know, quite good really.’

`Entertainment?’

`Yeah, entertainments, yeah.’

`What other kind of entertainment then, so the… the ball… the ballroom with the disco is one…?’

`They had a Miss… Mrs Digby competition once, and a Mr… Mr Digby competition and different… different things, you know.’

`Oh, tell me about that.’

`Just lined up and sort of voted who they thought was the best like, you know.’

`What, best looking?’

`Must to take it [???] yeah… [takes a deep breath].’

`What about plays, was there any plays or theatre…anything of that nature?’

`Singing and things like that, but not… not actual plays and things like that went on.’

`Was there any ever… special things provided at Christmas time?’

`I was never in there Christmas, never been in hospital at Christmas, ever.’

`[Pause].’

`Were you having regular visits from anybody, your friends? Did they come and visit you, your school mates?’

`Not really. Mum and dad come and see me, and my sister come and see me.’

`Is there any particular reason why your friends that you had had at school, didn’t visit, or…?’

`Lost touch by the time I went Digby, with a lot… with a lot of them. You know, because…’

`Did that bother you at all?’

`Not really, no, I made new friends, I had a new set of friends really.’

`Amongst the other patients?’

`Yeah, and people I met in Bideford and different… in pubs and that, in different places. [Pause] [Deep breathing].’

`And did you feel any desire to sort of go up… get out of the hospital and do something different or did… did you think `I want to go and get a job…`, or `I wish I was doing something else?`.’

`Well you all… always think things like that don’t you but, they don’t always materialise do they?’

`But you did think about those things sometimes did you?’

`Yeah.’

`Did the hospital give you any help… around say trying to get a job or was that just not a realistic thing at the time?’

`Not a realistic thing at the time. They… they could… they could do some sort of work experience or whatever, do a bit of work but… everybody pressurised you in… in to getting a job like, you know. The… the… when you… when you… it’s like… I expect you know this as well, when you’re mentally ill you can’t concentrate as much as a normal person can you? You can’t though, can you? [Pause].’

`It’s very difficult, certainly.’

`Mmm.’

`Did you think that… the reason why it’s hard to concentrate is… for you was because of… the illness or because of the medication?’

`A bit of both really. Bit of both. [Takes a deep breath].’

`And that time… you were there for three months?’

`Yeah, first time I was there, and the second time I was only there for twelve days the second time.’

`And at any time were you sectioned? That you know of…?’

`Don’t think so, no.’

`You were voluntary? Did you know other people that were sectioned?’

`Yeah. [Sighs].’

[Pause]

`And was… it anything… did you ever fear that you might get sectioned?’

`I dreaded it really, if I had have been, you know.’

`What would you have really dreaded about that?’

`Well… I wouldn’t be able to go… go out if… if I… if I really wanted to get out I wouldn’t be able to get out would I, if I was sectioned? At least when you’re informal… you want to discharge yourself you can, can’t you?’

`But in terms of whether a patient was sectioned or voluntary, how… how was it different according to whether you were sectioned or voluntary?’

`Well I think you had… I think there’s a lot difference but… the main thing is you’ve got more rights if you’re informal haven’t you? You could do things, you know, just get out, whatever, you know.’

`More rights to be freer?’

`Yeah. I think on a section they watch you a bit, you know. [Pause].’

`You mentioned the… medication that you had, and the…’

`Yeah.’

`…injections… but you, they weren’t forced upon you?’

`No.’

`And were you ever… offered elect… electric shock treatment?’

`Not while I was at Digby, I was when I was in Brownleas, but I never… never, never… I didn’t want it though, I never… I’ve never had it. Don’t fancy it.’

`Did you know anybody else that had had it?’

`I know people who’ve have it, yeah.’

`And why didn’t you… what put you off it?’

`’Cause of memory loss and all that side effects you get from it you know, I didn’t fancy having it done to me, you know, basically…’

`Did you see these effects on other people, or was it what you heard about?’

`I saw them and I heard about them as well, you know.’

`Can you… is it possible that you could describe to me… if you’d seen somebody that had had ECT, how would they be?’

`Well… well, I can’t really describe it really. I… just… you just know they’ve had it you know. I can’t doc… I can’t really describe it. But I think they do… they do lose quite a bit of memory, short… short term or long term memory from it you know.’

`So something about the way they looked that would make you think that they’d had ECT?’

`Yeah.’

`Something to do with the way they were behaving or their faces, or…?’

`I can’t really put a finger on it really.’

`It’s hard to say?’

`Yeah.’ [Pause].

`You mentioned the… work that you did there cleaning…was there any gardens?’’

`Gardens, concrete sheds, all that sort of thing.’

`Did you do any of those things?’

`No, I did… got a bit of shed work when I was at… when I was at Dryden Clinic, but I didn’t at Digby.’ [Sighs].

`Is that something that didn’t particularly interest you?’

`I didn’t mind doing it, I don’t mind doing heavy work. I’ve done manual work in the past.’

`I know some of these older asylums… you… you know, the farm and the [inaudible] going back a long time before your time, but… there used to be a farm on the hospital site and then… even in the eighties sometimes you’d still find that the garden was quite a feature of the hospital, and you’d find patients out there, working in the gardens, I don’t… was that the same at Digby?’

`There was one or two worked on the gardens, not that many though, only five or six worked on the garden at the whole hospital you know.’ [Takes a deep breath].

[Pause].

`So you left there ’77…?’

`Yeah.’

`What… what happened in the meantime, before you were… went there again in 1980, what did you do in the meantime?’

`I was at home and just… just generally… had a job for the [inaudible]… did a few bits and pieces, and… just generally at home, just a generally normal sort of life really. Would see my friend at… friends and that, you know. Went to the pub and different things, you know.’

`What was your job when you were…?’

`I used to do the odd jobs for people, I didn’t have to do anything… you know, specific.’

`I see what you mean, yeah. So they… you say it was… just an ordinary sort of life, but were not a lot of your friends… would they not have been in jobs or at university?’

`They were but I… I made a sort of new set of friends really in the Bideford area really.’

`So you mixed in very different circles then?’

`Yeah.’

`Did it ever…?’

`I was also… saw a few of my friends from school time, but not… only about two or three.’

`And did you ever feel any pressure from anybody that you should go out and get a job or go to university, or… or not?’

`Well people did mention it to me, but I was sort of… felt I couldn’t cope with it, you know.’

`So you were happier to… to not take on all those pressures and just…?’

`Yeah.’

`…be, really?’

`Yeah.’

`And who were you living with at that time?’

`Mum and dad.’

`And that didn’t worry you at all?’

`No, I didn’t leave home until about twenty five.’

`Is that about the age you thought you’d leave anyway, or when you were a younger boy, did you imagine that you might have left home by then?’

`I was… I thought I’d left home a lot… a lot… lot sooner than that really. I think that’s the way it happened I suppose.’ [Takes a deep breath].

`Did your parents want you to leave home?’

`Well they sort of chucked me out, ‘cause I got drunk one night, when I… and I ended up in Wood Dale [ph] House, that’s a place like I live now. The half way house sort of thing. I ended up there, ‘cause I… I… I got drunk one night, let myself in with my key, went in my bedroom and fell over and broke some chair… furniture, ‘cause I fell on it. Mother wasn’t too keen about that, and she chucked me out basically, and found somewhere else for me to live, you know.’

`When you…?’

`When I was twenty five.’

`And how did that feel?’

`A bit of a shock to the system to start with I tell you… and I… you know, I coped with it.’

`And then you went to live at Wood… what was it called?’

`Wood… Wood Dale… it was… it was after my spell in Brownleas.’

`Oh in Brownleas, and that… where you went in 1982?’

`Yeah. I went to Wood Dale in ’84 I think. [Sighs].’

`And what’s… what is Brownleas?’
 
`It’s a psychiatric unit on… part of Barnstaple Hospital, part of the North Devon District Hospital at Barnstaple, for the psychiatric wing.’

`And so by…’cause you… I know earlier you were telling me that… Exeter, was… had been the nearest place?’

`It had been before, really, and they opened that up in ’79 I think.’

`They opened Brownleas in ’79?’

`’78 or ’79, somewhere round there.’

`And was that… so that was a very modern, brand new unit was it?’

`Yeah, brand new, spanking new, yeah.’

`And how did… how was it different say to Digby? Can you explain the differences?’

`Well… well it was…’

`In the buildings and furniture and so on?’

`More modern and… probably less to do in Digby though. A lot less to do. You spent a lot of the time just sort of sitting around and drinking tea and smoking you know.’

`At Brownleas?’

`Mmm. Sometimes you’d play cards or whatever or… put some music on or whatever but, not a lot going on really. Bit of OT sometimes. But they didn’t force you to do OT.’

`Had you been forced to do it at Digby?’

`Well you were advised to do it. That’s…’

`Persuaded or…?’

`Gently persuaded, to put it… yeah.’ [Pause].

`And were the furnishings different, say at Brownleas, compared with Digby?’

`Well it was newer and more modern like, you know.’

`And how many people might have been in that unit at that time?’

`Between twenty and thirty I would have thought.’

`On… and there was just one ward there is there?’

`Just one ward there, yeah.’

`And you said there was some OT but you weren’t forced to do it?’

`No.’

`Where did that take place?’

`Downstairs in the O… in the OT… in the OT… part of the main… the… OT for the whole hospital, see…’

`For the General Hospital as well?’

`Yeah.’ [Pause].

`So how did it feel, the fact that this wasn’t just a… I mean whereas Digby was a… is definitely a psychiatric hospital, and it’s only for psychiatric patients, is that right?’

`Yeah.’

`Whereas Brownleas is part of the… General Hospital. Did that feel any different?’

`Well people… people used to… used to… used to think I… people used to say “Oh he’s a nutter from Brownleas, he ain’t part of normal life, he’s one of the those funny people…”, you know, people just… think a bit like I think people thought that. Not everybody, but some people did. I felt sure they did.’

`So it felt very sort of separate to the main hospital even though it was part of the same…?’

`Mmm.’ [Pause].

`And was there ever those sort of things said about Digby? Was it known in the local places that Digby was the psychiatric hospital?’

`It was… nut house, used to call it.’

`The nut house?’

`[Pause].’

`Does that… offend you that people use those sort of terms?’

`They don’t understand really, do they?’

`No.’

`If it happened to them they wouldn’t… they’d be more sympathetic wouldn’t they?’

[Pause].

`Is it something you thought would ever happen to you?’

`Not when I was a… young lad, no.’ [Pause].

`Did you know that it happened to other people though, were you aware of mental… so called mental illness?’

`Not… not very much, no.’

`You hadn’t heard stories about any relatives or people you knew that had been in hospital?’

`No.’

`Did you know there were such things as… mental hospitals or asylums?’

`People used to say… when I was at school… when I was in the first and second years, we always used to joke about Digby you know, being a nut house and all this, you know, nutters go there and all this, you know.’

`And what image did you have in your mind then, as a child of the kind of people that went to hospitals like that?’

`I thought they were really zany, that… I changed… once… once it happened to me, I… looked at it in a different light you know.’

`You thought they were zany did you say?’

`Yet when I… when, if I… I find out I’ve been admitted myself like, you know…’

`So you thought it was somewhere where other type of people went?’

`Yeah, well…’ [both talking together].

`[Inaudible]’

`But I realised it’s just normal people with problems, really, is what you could say it is really, just normal people with a few problems, you know.’

`And… were your parents quite accepting of the fact?’

`What, that I was in hospital? Yeah, they didn’t mind. They thought it’d do me good I think.’

`Were they at all bothered about what other people might be saying, really sort of disparaging things that people do tend to say sometimes?’

`I… I think that they… they just ignored it you know, and put them straight or whatever.’

`So they would just tell people…? You didn’t feel they have… they were trying to keep it quiet from anybody?’

`No, they didn’t try and keep it quiet, no one hushed up or anything like that.’

`And your relatives, were they aware of the fact that you’d gone into hospital?’

`Yeah, no, they were always all right about it yeah.’

`Would they have come to visit you at all?’

`Well…’

`Your aunts and uncles, say your cousins that you might have had?’

`Maybe one or two. Not… not all of them. One or two of them might.’ [Pause].

`How long were you in Brownleas that time?’

`1982?’

`Yeah.’

`About three months. To… about two and a half months, say, two and a half, three months.’ [Takes a deep breath].

`Did you used to look forward to being able to leave?’

`What, being discharged you mean?’

`Yeah.’

`I did look forward to that, yeah.’

`And is it something you thought you had a say over? Or did you just sort of wait until they told you?’

`I’d wait… I’d wait till they sort of… when they was all agreed for a time for me to go, that was it like, you know. But they… they never kept you any longer than you needed to be in though.’

`And when you left, did you used to think that’s it, I’m not… I’m not going back there again, or did you sort of have a feeling that you may go back again in the future?’

`I think I may go back but… I haven’t been in now for fourteen years.’

`Now you haven’t been there for fourteen years?’

`Mmm. Fourteen years… ’85 was the last time I was in, I was on Williams Ward then.’

`And where’s Williams Ward?’

`Downstairs. It’s on the basement. But the same as… sort of thing that set up at Brownleas really, at Barnstaple Hospital.’

`Oh I see, Brownleas was at Barnstaple Hospital?’

`Yeah.’

`But Williams Ward is in…’

`Williams ward was in… in Barn… Barnstaple Hospital as well.’

`Right, I understand. And… did you still have segregated female and male areas?’

`Yeah...’

`And would you… how would eating arrangements be there?’

`All eat together and that, and things like that, and sit together during the day and in the evening and that, and just sleep in different rooms.’

`And were you again in dormitories with beds in a row?’

`We all had separate rooms there.’

`At Brownleas and Williams?’

`No… Will… Brownleas was dormitories…when I was on Williams it’s different now. When I was in Williams we all… all had our own rooms.’

`And what would have been in the room?’

`A bed, and… and a… table and… chest of drawers and that, and… general bed things… and then behind the… and then through… through door led to an en-suite bathroom, shower… you own shower unit, wash basin and toilet in the back, you know. Everyone had one of them, but… they… they knocked all that down and did it different in… after I left, you know.’

`How… how is it different now, do you know?’

`Well if you… the… they share a bathroom now and things like that, you know.’

`It seems almost like a backward step that, to change it from having your own to having communal…’

`They only had… only had ten rooms, and it would have made it bigger, see… it only had ten rooms when they did it like that, see. I know it’s a backward step, but it’s… ‘cause they… needed… needed… needed more… needed more people coming in see. Needed more rooms so they had to do it like that see.’

`Was that a surprise to you to find that it wasn’t dormitory style?’

`Was a bit of a surprise, yeah. ‘Cause it was quite nice really. You had… had your own private bathroom, you know, it was quite nice.’

`And did you have a key to the room?’

`The room wasn’t locked, you didn’t have a key to the room.’

`Did you have a… ever have any problem with… other people going in and out of your room if you didn’t have a key to it?’

`I never had that problem really… until other people… experienced it, I never experienced it.’

`So you could just have your belongings and you’d know they’d be ok?’

`Yeah.’

`’Cause I… I just say it because I know that sometimes this is a problem, you know, people, sort of going in and out of each other’s rooms, but…’

`Mmm.’

`Not necessarily. Are you ready for a break?’

`Yeah.’

`Ok, ready…’

[Pause].

`Ok, Rob…?’

`Yeah.’

`We have been talking about…’

`[Faye: `Sorry…’].

`Ok Rob. You’ve been telling me about your time at Brownleas and so on. At what time did you… were you first given any kind of diagnosis? Can you recall when that might have been?’

`Well mainly around the time I was in Brownleas in ’82, I think they diagnosed me as a manic depressive, you know.’

`And at any time before that had you… been…?’

`I thought… thought I might be one, you know. Didn’t think I was a schizophrenic though.’

`So at… Dryden, you weren’t given any kind of diagnosis there?’

`Not really, no.’

`And what did you think was… wrong with you as it were?’

`Well I know I was high and that. I thought… I thought it probably was manic depression but I didn’t say anything at the time.’

`And how had you found out about manic depression?’

`’Cause my mum had a friend of hers and… her husband was a manic depressive. He seemed exactly the same as me like, you know.’

`So you knew of the symptoms and…’

`Yeah…’

`So on? And what do you think might have cause that? Have you got any ideas yourself?’

`The accident possibly. The accident I had, probably… was the thing that triggered it all off.’

`In… in what way?’

`It affected my brain I think.’

`In a physical sense you mean?’

`Yeah.’

`Not… you don’t mean in a… in the way that the accident was very traumatic and…?’

`No, I didn’t mean it like that, no. It was all over in a matter of seconds.’

`You mean you think… you think it might have affected your brain in some way?’

`Yeah.’

`Are you aware that… other people think that things like manic depression or even schizophrenia are cause by… in distressing situations in life? Are you aware that other people, some people think that…?’

`I’m aware of that, yeah.’

`But that’s… what do you think of that view?’

`Don’t think that… I don’t think that applies to me.’

`You… there’s nothing that when you look back on your life, you don’t sort of think oh… this or that happened and…?’

`No, I don’t think that. No.’

`So if you hadn’t had the car accident, say that… imagine that had not happened, I know it’s hypothetical, how do you think your life might have been different?’

`A lot different. I’ve got… probably… probably would have led a normal life and got a decent job by now, you know. Doing things normal people do. Well I do most things normal people do now really. You know, but… you do have to adjust your life a bit I suppose.’

`If you… if you compare yourself say to… somebody who has got a job and he goes out… may have children or…?’

`Mmm.’

`Do you feel that you lose out in any way?’

`I think I might do a little bit, yeah, but I’m not really worried about it, ‘cause I’ve had quite a good life really.’

`Have you ever had any relationships?’

`I’ve had several relationships, yeah.’

`Are you happy to talk about any of them?’

`The… well, not… well… not really, I mean, it’s a private… private sort of thing isn’t it, the relationship, isn’t it really? I have had several relationships though.’

`Have you had a… doesn’t mean that you need to tell me intimate details or anything, but… you know…?’

`[Pause].’

`Is it important to you whether you have a relationship with somebody or not?’

`Well it is… in some degrees you know, if… if… if it… if… I haven’t got a relationship at the moment but it… doesn’t worry me, you know.’

`And do you think you might have children one day?’

`I might do, you never know. Pigs might fly mightn’t they, you might have had a… [stutters] pig might come flying through the window in a minute you know, but there you go. No, I don’t… I might… I might do, I’m still not too old am I?’

`No.’

`’Cause I’m a male, I can… when I’m seventy five… I can still father kids when I’m sixty you know.’

`But from what you’ve just said about pigs might fly it sounds as if that’s… you don’t really think that’ll happen?’

`I don’t really think it’ll happen, no.’

`And is something you thought might have happened if you hadn’t had the car accident and life had gone a different route?’

`It possibly would of, yeah. I don’t think… I wouldn’t have minded children a few years ago. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to have children, I’m forty now, you know. That’s a bit old, you know, to start producing kids now, you know. Mind you, I could still do it though, give me a couple of years, you know, I could still do it, you know. It would be… would be nice, to think I could do, you know.’

`Do you have any nephews or any… nieces or nephews?’

`I haven’t, no.’

`So your sister’s married but no… with no children?’

`Mmm.’

`And if you had been working, if life had gone differently and you were working, have you… what sort of job do you think you might like to be doing? Or had been doing…?’

`I don’t know really, I don’t know really because I’ve never really got the qualifications to get a job, so I can’t really say, you know. Could have done anything really. Wouldn’t have minded teaching, anything like that really. That sort of general sort of prospect that’s… [???] and I could have been… if could have done anything [inaudible]… wanted I would have become a Customs Officer, and things like that you know, maybe do teaching or whatever, but… never got the qualifications, never materialised and never got that… that way of life so… it was a kind of a struggle, wasn’t there is it really? [???].’

`Do you feel it’s too late still… do you feel that’s too late, is that something you’ve ruled out or…?’

`What, working you mean?’

`Mmm.’

`I haven’t ruled it out, no. I might do one day. And I’ve still got twenty five years ‘till I retire you know. Still fit something in that time. [Sighs].’

`Would you consider perhaps trying to pick up on the education that you were going to go… you would probably… well you would have gone to university and might have got A Levels… is it something you might consider?’

`Well I could do, but I find it hard to… hard to concentrate on it really, I do find it hard you know. I can concentrate for say an hour and then I lose interest you know.’

`And you found that the way for… ever since you were an adolescent really?’

`Yeah. I was all right before the accident, and for a little bit… afterwards, but I seemed to lose interest after a while you know, my school work results went down about twenty per cent you know, and… I got… gave up in the end really, up I suppose really.’

`Do you think… that there would be anything of… that you would like to have in the way of services that might… help things like that?’

`I’ve heard they do some training of some sort, to train me to do something. I could do that, as long as there wasn’t much paperwork involved, you know.’

`What something on a more practical…?’

`A practical sort of basis, yeah.’

`And have you ever considered… perhaps not taking the medication, and seeing how that is, or do you…?’

`Well I think Librium… [both talking together].’

`Or is that not something you think about even?’

`I only take Lithium and a bit of Haloperidol, I mean it’s… and it’s not really a problem taking them out, although if I didn’t take it, I might become ill again and I wouldn’t like to sort of go back to hospital again, I haven’t been in fourteen years or so, have I? That route again, you know. I’m quite… I’m quite happy to take the medication, it doesn’t worry me.’

`So how long do you think you’ll take it for?’

`Probably for the rest of my life I would have thought but it doesn’t really worry me, you know. As long as I keep well with it, it’s… it’s a good thing isn’t it?’

`And is that what other people tell you as well?’

`Yeah.’

`Have you ever met people that… you felt had the similar symptoms to you, but who no longer take medication or… or have you not met people like that?’

`I’ve met people that got completely from mental illness, but not very many. Like for instance, there’s a chap who works at our place, a care assistant there, I mean he used to be mentally ill and now he’s got completely better he’s working as a carer now, you know, so… it shows it can be done.’

`And how… what do you think the difference is, say, between somebody that does that and gets better and gets work, do you… how… how do you feel when you meet people like that? How does it make you feel about your own situation?’

`Well it feels there’s hope for me you see, it makes me feel there’s hope for me as well, really. It… you can get completely better from mental illness you know, or else you take tablets to stay on the border line, but I mean you just… you can get completely better, I mean. I probably could really, if I really tried I suppose really, I suppose I could.’

`And do you think those people have got better by really trying or do you…or do you think that…there are other reasons?’

`Could be circumstances, could be circumstances… the circumstances have been right on the right occasion, you know. That’ll probably be it more… more than anything I think really. [Sighs].’

`So as you say, you… you’re pleased with the fact that you’ve not been in hospital for such a long time, fifteen… fourteen years…’

`Mmm…’

`And what… what kind of life situation do you live in at the moment?’

`Well I don’t see mum and dad sometimes. I… I go to the pub, you know, I go… go up to day centres and… I’ve got a good life really. I go for long walks and that.’

`What do you do at the day centre?’

`Play pool, different things. Or chats… smoke and a cup of tea and… generally just… sort of like a drop in centre, just for meeting people and having a chin wag basically. A few games of pool and table tennis and stuff you know.’

`Who runs the… that day centre?’

`It’s run by the Mental Health Resource… Resource people.’

`Is that NHS or social services?’

`I think it’s more social services more than NHS. It’s more social services I think. We… that… that centre’s run by us really, because we’re… we’re the people that go there and we do the things that… it’s really run by us really. If the truth was known. ‘Cause they… they open up weekends and people who actually use it open up, you know.’

`Oh right.’

`That’s quite good. I’ve never been at a weekend but I sort of… they tell me it’s quite good. [Sighs].’

`So all the service users run the place themselves in order that there is something for people on a Sunday?’

`Yeah…’

`Or Saturday?’

`Sunday.’

`Sunday.’

`[Sighs].’

`And you said that you enjoy the pubs?’

`I enjoy going the pub… I go to a pub in Instow, I don’t go to Bideford or Barnstaple ‘cause there’s a bit of a hassle there about the… know each other in the Instow pubs, and I like a nice pint of beer, reasonable price, it isn’t far to walk to go to, I… I enjoy it you know.’

`And have you got quite a few friends now?’

`I’ve got lots of friends in the village, yeah. I’ve got loads of friends really. All different ages, you know.’

`And are they… what do they do?’

`Well a lot of them work and things like that and jobs. I’m quite friendly with an old bloke who lives on a boat you know, he doesn’t work but he’s… he’s quite happy. He’s been married twice.’

`He’s been married twice?’

`Mmm. And he’s given up on women now as a bad job.’

`Has that put you off ever getting married?’

`Never put me off, no. I don’t think I ever will though but you never know, it might happen one day, you never know. If I meet the right person I could do.’ [Sighs].

[Pause].

`Can you tell me a bit about where you live?’

`What Orchard House? Well it was for all mentally ill people but they’re… we’ve got… we’ve got half… half the people there now are mentally handicapped. A lot of them are very… very bad, you know. But you’ve got to… feel sorry for them really, but I’m getting my own flat in the back of the house soon… when it’s ready for me, so I’ll be able to move in and do my own shopping and can do everything. I’ll be independent then, so I’m looking forward to that.’

`And how have… how is it you’ve lived with people with learning difficulties or mental handicap, when that isn’t your diagnosis at all is it?’

`No, it’s just… to get more money for them I reckon. Why did they just decided to have them there you know? Never used to be there at one time, but… you’ve got to put up with them I suppose. They’ve got as much right to live as we have haven’t they really, I mean you’ve sort of just got to… live with them I suppose. But I… when I [inaudible] the actual house itself when I was moving up to my flat see [???]…’

`Say that again sorry I didn’t hear you…?’

`I wouldn’t have much dealings with the… with the house itself once I’ve moved from my flat, I’ll be self sufficient then, do my own shopping, cooking, everything.’

`So what’s the situation at the moment, if…?’

`They’re building it at the moment, they’ve nearly finished it. The… should be ready soon.’

`So you’re really looking forward to that?’

`I am looking forward to it yeah.’

`So at the moment, who does all the shopping and cooking and what have you?’

`Well… well the shopping and stuff comes to the door, Booker’s [???] comes with… with the main shop. We have fruit and veg people come round, and the meat people come round, so we… all we go out shopping for is bread and milk you see. It all gets delivered to the door otherwise. It’s quite handy.’

`So do you, as one of the residents there, do you have any choice in the shopping?’

`Well you can suggest things. They… they have a menu but you can suggest things if you want things put on the menu, it’s quite a good menu actually.’

`And so how… how are the meals chosen? Is that a negotiated thing with the workers there?’

`Yeah and… in the [inaudible] residents like, you know.’

`And are you the only person there with a sort of diagnosis of mental illness?’

`No there’s three or four of us are mentally ill and the rest of them are learning disabilities. There never used to be, it used to be all mentally ill at one time.’

`And which way do you prefer it?’

`All mentally ill really. I… well I mean that’s just my opinion but… won’t worry me once I get my own place, I shall do my own thing, you know. Be quite independent, I’m quite glad about that, just… a good move really.’

`And will that be the first time that you’ve had to go and get your own shopping and your… do your own cooking? Is that going to be the first time?’

`Well I did… do quite a bit of cooking there at the moment now, but I… I haven’t actually done it for myself on my own before… as a… one off sort of thing, so it’ll be a new thing for me.’

`And do you feel confident about it?’

`Yeah I can cope with it.’

`Have you had to learn to cook or is that sort of… or have you always known how to cook a meal?’

`I’ve known how to cook a bit, I… I lived with… the place I lived be… be… before I came to Orchard House was called Iron House in Barnstaple, and they gave cook… we had food demonstrations and all that there, and they taught how to cook and look after yourself there basically. So I do… do know how cook and different things you know, I’m not… useless.’

`So that won’t be much of a problem for you?’

`No.’

`And what about shopping, is that… again is that something that you’re used to doing…?’

`Well I haven’t really…’ [both talking together].

`Well you… obviously you don’t do it…?’

`I have been shopping, I have been shopping with… with the house. I mean it’s just a question of getting a bus into Bideford, going to Safe… Safeway once a week and picking up some shopping. It’s no big deal is it?’

`I just… I was just… just asking ‘cause I wondered… why it’s… only now that… that you’re considering living in more independently… I just wondered why that happened perhaps a few years ago?’

`I might have done a few years ago, but it’s happening now anyway so I’m quite glad about that. I could have had… I could have done this say ten years ago really but it’s happening now so I’m quite happy about that. I’m looking forward to it immensely, I’m sort of… I can invite women back… and… have parties and stuff, you know.’

`Are you not allowed to have women where you’re living now?’

`Well you can do but it’s a bit awkward, ‘cause I know it’s only [inaudible]… somebody will knock on your door when… when you’re in your room you know, so it’s a bit awkward really.’

`So you couldn’t have a woman staying over night or something at the moment?’

`I wouldn’t have thought so, no. I’d like to… [laughs].’

`But you won’t have any restrictions on you at all?’

`No, I won’t, no.’

`Have you got any idea how long you might live in that situation?’

`Maybe a couple of years, then maybe I’ll get something a bit more… even more independent, you know. But I could live there for quite a while, ‘cause there’s quite a good set… they’ve got quite a good set up in Instow ‘cause I’ve got a lot of friends there you know, so it could be… I don’t know how long I’m going to be there for really but we’ll just have to wait and see. Who knows, I might [inaudible]…’
 
`And were you… you would still get some support would you, from the people that live where you live now?’

`I would have thought so, yeah. There’s a couple who moved out. They always come back and they stay a couple of nights and things like that you know.’

`And what are the people like who work there?’

`Very good. Very good. They’re understanding you know.’

`Are they there twenty four hours a day?’

`Well they have shifts like, you know, somebody sleeps in, somebody does 8.30 ‘till 4.00, somebody does 8.30 ‘till… who does four o’clock ‘till ten… and then the two people sleep in, but when they sleep in they’ve got to sleep, they don’t stay awake all night. But they’re there if you need them like, you know… during the night. But they never… never really get called upon, they’re never needed in the night really. Mostly go back to sleep don’t they? You know, it’s… not… not really a problem at night really, they don’t get woken up very often.’

`Do you think they need to be there?’

`Oh they need to be there, yeah.’

`You think they do?’

`Yeah. You couldn’t have a place on it’s… that was… probably not for us lot but for the other clientele you know.’

`They’re… they’re much more needy?’

`Yeah. One bloke there keeps… he has fits all the time and he… he had a fit or something and they’d need somebody there then, wouldn’t they?’

[Pause].

`Do you still go home to visit your mum?’

`Yeah, sometimes.’

`Or… or your father’s still alive isn’t he?’

`Well mum and dad… I go and visit mum and dad sometimes.’

`And do you enjoy that?’

`Yeah I enjoy it, it makes a change.’

`Do they visit you where you live?’

`Sometimes they come. My dad comes and picks… picks me up in the car and comes in for a smoke you know.’

`And your father presumably is retired now from…the Navy?’

`He’s retired from the Navy, and… or retired from work in general. He’s sixty seven, he’s retired. Mother’s retired as well.’

`Did your mother have a job?’

`No, she’s retired.’

`Did she have a job?’

`Well ‘cause she was about fifty… late fifties I suppose…’

`And what did she do?’

`Worked in an electrical shop.’

`And was that quite local?’

`That was in Bideford.’

`And… I was just wondering, did your father ever… ever have any ideas about you perhaps you joining the forces or…or not?’

`I don’t… don’t think so, no. He… he… he was quite… happy for me to make my own mind up about things, you know.’

`Are you… are you happy to tell me a bit more about your sister?’

`About my sister, yeah… I’ll tell you about my sister. She’s married, lives in London, you know, quite happy.’

`What does she do for a living?’

`She’s a nurse.’

`What sort of nurse?’

`A general nurse, well she’s a diabetic nurse specialist. She’s got a… degree in nursing. Done quite well for herself really.’

`Do you ever compare yourself to her?’

`No I don’t really. There doesn’t seem to be any need to really. She’s got her life and I’ve got my life and that’s it, you know.’

`So you don’t feel any pressure from… other…I know sometimes people can be quite pressurising to people who don’t lead the same lifestyle but…?’

`I don’t have any pressure on me, no.’

`Do you want a break or are you ok?’

`Let’s have a break for me, ‘cause I’ve done a bit of a stint there. What time is it, twenty…?’
[End of DVC Pro Tape 2 ]
[Start of DVC Pro tape 3 – VHS Tape 1 continues].

`Ok Bob. From what you’ve been telling me this morning and this afternoon, you said… you sound very sort of philosophical about your situation, that you’re quite happy with your life and…’

`Well I am really, yeah.’

`You’ve got friends around the village and… you know, you… keep yourself occupied in the day, but you also mentioned that you know people who sort of recovered as it were from mental illness and you said that gave you hope, so what would you like to be different?’

`Well I’d like to get back… fully back to normal, but I don’t think that’s possible really, but it could be I suppose in a couple… in a few years time you know.’

`And what would… normal mean for you in that way?’

`Going to work, going to work and things like that you know.’

`What other sort of things would it be?’

`Having… having relationships and maybe… maybe having a partner or something like that, you know.’

`And would having more money be one of those things?’

`I think so, yeah. I need a bit more money really. I do do it all [inaudible]… you do… you’ve never… never got enough money really no matter how much you get really have you?’

`That’s true.’

`A lot of people don’t realise what sort of money people do get, can you tell me a bit about how much money people get in your situation, of a supported house.’

`Fourteen pound a week basically, plus you can get DLS, fourteen… and extra fourteen pound and five pence a week. I get that, and I get eight pound for doing a bit of cleaning each morning you know. Half an hour a morning, I can do… for eight pound… that’s Monday to Friday, eight pound a week extra. That’s quite… quite useful really. I get paid in cash you know, so that’s quite useful really.’

`And do you have to buy your food and things out of that?’

`No, you get food and that there. Just… basically every… they… they live and that covers [???] really, plenty of money and like, going to the pub and… or going to the cinema or going swimming or whatever, or bus journeys and things like that, you know.’

`And that’s what you use your own money for?’

`Yeah.’

`What about toiletries and toothpaste and, who pays for those things?’

`You have to buy all that yourself, buy all that yourself out of it.’

`Do you find it difficult to get through the week on that amount of money?’

`Sometimes. It all depends. Sometimes it’s… other times it’s not too bad.’

`And if you wanted to go on holiday or travel, or on a train somewhere, what…?’

`Well you… you’d have… have to save up for that I think. I think that’s what… what you basically… what you’d have to do.’

`And do you do that?’

`I do… I do save if I… I can save money if I need to, you know.’

`Do you ever go on holiday or away?’

`Well, like I say, I went… went abroad to Majorca this year, ‘cause… it was my fortieth birthday, see my sister and brother in-law treated me you know, so I was lucky really. I went to Majorca for a long weekend.’

`Is that the first time you’ve been out of the country?’

`It’s the first time…’ [both talking together].

`Oh no, sorry, you said you’d been to Singapore?’

`First… first time since Singapore, yeah, when I was a kid, you know, so it was good really. I enjoyed it really.’

`Have you ever fancied going back there, to Singapore?’

`I fancy doing a world cruise really or something like that, you know, it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Round a world cruise, with a… I wouldn’t mind… I wouldn’t mind going somewhere… somewhere like the far East. Well… Japan or… even, well maybe Australia or some… somewhere… somewhere where I’ve never been before, you know. But… it’s a question of money really. It’s the only thing that’s stopping me really.’

`Did you go to school in Singapore? Yeah, ‘cause you went to the school…?’

`In the Naval base, yeah.’

`Did… did any of the… I don’t know what the word is… Singaporians… did they go to the school as well, the local children?’

`No, they didn’t, no.’

`It was all British people that went to the school?’

`Yeah.’

`Did you ever meet any of the local children?’

`Not really, no.’

`What can you remember about Singapore… itself?’
 
`Quite a bit. I…I went to… the swimming pools in the… bases, the Naval base and quite a few things I can remember about… I remember… remember going on holiday to Malaysia with my family for a week, you know, that was quite good.’

`What about the shops and things? Can you tell me about that?’

`Well, it’s the same as it is here really, I suppose.’

`There’s not much different?’

`Not really. A lot of places you go to, you’ve got to barter with them, don’t you? There… there’s a starting price, you’ve got sort of work them down a bit, barter them down, you know… for things you want to buy.’

`That’s quite different to here though isn’t it?’

`Mmm.’

`So did you spend a lot… most of your time in Singapore on the base? Was… you know, was most of the life sort of carried on… on the Naval base?’

`Quite a lot of it, yeah.’

`And not so much time out… out in the… city and villages where… all the people from Singapore live?’

`That’s right, yeah.’

[Pause].

`I’m going to change the subject a bit…’

`Mmm…’

`And come back to where we are now.’

`I was wondering if you… are aware of the Uuser movement in this country?’

`I am aware of it, yeah.’

`What… what do you know about it?’

`I know about what I… I heard about from Alex[ph] Road and places like that, you know.’

`I don’t know what that is, where’s that?’

`It’s… it’s a resource centre in Barnstaple, Alexander Road, I go there every Thursday.’

`And that… who’s that run by?’

`Social Services I think. It’s a similar sort of people to that anyway.’

`And are you aware of… the fact that there organisations, probably not in Devon so much, but around the country that are… sort of run for and by people if you use mental health services?’

`I am aware of that, yeah.’

`And that people… some people get quite sort of involved in… issues, if you like, the politics of… user involvement. Is that something you’ve… you know anything about or you’ve heard about?’

`Not a lot about it, I know a little bit about it, and not a lot.’

`And is it… is it something you’ve ever felt that you might like to get involved in, in… in…?’

`I could do, yeah. I could see myself doing that really.’

`You can’t did you say, or you can?’

`I can see myself doing that, yeah.’

`And… and do you think it’s made any difference, the fact that patients and ex-patients, have had a bit more of a say in shaping mental health services?’

`Well that should be, that should be the key because we’re the ones what… they… they’ve been through it and they know what it’s like, don’t they? They… they’ve been through the system haven’t they? They know what it’s like, don’t they?’

`And what do you… what do you think, what sort of things can they… or can we, I should say, what sort of things can… do you think can we… tell people who run mental health services?’

`Well they don’t know what people need basically… what people need and… and what it… and what they might be feeling like, you know. So if you’ve been through it yourself you know what they… you know what they feel like don’t you?’

`So, what do you think people need?’

`Well they need support for a start. They need somewhere where they can go just for an afternoon like, you know, and just mix with people and… have a game of pool or sometimes darts, or table tennis, and just… act… basically act… general activities and just somewhere they can go for an afternoon basically.’

`So what… what kind of things would an ideal mental health service offer you?’

`Well all sorts of things really, it should… should offer you all sorts of things. Should be able to go on trips and things like that, you know. We can get coach trips… we could organise a coach trip or something, go somewhere. I know where you could go, there are any… go to a show or something like that, you know, anything, or go to a zoo or whatever, or just somewhere to get you out for the day, you know.’

`I know that when you were talking about the… adolescent unit, Dryden, you were saying there was quite a lot to do there?’

`Yeah.’

`And that there was quite a lot to do at Digby as well?’

`Yeah.’

`But then you mentioned that at Williams Unit, Williams Ward, that there was… there wasn’t very much to do.’

`There wasn’t really, no.’

`So in that sense, which… which do you think was the better service?’

`Somewhere where you’ve got plenty to do you know, something that can keep your mind occupied, you know. That was half the battle mental, mental ill… you’ve got to keep your mind occupied, you know. If you can keep your mind occupied and do things, rather than just sitting about, smoking and drinking tea all day. You know, it’s no… there’s… it wouldn’t hold… [???] do you much good would it, sitting about chain smoking and drinking tea all day would it? You know, that’s not the answer is it?’

`And is that what you see a lot of other people doing?’

`Well I have seen a lot of people do it in hospital, yeah, but it’s not really the answer.’

[Pause]’

`So if you had a choice, I know you haven’t been in hospital for ages and… probably you never will go again, but if you had a choice, would you rather go to a place like Digby or would you rather go to one of these more…more modern sort of places?’

`I would go to a place like Digby ‘cause there’s more going there, you know.’

`That’s interesting.’

`Mmm.’

`I know there’s a lot of… as you know, you know a lot of the hospitals were getting closed down in the 1990s…?’

`Yeah.’

`Have you got an opinion about that?’

`Well I think there should be somewhere for people to go, but… some of these new modern… this modern idea of everybody in the community [???] doesn’t always work you see. You need somewhere where you can go if you get a bit ill and there’s only… if only you go there for a couple of weeks, I mean, it’s somewhere to go isn’t it, if you’re… if you’re ill.’

`Mmm. And round where you live now, are there any services other than… [coughs] excuse me, other than the social services or NHS, is there anybody else that provides services?’

`Well they do… from Orchard House itself they… they provide… people going round and look in on people who are… are on their own and they go round… so… I forget what they call it now, but you know what I mean?’

`Sort of outreach?’

`Outreach, that’s the one. Outreach workers… they do outreach work, they have outreach workers, and that… that’s quite a good thing, to help people in their homes and see them, checking they’re all right and things like that, you know, it’s quite good.’

`Have you ever heard of MIND? The organisation…?’

`I heard of MIND, yeah.’

`And the National Schizophrenia Fellowship?’

`I heard of that as well, yeah.’

`Have you ever come across any places that they run?’

`No I haven’t no.’

`Have you ever heard about any in any other parts of the country?’

`Not really, no, ‘cause I’m a bit behind the times I think.’

[Pause]

`[Sighs].’

`So if you… you look back, what… what sort of thing is… have you found most helpful in your life?’

`Well I think… I think getting out and about really and doing things and… having something to do is half the battle. You… and I… I… I do… I do enjoy… other people’s company as well, you know. I enjoy being active really, I don’t like moping about doing nothing, I couldn’t stick doing that all day you know.’

`And you find… things to do, yourself?’

`I do. If I haven’t got something to do, I find something to do… make… I play a lot of music, I find that quite helpful, relaxing me a bit, you know, playing the music.’

`What do you like listening to?’

`Oh sixties and seventies mainly. I don’t think I’ve got any particular… I like The Beetles and The Stones and all the sixties group and seventies. Don’t mind the eighties either, but I find this nineties music a bit naff, you know. I don’t like it very much, the nineties music. [Pause] I think music’s gone downhill since about 1986.’

`You told me you were… you were an old hippie?’

`[Laughs]. Well maybe I am, there you go.’

`Can you describe how you used to look, you were telling me?’

`Mmm.’

`Had a lot… longer… lot longer hair than I’ve got now and that, you know.’

`Is that when you had a long beard as well you said?’

`Well longer than it is now. It was that long, well it was longer than it is now. [Takes a deep breath].’

`Just thinking ahead, have you got any vision of what life might be like for you in three years time, five years time?’

`I’ve no idea. Hope… hopefully I’ll… I’ll be a lot more independent you know, as I’m getting this flat coming out in the back garden, so that should… that’s… that’ll be a step forward, you know.’

`Are you really looking forward to that?’

`Yeah.’

`Have you got any sort of thing that you think I really want… this to happen, in my lifetime? Is there any particular sort of ambitions or desires…’

`Well…’

`…that you really want to do?’

`Not at the moment, I… not at the moment, but I could do in a few years’ time, you know, I just take life as it comes at the moment.’

`And are you… are you… proud of the fact that you’ve survived all your… experiences?’

`Yeah, I am really. ‘Cause like… like… like Carol [ph] says, I’m… she says, she says that he’s [???] a survivor and I think that’s a very good word, to put it really, survivor.’

`’Cause you’ve been through a lot?’

`I haven’t been… I’ve been through a lot, yeah. I’ve had some bad times as well as good times.’ [Pause].

`What were the best times, or what are the best times?’

`Well I think when I… when I… when I… when I’m well and I’m relaxed and I’m doing things and… getting out and about and… enjoying life basically.’ [Sighs].

`And is that quite often that you feel like that?’

`I feel like it most of the time at the moment, yeah.’

`I know that you said that… to me, earlier on, you said you don’t really get depressed?’

`Well life’s too short to get depressed isn’t it really? Don’t you… it is really isn’t it?’
[Takes a deep breath] [pause].

`Is there anything that we haven’t… areas that we haven’t talked about that you’d really like to make sure that we do talk about?’

`I think we’ve covered everything really. I think we’ve covered most things. I can’t think of anything… we’ve covered quite a lot… quite a lot of ground this afternoon haven’t we?’

`We have. Well we’ve covered most of you life in fact, haven’t we?’

`Yeah.’

[Pause].

`I’ll just give you a chance to have a think, in… in case…?’

`I can’t think of anything, I think we’ve covered everything, I’m sure we have. I can’t think of anything I haven’t… I haven’t… I haven’t said, really. I think you know… know me quite well by now I should think.’

`If you could say something, say to the general public… what would you like to say to people that don’t understand about mental illness? Do you have a message for them?’

`Not really. Just say… just say you know, it happens, it could happen to them, you know. It could happen to anybody. And you realise one in three or one in four people have been in a psychiatric hospitals, it could happen to anybody, really.’
[Takes a deep breath].

`Would you like to stop?’

`Yeah, I think we’ve done enough now, I think… we’ll… we’ll conclude that there…’

`Ok. Thanks very much Bob, it was really interesting…’

`Rob…’

`Rob, sorry… Rob today and Bob yesterday it was…’

`Mmm.’

`Shall we finish there?’

`Yeah, thank you.’

`Thank you.’

[End of DVC Pro Tape 3 of 3 – VHS Tape 1 of 1 ends]