03 EDWARD SHORT

 
MENTAL HEALTH TESTIMONY ARCHIVE
 
 
 
 
 
EDWARD SHORT
 
C905/03/01-04/01-01
 
Original on DVC-Pro
 
Copy on VHS
 
 
Interviewed by Judith Mead
Camera by Faye
 
Transcribed by Julie Sharman
May 1999

`…break now…’
 
`Yeah’
 
01:00:38:24
 
`Or if… it could I think, if I feel like a break, I’ll say to you, we’ll have a break’
 
`Yeah`
 
`I won’t be giving you any verbal feedback…’
 
`No… no…’
 
`…which will seem a bit odd, to start with…’
 
`No.. I’m on my own then, put it that way…’
 
`Yeah… I mean I’ll ask questions…’
 
`Yeah’
 
`And…prompt…but if you say things to me I’ll be doing it by visual things…’
 
`Yeah`
 
`...because we don’t really want my voice on the tape much.’
 
`No’
 
`And that seems a bit odd actually…’
 
`No’
`…because I’ve been interviewed myself and you’ve just got someone grinning and nodding…’
 
`Yeah’
 
`It’s not that I’m being rude…’
 
`No’
 
` …and the cards that I’ve got here are just my prompt cards… I’m, I’m not rigidly sticking to them… ‘
 
`No’
 
01:01:14:14
 
`…its just in case I forget anything… so… if we start at the beginning as it were…’
 
`Yeah’
 
`And… perhaps you could tell me, or describe some of your very earliest memories?’
 
`Umm.. appertaining to what?’
 
`Where you were born…’
 
`Oh yeah’
 
`…and a bit about your childhood, and…’
 
`I was born… I was born in Stokeshall [???]… I lived in 39 Rudmore Road… that’s where I was born… in nineteen hundred and twenty one… I went to Floren Bolane [???] School, the junior err… infants then… and then… we’d had to move. And we went into another area and I went to…  Howardser [???] Street School… and… I, I was there to the age of fourteen I believe… and… and then… I had to get work, and I started work as an errand boy… and then… then I worked for a Dry Cleaners… which was not far from [inaudible ???]… in… Bar… near Elm Grove… and, that was a Dry Cleaners, and from there… I worked in the Brewery… and then… in 1938… I’d… I… I… did… at the beginning of 1939… 38… I joined the Navy… and then… that’s it…’
01:02:55:01
`When… if you think right back to very earliest memories, what… did you have any brothers or sisters?’
 
`Yeah… I had a brother… got a brother.’
 
`And did you live with your parents… or did you have parents?’
 
`Umm… my, my, my father… my father was killed… through… died…. After the 1914/18 war… and… whatever... well… I never seen him…’
 
`Right’
 
`My mother was totally blind… my mother… and she brought us up… her and our grandmother…’
 
01:03:33:10
 
`Your grandmother lived with… with you?’
 
`Well… [stutter]… my… my mother had to go to work, in a blind school… and we had turns to take her to… on, on the trams then… to take her to work… and… take her there by… get there at eight o’clock in the morning, and then pick her up at half past four at night… when she come off the… off the trams… and there’s… [inaudible]… take her home… [inaudible]… that was that, and… and then… my, my grandmother looked after us like… like food was [???]… and all that… and my, my mother went blind at the laundry, you know… but she’d… her, her complaint was nothing to do with the laundry, it was… the nose and the eyes deteriorated, and she become blind…’
 
01:04:26:11
 
`So did you have to help out, quite a lot as a child… as a young child?’
 
`No… ummm… my, my grandmother… my grandmother… grandmother, she was the domestic help to all of us… we never done… we done chores… like, going… go and get the coke and the coal… and, and then go to… get… get your groceries and… and… get the meat or fish shop, the dry fish shop… or wet fish shop… everyday… that… we always used to do… and then... err… about that time I used to go… do a lot of… getting the cockles on the mud… and bring them back and… for the family and then… eventually… we used to flog them… and… that was that… and then… then I, I… I got a quiet job with a… I must only have been eight… then… chopping wood and… weighing up coal and… in a coal masters’ [???]… and, and I done that up to… well up to the age… when I left school… and then I worked for the Dry Cleaners and… and Brewery, and… eventually, in 1938, coming up to that, I joined the Navy.  And then… I done my training, as you see on the coat, four weeks’ training, and then I… then… my first ship was HMS Ark Royal.  Is there anything you want more?’
 
01:06:13:02
`If you don’t mind going back again… taking me back again to the earliest memories, if that’s ok… what kind of school… what can you remember about the first school you went to?’
 
`… my first school was Conway Street, as… well, Flyenwell [???] Lane, that was the infant school… at… you… you… you only done… [inaudible]… learn, learn to read and spell and all that… then we went to move, then we went to Conway Street and then, then… you started doing… the bigger things, you know, essays and… arithmetic and writing… never improved… and… and from then… you know err… we… we went to the higher school… and then, I finished up… in grade four, they… they know that… that was the… that grade five was top… grade four was second from top… that was all according to your abilities, you know… umm… I was all for sport and football, and boxing, and cricket… all that… I done all that… but as regards of… being a… a bright boy with… arithmetic, don’t get me wrong, I never knew what algebra… I knew… I heard about it, but never understood algebra and… all I knew, at that time… one and one makes two, buy one broom for one shilling, and flog them for two… that’s it… simple… simple economics you know, but I did my part… like… as, as a boy.  I got up to… I joined the Navy, now… as you know…’
 
01:08:12:18
 
`Did your brother go to school with you?’
 
`Yeah, we went to the same school.  My brother was in the top class… and the top boy… he was top boy in every, every class… every school… he was the bright boy.’
 
`And how many were there… how many would there have been… pupils?’
 
`Roughly… roughly about thirty five in a class, in those days… you were… only boys… there was no…there was no… mixed… nothing like that.  The only time you’d ever see a female on the ward you’d get these students coming round every… so often… and take a class over… [inaudible]… teachers… lot in teaching, you know… [inaudible]’.
 
01:08:57:12
 
`And what kind of area was it that you lived in?’
 
`It… it was… it was a… a rough and tumble area but very honest area… all working class.  People worked… you know, but… homely and friendly.’
 
`And that was central to Portsmouth was it?’
 
`Yeah.  It’s in Portsmouth, yeah.  There’s… [inaudible]… Rudmore [???] was a district of Portsmouth… and, where I am now is a district…[inaudible]… district of Portsmouth, you know what I mean?’
 
01:09:28:21
 
`And… do you ever recall anything about the… from the schoolchildren… them saying anything about… local hospitals? 
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Nicknames for people who…?’
 
`Yeah… you did, then.  I… I could always recall… not only children, adults… if they talk about… if you was… well for instance, at Alderhay [????] Hospital, he’s gone in… at the Royal Hospital, gone in… err…. at… at Royal Hospital, and that… wasn’t..wasn’t QA then…  well, it was QA but it was a …miliatary hospital’
 
01:10:08:14
 
`What’s QA?’
 
`Queen Alexander… hospital, but… that was a military hospital, when it was first built you see… that was all modernised… and… it… as… as…you’d get the children, they say… ‘he’s… he’s in the nuthouse’ and… and… even adults… used to say that with… you know… ‘he’s in the asylum’…’
 
01:10:34:11
 
`And as a child, can you remember what you used to think those people were like… did you…?’
 
`I…’
 
`Were you scared, or…?’
 
`What… what… scared of the people… or…? [pause]  No… I weren’t scared of people…’
 
`Sorry… I think… what I meant was, if people said, ‘oh, he’s in the nuthouse, did you think the people in the so called ‘nuthouse’ were…did you have any…?’
 
`Well… as, as… as a lad… [stutters] as a lad, it was… err… as far as I know a trip was very, very rare… you were just banged up, and… the… err.. you were just banged up and locked behind… doors… as far as I can… I know… through the people I know… that’s ‘cause I … came on the tail end of that when I went into hospital… you… was behind closed doors, you know… Charlie Rex [ph] banged up… and you’d have your… tie taken off, and shoelaces… you went… all that business…’
01:11:38:03
 
`And that was when you first went in, it was like that?’
 
`That was… all hospitals done that… psychiatric… and they… and err… and they would only give you a spoon  for your meals, they’d take no knife and fork… nothing like that… you’d have a spoon.’
 
`For safety?’
 
`To others and to yourself.’
 
`So… if we go back to the school again… you left when you were fourteen, is that right?’
 
`Yeah’
 
`And what were you expecting to do then?’
 
`Well… umm… I… at, at that time I was… was hoping to joining the services… but umm… I… think more or less had to take more in the Navy then, because… there was a little bit of a trouble… over on the continent with Hitler and all that, and… I, I joined the Navy.  I never joined the Army.  To be honest about it… I’d rather …. Swim for it, I did, than walk for it… know what I mean?  That’s… and that’s what really happened, and that’s how I joined the Navy.’
 
01:12:46:00
 
`Can you stop there a sec Carrie… Faye…?’ [coughs]
`…where we were…’
 
`But I joined the Navy…[inaudible]’
 
01:12:53:11
 
`That’s right… I was asking you what ambitions you had when you were leaving school?’
 
`I said that I wanted to join the Navy and I didn’t want to walk it, I’d rather swim it and then umm…then the war… started… and… so… first trip was… my first trip… we went out to Russia… to my mates [???]… we had the [inaudible] of delivering aircrafts ….to the Russian… people… and then umm.. we come back… and we go to Malta, and del… deliver aircraft… in the Mediterranean to… to Malta for… you know for the… all the [inaudible]… all the convoys… and… I done, I done… two… two…that’s right, two Russian convoys I done, and the rest was Malta’s, and the… we, we went down the Mediterranean, to deliver aircraft to… Malta… a delivery for Malta… and we got torpedo’d… and…we got torpedo’d and it was a very sunny day, and... a decent one… where one man died on the… a… a matter of 2000 …more than 2,500 in compliment that… there was only one man died, he… he was down in the boiler room, and… he’d just had his err… lunch on the top, and he never heard the… abandon ship, he was asleep and he went down with the ship… there was only one… man, died… out of 2500 which I thought… was… miraculous.  And then, from that I went …the Legion picked us up… the Legion [inaudible]… picked us up and… took us back to Gibraltar, and… from that… I went on the Malawi [ph]… we come back to the United Kingdom and… we got kitted up… you know, new uniform, new everything… and then… I got a draft trip to Eagle… and we went down the Mediterranean and got torpedo'd on her... that was the worst job, there’s… we lost over 600 men… and then… we were taken back in… [inaudible]… and then I got… survivor’s leave again, and then…’
 
1:16:04:23
 
`Sorry, what… what’s…?’
01:16:04:25
 
`Survivor’s leave… that’s if you… you know… you sort of like get kitted out again… and then I joined HMS Argus [ph].  I done… a Russian on her, so that makes that three Russians on her … done a Russian call on her…[???]… on the big one, which err… wasn’t very nice… and then we finally… came back… we went ... we went...on to the invasion in North Africa. Philiville Bougie and Bo’ [???]….to invade that… [pause] and from that… I got back into UK… err… my memory was very… I didn’t know too much what happened… and finished up in hospital, in Aberdeen.’
 
`Uh huh…’
 
`The name of the hospital was Kingsley, Aberdeen.’
 
01:17:10:11
 
`And what sort of age were you, during that period… just leading up to…?’
 
`About err… twenty two… twenty one, twenty two… yeah… and… then… of course… in the meantime… I was… I got married in between that time… and… I had a son.  But, then… as I say, I… I was put into the… that hospital, and then I got… invalided [ph] and then I was put into… civilian hospitals, in Scotland.  I was in… Garlochnatosh [ph] … in Scotland… and I had… deep sleep treatment there….umm… errr… sleep treatment… which was Somberfane [ph] … it was a sort of a narcosis treatment… and then I was there… I was there for… how long? … over a year… over two years I think… and I finally came out and… I wasn’t getting any better… and, they put me into Collairne [ph] on the camp position … and I had… similar treatment again.  I had insulin… deep insulin… oh no, I had modified insulin then deep insulin… and then I was there for a long, long time, well over a year… over two years again, and then I was called in to Sister Smart [ph]… came up that she wanted to see me, and said the doctor wants to see me and they said, we’re going to trans… transfer you back… to Portsmouth, to St James’s… so I had to take my wife back and baby back… to Portsmouth… and I was in hospital a long time, but my wife left me in that hospital… and then I divorced my wife… [pause]… and err… but I only seen that boy once… and then that was in hospital, that was in Scotland actually, I did see that boy once… and since then, visually [ph], he was just two year old… and… [coughs].  Then they brought him into Collairne, I remember that… and sister told me they were bringing my baby to me… and they did… and I never seen that boy, my son again… not ‘till a couple of year ago.  I did write  to him, but I was… I was…. [inaudible] or whatever… and I did get a letter back to say that he… I.. I wasn’t his father… he got a…. whatever… so she had told him that one… and I did write, and so that was that.  So I started… kept on persistently writing, as a father should do, because if you love your children you love your children, you don’t lose your love… and… it didn’t happen, he didn’t want to know, and… so… two or three year back, the television came on, when the Alpha Piper [ph] was… announced… there was so many lives lost in this horrible wreck… and I seen my son… he had to go aboard and he was… the inspector… and that’s the last time I ever.. seen.. him.. alive… live on telly.  So that was that then… but then…’
 
01:21:14:00
 
`How did that feel?’
 
[pause] `I… [pause]… don’t think I’m a sentimentalist ‘cause you know… that way.  I married my wife because I loved her, and I still do.  What happened, really… the miles [???] was such, such a long cell [???]… [pause] My wife… t.. took a different view… she… to finish up in a looney bin… and… that finished.  Well, she left me and took the boy away, that was in Portsmouth, she left me, I lived in 13 Rugby Road, I was in hospital there… in Portsmouth, in St Andrews [ph]… and… she left me…’
 
01:22:14:17
`Was that on your first admission that she left you?’
 
`Yeah.  Yeah, she left me… and took the boy away… and then I went up to Collairne [ph] eventually, and I see that boy there… and that… then I see the boy on the telly, and that was that.  You know.’ [crying].
 
`Do you want to stop? Stop filming Faye…?’
 
`Yeah.’
[Faye inaudible]
 
`On January 10th, 1941… time, seven o’clock… sirens went… and they came over… the Germans come over, and dropped incendiary… err.. bombs.  Caught the city alight.  And then… the bombers came in… there was a thousand bomber raid… and they came over and blitzed the city.  We… umm… we… we… a lot of us had to go out in different areas in the city.  In my case I had to go to the Royal Portsmouth Hospital…’
 
`Where were you at the time? Were you serving at the time?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
01:23:29:13
 
`On board a ship?’
 
`Oh no, …. In barracks… I was in barracks in Portsmouth… and then we… well more or less I was on leave from… on leave, but… I, I, I… also was… when I had to go, was detailed … whatever… to… in the city… or, or… everybody.  So half of us at the Royal Portsmouth Hospital and… carried the wounded…wounded in… doctors and nurses… patients… some alive, some wasn’t… that was traumatic… and… and that was that… and then… I got a draft check [ph] two days later… and… to, to pick up the Ark Royal… and then we come onto that… and… she, she was at the tunnel… of the bank… she… you know, I picked her up… and… [pause]… she, she, she… was… she was, at sea, this, doing trials… so, we, we… were put up in the YMCA until she come back in, on that day… well this is the day… that was on the thirteenth… of… of Jan’ … some of us went approximately the same time… in Glasgow… and the Germans came over with another lot, in Glasgow…’
 
01:25:05:01
 
`Is that where you were by that time?’
 
`Yeah.  So… matter of fact… it was like, me either following the Germans or the Germans were following me… they had the.. had the air raid… at Clyde Bank, and we was detailed to go down to help the ... people… of Glasgow, and in this bombing raid… and that was that.  And eventually… I… I went to sea on Ark Royal.  I done… Russian convoys… I done one on her… then I went down the Mediterranean… err… on the forty one… the still forty one… and we done… the… spitfire… and hurricaines to relieve Malta, and we got torpedo’d there.  Err… the survivors, all but one survived… and they was picked up by… the legion … in Malaya… and several… others… frigates … and whatever… and then, we were taken back to Gibraltar, and… finally… we… got back to the UK and had leave, lots of hours leave… and then, I joined… Eagle.  We went down the Mediterranean…’
 
`Is… sorry, is Eagle a… what is Eagle?’
 
`It’s an aircraft carrier… HMS Eagle… and she was torpedo’d… in the Mediterranean, with the loss of… nine… nine… nine.. nine hundred men.’
 
01:26:58:08
`Did you lose a lot of friends… during that period?’
 
`Oh yeah.  Shipmates… like, you lose a lot… [inaudible]… you losts a lot like that… and… and then from that, I had to leave again… and then I was on… joined the Argus [ph]… another aircraft carrier, and… we done… another Russia on her… another Russian on her… and… then we done Malta’s ... convoys… ermm.. we lost a few men… err… err… were killed… planes shot down and, ships…killed with… gunfire… and… [pause]… with that… so… with that, we went back into… kit, refuelled, came back… we had to take survivors back to the United Kingdom, and then… we, we was in Scotland and then we were sent for another convoy… and then we had the invasion of North Africa, and… my group went to errr…. Bone Philiville [ph] NButi [ph]…’
 
`Where abouts is that?’
 
`In North Africa.  That’s on the… [inaudible]… North African invasion… and [pause]… somehow… by my notes from the hospital… ummm… I wasn’t directly hit, myself, but they hit… they hit the flight deck with a bomb… and we were… we was in the way of blast… and the next thing I actually knew… I was in a hospital in Kingsley, Aberdeen [ph].’
 
01:29:04:16
 
`What kind of hospital was that?’
 
`Mental.  Psychiatric.  And errmm… I was boarded… and I was invalided [ph] out on the 6th October, nineteen hundred and forty… three… and then I went to… in hospitals in Scotland, transferred then and my wife came down to England… and a baby… and all that… and I had to go St James’s, which was… whatever…’
 
`St James’s is…?’
 
`Here…’
 
`In…?’
 
`Portsmouth… and I had to see… I had to see Dr Milligan and err… Dr Beeton… Beeton was the superintendent… I was admitted as a war … patient… in that hospital, and… I had… extensive treatment… re… ECT… electrical treatment, and that happened to me straight… it wasn’t… modified… and…’
 
`Can I take…? Sorry…can I take you back to that very first incident… when you were invalided out…’
 
`Mmm…’
 
01:30:30:04
 
`And we can go into detail about ECT and so on a bit later…How did it feel when you first heard that you’d been invalided out’
 
`Well… I didn’t know a great deal about it, really, but... I know I had a… the symptoms… which I, I know now… were deep depression, anxiety and crying.  Obsessive crying.  Don’t… know what you’re crying about.  [pause] Very unfortunate… as it’s the stigma again… my wife thought I was crying…well in Scotland they got a very sweetie wife… then they’d say, you’re, you’re a little girl… because you’re a baby, you’re crying… they didn’t know.  Well I think … as many people will know from recent wars, that great big six foot… Royal Marines cried at… in the… and the public have seen that haven’t they?’
 
`Mmm’
 
`But… I don’t know whether my wife’s alive… was alive… but I hoped she was… [pause].’
 
01:31:43:07
 
`Did you feel that was… in fact just a natural reaction to… what you’d seen?’
 
`Well, I… I… I… I… umm.. I.. umm… anyway, my wife left me, and… I divorced her… and… [pause]… my wife had about eight witnesses… [pause]… she divorced me on cruelty…’
 
`When you say witnesses, is that…?’
 
`Her witnesses… for her divorce for cruelty… for me… for causing cruelty…’
 
`Right’
 
`I was put out in front of the Commissioner for hours… and… my divorce took over a week.  But I had… I only had the one witness… was my landlady’s son… he came up to London to be a witness for me… and after the judge… had heard all our witnesses, on her side… he… I think she had about seven or eight really… he turned round to my wife and said, ‘well… ‘, he said, `I feel that Mr Short… has got the gathering of the clans against him… I’ll grant you a divorce Mrs Short… but not on cruelty’, he said, and… ‘when Mr Short leaves this hospital, he’ll go back to hospital and have treatment and have more rest, and as regards of your son… Mr Short… I can’t give you… any custody… and I can’t give you any access, for the simple reason is… reason is this… that the child is domiciled… in Scotland… and the English courts has got no ruling on that… until the child has come back to England, can… can you… have access… I can’t grant you the access, ‘cause Scotland’s a different law… and that was it…’
 
`Were you in hospital at the time while this was going on… under treatment?’
 
`No…’
 
`No…?’
 
`I was out at that time.  Umm.. well… that was that… that… do you want to prompt me any more?’
 
`Did your wife… did you feel she had any understanding?…’
 
`No… no… ‘
 
`…about psychiatric hospitals?’
 
`Like many, many people in that era… didn’t understand anything.  You was in an asylum or you was in the nut house, and that’s what it is… very ignorant.  It’s very, very ignorant.’
 
01:34:47:15
 
`And what kind of place was it that you first went?’
 
`What err..?’
 
`In Scotland?’
`I went to Garlochnatosh [ph] ... my first one was Aberdeen, Kingsley actually… I had no treatment whatsoever… umm.. I was… just debilitated [???] … and then… passed on to the civilian population.  ‘Cause I was in Scotland then… you see… and…’
01:35:10:24
 
`Can you remember what the buildings were like… or the decoration of the place?’
 
`Well, I would say that these psychiatric hospitals as far as I know… bar that… excepting one I knew … was 18th Century… hospitals… cold… antiquated… ummm.. depressing…’
 
01:35:40:23
 
`Did you keep your own clothes when you went in?’
 
`Oh yeah… you, you’d… you were put in hospital blues, as a war patient, I was… you had… hospital blues..’
 
`Was that… a uniform?’
 
`Well that was, was clothing what the Ministry of Defence has had… they give them… Military Defence that pays… had hospital blues… ‘cause you’re a war disabled person… had that there, but if you went into… afterwards, when you… ‘cause not now, they don’t do that now… you go in all these psychiatric hospitals… ordinary like a civilian patient … matter of fact… I… how, how good St James’s Hospital was as a psychiatric hospital, how good they were… but very few nurses knew… of… neuroscenic [ph neurasthenic?] disorders… or…’
 
`What disorders?’
 
`Neuroscenic [ph neurasthenic?] … that means to say, shell shock disorders… because in the 1914/18 war [pause]… people got shot for cowardice … and there’s… it was only… in this last war… the big war… that… that people got educated that… neuroscenia [ph neurasthenic?] or shell shock, or combat stress… was and illness.  That the ordinary nurses… they’d get… you know… for the downers… whatever it is, you know… I mean you could overwork and get a… get a breakdown, you know… if you lose your mother… you get a breakdown… or father… I lost a child… It’s all related… it’s only… you… anything could… anything could do it…upset the nervous system or the brain, you know what I mean? … or anxiety…’
 
01:37:41:03
 
`So, you weren’t told that you were suffering from shell shock at the time?’
 
`No.’
 
`Did they give you a different diagnosis?’
 
`Well my… they put it down as psychoneurosis…[ph] I think what it is now… I’ve had… [pause]… different… ummm… errr… when you had to get a medical certificate… I’ve had psychoneurosis [ph], anxiety state, schizophrenia… errr, you know… and I was never that… you know… umm… I was bombed out, you know… that was shell shock, you… had the shakes, the sweats, bad dreams… which we all get… still get… you know.’
 
`You still get that now?’
 
`Oh yeah... [pause] Yeah.’
 
01:38:33:09
 
`And were you… in Scotland… were you in the same hospital as civilians, or was it just a military?’
 
`Civilian.’
 
`It was a civilian hospital?’
 
`Yeah, well I went into… I went into Garlochnatosh [ph]… that was a civilian… that was an antiquated one… it was similar to any other hospital, like St James’s really, nineteen, eighteenth century and all that, you know… and I had sleep treatment there…’
 
`What did that involve?’
 
`Well, it, it was insulin… I… I… I had modified insulin there… also deep insulin… and… you, you go to sleep, or whatever… I was… I… you know… and then you eat a lot of food and potatoes, and all that jazz.’
 
01:39:21:24
 
`How long would you be put to sleep for?’
 
`Six weeks.’
 
`Six weeks…?’
 
`In our clothes.  They’d see patients that are… you know…?’
 
`In a room?’
 
`In a… well in a ward… there were three in a ward, long side ward… and…’
 
`And would you be woken up at all in the day?’
 
`No… they wake you up… theirselves… [ph]… and it wasn’t nurses, it was orderlies.  You know… the only… you, you had orderlies in a men’s… male… you but… you did have female nurses, ‘cause Sister Smart was one… and… you know… it was very few… there was… they was all big male nurses, you know… they wasn’t nurses, they was orderlies… they didn’t know more about… nursing… than err… than my baker what comes round and delivers my bread… you know what I mean… but now it’s changed ...’
 
`And were you informed what you… what the treatment would do for you?’
 
`No.’
 
`Did you know what you were having at the time?
 
`No… no, you were… they just gave it you…’
 
`You didn’t know what it was you’d been getting?’
 
`No… you didn’t even know you were having it, like you know… you… you was… you… crazy world… you was in cloud cuckoo land… you know what I mean.  You… you didn’t know, ‘cause you weren’t with it… you… I mean… you, you know you wasn’t… you, you, you were ill… mentally ill.  You were fatigued and… and in a hell of a state, you know…’
 
`So after six weeks of that… how was it when you… came round again? Was it…?’
 
`In a month.  You know and all… everything… it was… I think it was more or less… that treatment was to give your brain a rest… and physical rest, you know…’
 
 
01:41:08:00
`Did it work?’
 
`I never… I had most, I don’t know which one done the best, but I’m seventy eight… and talking to you Judy…’
 
`What were your feelings about it at the time?’
 
`I… going through all the treatment… the ECT treatment, especially in St James’s… you… all… you’re in an observation ward, you had all different types of illnesses, you had alcoholics, drug addicts and all that… you had drug addicts then… but it was… you know, whatever… once… one… and nothing to what it is now, but… you had that suicide jumps and all that… and… while you was in that observation ward, they used to give you… they was giving ECT, but you all was all bed bounded, so you couldn’t be off of it, and they was giving them ECT straight, and you was watching it.’
 
01:42:02:11
 
`When you say straight…?’
 
`Well you wasn’t given a needle… a pre-med… they give a pre-med today.  You had.. you lay in the bed, that way, right… gag in mouth… and they put the electricity through your nut… straight…’
 
`And you saw that happening to other people?’
 
`Yeah… then I had to have it… and that put the… fear of ... Christ up me… because what the eyes don’t see, the heart don’t grieve… if you know my… and they put another fear in me… and… you see another thing was, if you was treated by war beds [???] and you refused the treatment… they’d stop your pension.’
 
01:42:49:05
 
`So you couldn’t refuse?’
 
`No, they’d stop your pension.’
 
`Was it painful?’
 
`Well I’m going to be honest with you.  I never… the… the only thing that would upset me was… to watch it… then have it… but that’d be part of the pain, I never felt a thing.  Headache… you got a big headache afterwards… you know… terrific headache… and loss of memory.  You’d lose your memory, well… I was having it three times a week and I… I… for about five months I didn’t know who I was and what I was… really…’
 
01:43:27:06
 
`How many treatments of ECT do you think you had?’
 
`Between twenty eight and thirty.  My… err, err... psychiatrist had just retired… she stopped me in, in the street… not very long ago… and we, we had a coffee… and she told me, that I’d… I’ve had all treatment… every known treatment, bar a leucotomy… that the psychiatric hospitals could do.  I’ve had the lot… apart from leucotomy… so I’ve had the lot.’
 
01:44:08:04
 
`And did you notice changes when the Mental Health Act came in in 1959 and so on…?  Did you as a patient notice any difference to… anything that went on, in terms of maybe your rights to refuse treatment…?’
 
`Yeah… yeah… you… you… that’s different now.  And it was different then.  A couple came in… and wasn’t forced to have it… you know… then, now… you know… you… they ask you… you can refuse.’
 
`Yeah.  Going back to some of your earlier memories of the… first hospitals you went in, could you describe an average day there?  How would that have been…?’
 
`An average day… [pause]… in Jimmy’s… St James’s… we call it Jimmy’s… you had a snooker table… shove ha’penny table… you… the first thing you done… right… you’d have a cup of tea.  And then, the next thing you had to… buff the floors, clean up the floors, make your own bed, and that… then, the doctor’s round… and then you had… you played ‘shove ha’penny’… and… then you played snooker, or billiards, ‘cause they had a big table parked in every ward.  And then they used to take you out for walks in the ground, you see… and then eventually… eventually, when you got a little bit better they’d give you… ground parole… and then… when you got…’
 
01:45:59:12
 
`What does that mean?’
 
`Well ground parole, they let you out… they used to take you out… the… the… or whoever, the nurses or orderlies used to take you round the grounds and have a walk round right, they were with you… and then, when you got… when you got better, as they thought, they give you… let you walk round the grounds on your own, and then you had your town parole, which they took you out, and when you got sort of used to it… they let you out on your own, so they called that town parole…’
 
`Town parole?’
 
`Town parole, it’s like… it was like being in prison… they… they’d trust you… let you out and do your own thing.’
 
`Were the wards locked then?’
 
`Yeah.  You had locked wards then.  Umm… they’ve only got one ward now, as I know… in St James’s… one ward locked, all the others are open.’
 
`That’s now…?’
 
`Now.’
 
`But were you…?’
 
`That’s… that’s been from… I think that’s been from the last eight or nine years, you know…’
 
01:47:06:10
 
`So going through the day, you’d go round the grounds if you had the permission, and would you have… a break for lunch then?’
 
`Oh yeah… you had your… you had your twelve o’clock dinner, and you had your… eight o’clock breakfast, or half past seven, or something like that… and then… and then you had supper… you know… you was allowed… you, you… but you was… you couldn’t do much… I… you weren’t allowed to do much on your own, and eventually when you… got better… they took you from a locked ward into an open ward, so you had your own freedom, you know what I mean?  With the… the fact you were getting better, you know?  That well…’
 
01:48:01:11
 
`Did you have other social things to do in the day?’
 
`Well then… it started… then it started… in Portsmouth… [pause] and the charge nurse on the ward, a Dr Bell [ph], had a meeting with all the patients… not that I’ve… of this ward, of the hospital… [???] so that meant… we had, they had to pick a Chairman for integration… that meant to say that you integrated with everybody and the nurses will take off their uniform and put on civvie clothes, and… and… we… come in civvie clothes, so… to cut the stigma down of… you know, whatever… and… then… they had to pick a chairman of integration, you see… so you was integrated… men and women.  The only thing you did not do in that hospital, that no man or woman, or girl or boy ever slept together… as far as I can know… but you, you were allowed, going for walks and… that, that type of thing… you were allowed to go to the pictures together, there was no restriction on that.  So there was no restriction, I’ve got to say this… there was no restriction, of man or woman, of girl or boy… they done exactly the same thing as a normal person would … and, and they didn’t stop it.  I think you’ve got my drift, haven’t you? ’
 
01:49:47:08
 
`Would that have taken place in the grounds then, that sort of liaison?’
 
`Yes.  Yes they did… and that happened… that has happened…[???]… not for me though.  Do you know.. if you recall my statement… I only had the one girl.  And that was my wife.’
 
`So you were still being faithful to her?’
 
`I’m still now.’
 
`Still are?’
 
`Hard to say it [???]… I’ve had my chances, a lot of people said that… I had it… I met a girl… I’m not going to mention her name… her middle name was Doreen… while…as the chairman of integration you’d had to get people together… and… Doreen took a fancy to me, put it that way… and anyway, she… this, that, and the other… and… I used to… she wanted… she wanted to do all my washing, and this, that and the other.’
 
01:50:49:22
 
`Was she a patient?’
 
`Yes… and that was because you integrated.  You met.  There’s no difference to… meeting in  hospital… or you meet in the park, that’s nature… what’s to be, will be… it happens… and… she was a wonderful girl, really, but… what happened to her was… Sister…Fleet warned me, that’s the sister of that ward, she… as a matter of fact she finished up as nursing officer in that hospital… she called her office and… ‘hello Ted’, I said ‘hello sister…’ she said, ‘you and Doreen…?’ , and I said, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong have I?’, ‘No’… ‘What’s your feelings for her?’ I said, ‘well, none really’, I said,  ‘she’s a nice person’, I said, ‘that’s it, not allowed’… ‘well she’s not marriageable, she… because…’ she said, ‘you’d be running up this hospital from day, noon and night, when you leave here… if you was to marry her you’d be out… down here…’, I shouldn’t be telling you this but I’m telling you… well, I was going with, well Doreen… and she asked me to marry her, and I said… `Doreen’, I said, `I can’t… we’re not married, I said no.’… I’ve got a complaint, that I’ll be in, in this hospital all my life… they had to put the onus on me… I said, `we can still see each other’, but she wanted to marry me.  And… anyway, whatever… it was in this, in the hospital and … anyway, she was getting discharged and I got her a job, in the laundry… Doreen, I got her a job.  And, she got this job… mind you, I was still in hospital about that time.  She come up and visit me and all that.  And she used to buy… buy.. she used to buy me shirts and ties… shaving kit, the lot, and wanted to marry me… and then I said to her, I said, ‘I can’t ‘cause of my illness…’, and then, she never came up one Saturday… [pause]... and then I was called in the office on a… on the Monday… ‘Doreen’s committed suicide’.  [pause].  So I lost a good friend... and that was that.’
 
01:53:34:20
 
`That must be very painful..?’
 
‘She was a lovely girl, really… but… the hospital was, was… right, she… I knew… I used to know when Doreen was ill…’ [pause]
 
`Had she?…’
 
`…she was told… [both talking together]. Eh?’
 
01:53:55:12
 
`Had she been there longer than you?’
 
`No.  No.  I was ten years older than her… twelve years older, than Doreen.  She was… she was … I’ve got to use the phrase… well Sister Fleet [ph] said, ‘Ted’, she said, ‘I don’t know what you got… every bloody woman in this ward is after you’, and I said, I said, ‘I’ve got nothing to do with them’, you know what I mean?… they did… they really did, and… I mean… I… I’m not a hansome man… I’d sit on the top and all that, it was just, I think… it was my personality they liked.  You know, and ... would do things for them.  I would [inaudible] wrap up… ‘cause I got made Chairman of integration and I used to get parties up… used to have… parties… allowed to take booze in… we were allowed to have parties with booze, yeah…’
 
`Was that…what year…?’
 
`… In hospital…’
 
`When would that have started, the integration?’
 
`I suppose, in the sixties… [pause] yeah…’
 
`And before that it was all very separate was it?’
 
`Yeah… yeah… it changed… we had booze in there and… we… of course we had… ‘cause it wasn’t orderlies then, it was proper nurses, and they used to keep an eye on you… and… but they never… because… they used to go down the pub as well, ... you know?… yeah…’
 
01:55:25:00
 
`Did they live on the hospital… at the hospital, the nurses and orderlies?’
 
`No, no… they, they… well some did, had a nursing… they had… nursing accommodation… the singles did… ‘cause there was some married and all that… [pause].  You know, they had… outside ... but some did live on the grounds… they had… they had hospital accommodation, but mostly… I would say ninety per cent… err… lived out…outside … most of them were married anyway…’.
 
`And in… the hospital grounds, what other areas were there, apart from the wards?’
 
`They had… err… as far as I was concerned they had beautiful grounds really, St James’s… and… ‘cause finally, they’re like… not finally… then they put me in the fields like, to ... growing potatoes and cabbages and whatever, then they put me in the greenhouse and… and that’s when ... things started to happen for me, really… umm… [pause]… we had a cricket pitch… I was great… I was captain of the cricket team… we had proper gear… proper like… England would be playing in,  yeah?… we used to play different hospitals, played the doctors… you know what I mean… beat the doctors, as well…’
 
`Where were the uniforms made?’
 
`They bought them… outside … the uniforms… because you had the… the white trousers, flannels… and… pullovers… oh yeah, with, ...err… SJ on it… St James’s… oh yeah… football, I played football… cricket ball… yeah…’
 
01:57:20:00
 
`Was there a social hall there too?’
 
`They got one of the finest social halls you got in Portsmouth, there… really…’
 
`What was in it?’
 
`There was a dance hall… they, they used to have… they used to have… there were… plays in there… they had groups in there…err people… errr… who was on south parade pier  there… they used to come out and give a free show for us… you know… organists came up and played… you probably don’t know... professional organist, and that… Reginald Border [ph] and all that…’
 
01:57:58:09
 
`Did you used… to have films there?’
 
`Oh yeah… we…’
 
`Can you remember any?’
 
`Eh?’
 
`Can you remember any that you saw?’
`Oh yeah… you… well… the… the films was mostly the Bing Crosby’s, and Road to Mandalay … road… and all that… and… they generally put on… they didn’t put any… any tragedy… they… they… they put on, on… the comedy side… most… Laurel and Hardy, and… and things like that, and… and musicals, you know… and all that, you know they put…  They had a good… good cinema… good dance hall… [pause] and some good dancers in there, you know…’
 
`So… and the dancers, you’d have had the male and females together… even before integration… is that right?’
 
`Yeah… and… they did do that… but they had nurses there, and whatever, orderlies… you know ...you know what I mean …’
 
`And there was a farm… is that right?’
 
`Well… they had a… the, the patients was given a job… they didn’t want them banging up all the time, so… some people worked on the farm, and that was the first thing they said… ‘you’ve got to go on the farm…’, ‘what for?’, they said, ‘you’ve got to go out ‘n’ grow potatos…’, I said I don’t know nothing about potatoes, and this, that and the other… ‘, he said, ‘well we’ll learn you’.  So we had these old suits on, you know, and big boots… to put, put us on the field… then, ‘take those out’… finally, they put me in the greenhouse… ummm… Mr Clements… and… err… anyway, they put me in this greenhouse… I’m doing chrysanths  at the time… well they asked me, knocked, broke one of them, put it underneath… put it…somewhere… in the pot… anyway, I left her there and some time later Clem come out and said, ‘did you done that?’… I said ‘I didn’t mean to do it’, and… such a thing… and…’
 
02:00:02:01
 
`Were you frightened of what he might say?’
 
`Yeah, I thought I was going to get in trouble.  ‘No’ he said, err… ‘turn it over’… so I went in… and I turned it over and it had some roots on it.  From that day… I become a gardener… yeah…’
 
`But needed a bug to start… growing things and propogating…?’
 
`Yeah… well my propogatings… I watched Clem.  He never taught me, I watched him.’
 
`Who was Clem?’
 
`Mr Clements… you… and… in those days, sometimes… in the early times, you had to call him sir, you know and all that… and that…’
 
`The staff?’
 
`Yeah.  Not… not… you know… not say hello to the ladies and all that, but that drifted out… and then you, you know…’
 
02:00:52:15
 
`It got more informal?’
 
`Yeah.  Yeah… and… and then I was put into… into this greenhouse, I broke this thing and that… and I started to learn that, and then… I had a letter… thanking me… when I left the hospital I had a letter said they’d do a ‘Green Fingers’ when I came up… [???]… ‘course was a lady, I forget her name now, I didn’t get on with her anyway, and… anyway… it turned out to be… err… [pause]… they were going to start this up, this Green Fingers up… on this unit… so they had suggested… I suggested they call it Green Fingers… and we started that off… in the two greenhouses and all that… and… [pause]… and they asked me to come up there and… and they asked me… they’d pay me… and I said no, I said, I don’t want paying.  I says St. James’s give me a lot… in my life… and… I said I don’t want the money.  But, I done it for a considerable time, over a year… but I was… it was nearly a year I done it… and my Green Fingers started to get … all stiff… but then… I… I was… how they found out… they … I didn’t know they whatever… and ...I refused money.  Right.  So what happened was this… I gets a… I… I get some money sent me from the hospital, because… on, on the first of April, that’s, that the income tax isn’t it? Well,  I had a cheque for £300 pound… sent me.. from the money I…
 
 
 
`… for the hours I put in at the hospital… and then the accountant done that… and the letter said, we… they’ve got to pay us, and you… I’ve got to take it, ‘cause if anything happened to me on an accident, and they paid me, they’re covered.  If I done it for nothing… I wouldn’t be covered on the insurance, and… so I… they paid me £300 pound.  That was a lot of money then.’
 
`What year would that have been… roughly…?’
 
`About ’78, ’79, something like that, roughly… like that.’
 
02:03:17:05
 
`Later on we can go… we can talk more about Greenfields [ph]
 and the project you worked in.  We’ll take a short break now.’
 
‘yeah’
 
`And have a smoke?’
 
`And have a smoke, yeah !…’
 
[end of DVCPro tape one]
[Start of DVCPro tape two – VHS one continues]
 
02:03:28:06
 
`Are you happy to… talk about some of the… what you remember of the other patients in the hospital, and visitors?’
 
`Well, the…. [pause]… we… as regards to visitors of course you had… your next of kin and all that, and they come up to the villa…’course my wife had left me, in St James’s, I had no visitors.  Ummm… but… err… I, I… I.. I was the sort a of person who, who mixes well and… well, you get chatting a bit, and talk to other people and not make myself a nuisance, and… I met a lot of people err… in there.  Ummm… I looked after, well I had to look after him then… the charge nurse asked me one day whether I’d make this patient’s bed and he’s err… a well known… err… car… like… person in this city… but I’d make his bed and all this, that and the other… and he was allowed a couple of pints of Guiness a day… and… I used to make his bed and all that… and everything… and… I used to go down the pub and… buy his Guiness… and then… he used to give me a fiver, and keep the change…type of thing … and… I knew him and… he… he had a breakdown, overwork, type of thing, and then… you had … other… people who were in, like school masters… and mistresses too… errr… all in… with… [pause]… ummm… disabilities, I’d rather call it… and… errr… some, as I say were alcoholics, some was… was homosexuals…’
 
02:02:50:03
 
`What were the attitudes like towards people who were homosexual?’
 
`You didn’t… you didn’t know that, you didn’t know they… if, if… if they told you, but you… the thing is that… err… we had a chap who come in a… apparently he got round the know [???]… I was the chairman, anyway.  We had a meeting and we had to pick our own committee, and… we had one leaving and I had to fill, fill this place, and I said, that… George… everybody called him… and the school master said, he said to me, ‘no…’, he said, ‘he can’t read nor write’, I said, ‘well’… [inaudible]… ‘he’s come out of prison…’, I said ‘I don’t care, whatever he is…’ to this school master, I said, ‘we’re all in here for some reason, and I’m not worrying about George not reading or writing or whatever’… he’d been in prison… that aint got nothing to do with us…’.  George could sell the raffle tickets, on the door when we has our social evenings… and leave it at that… and I won the day on that… and, and… so I held the chair… I… I wouldn’t have anybody… you’re all in there for some reason.  Whether its war, family trouble… whatever… you all break even.  You only got to know these things what people… are in there… when they voluntary tell you when you’re having a chat…and …and that’s how you know.  But no… no nursing staff will come up to you and say so and so’s so and so…’
 
02:04:41:10
 
`They kept that quiet?’
 
`No… they’re not allowed to… as regards the male I told you about, Doreen, the sister, said she couldn’t tell me certain things… and she said… you know, whatever… that’s the only time I ever had… had her number … she’s… she was trying to work out, I wouldn’t get disappointed… psychologically… errr… me… she was thinking about me running up and down the hospital… and she had a reason to do that… you know what I mean?  And she put… she put the red light on, to say stop, you know what I mean?  That’s… if you know what I mean.  That was that.’
 
02:05:22:06
 
`How easy would it have been for say, a homosexual man in those days?’
 
`Well…’
 
`Within the context of the hospital.’
 
`Well… homosexual… homosexual people are bad people… mainly… mainly… men… ummm… they thought of… they thought of , you know… they were just coming in to it ... it was a disorder…’
 
`So that’s why they were in hospital?’
 
`Yeah.  But… I don’t think it was for their homosexuality.  Because… [pause] … homosexuals weren’t recognised… but the law says that two consenting adults… today… so it’s a bit better, but in those days… it was a criminal offence, and then… they’d go to court… you’d better go and that’s when they sent you up for a psychiatric assessment…’
 
`Mmmm…’
 
`That’s how you get them in there…’
 
`So this was like an alternative to prison?’
 
`In my day you went there for assessment and then you come out and see what the judge says… but  most cases… unless they were… unless there was any children involved on… over homosexuality… or rape, or anything like that, that’s different, and then… that was different, but… you had… you had lesbians as well in there, you, you didn’t know that, and whatever… you got to know, because they’d tell you themselves, they’d tell you themselves, you know what I mean?  I mean lets face it… in the medical profession, whether psychiatric or main medicine, you get a lot of homosexuals and lesbians in that profession, than you do in any other, so… that’s that, you know.  You… and it’s more  more open, they’re more, that way… you live with that, you know.  And… nobody… err... err...accepted today… of yesterday…  it was not accepted… you know… don’t talk to them, or whatever… you know what I mean?  but…’
 
02:07:45:13
 
`Did the patients… would they… were they less judgemental, would they…?’
 
`Left to their judgement… I never seen no… umm….these homosexuals that… practice homosexual… they… they…. they never force themselves on people… was that… they… they got a group of their own, they know… you know what I mean… and that’s it.  Even… even the lesbians do… they’re… they know what… they don’t… entice other people, you know what I mean.  That’s the way I look at it.  You… you had all types.  You had alcoholics, and they were difficult cases… difficult.  Ummm… I… [pause]… I was asked whether a great friend of mine… [pause]… I’m going to call him Bill… but his name was far from being Bill… and… he was in hospital as… he was… as an alcoholic… [pause] … and… I had a note put through my door, he was out of hospital at the time… I was [inaudible]… this happened about eight year back… and… I had a note, would I go round to see Bill… I went round to see him, he said… he’s an ex-Navy man… and he said, ‘Ted’, he said, `I’m in trouble’…, I said ‘what are you in trouble for?’  He said, ‘I’m in trouble… with… his rent’ or whatever he says, heating and ‘phone bill and… this, that and the other… and he’s being treated for… his alcoholic business… and he was out in a bar, and I said, right John`… is your ‘phone cut off yet?’, `no, not yet, though I’ve had the letter to say if I don’t pay, they say that I will be…’, so I said, umm… I… I took my key I’ve got in my ... and I took my key... and I said, `ring that number’… he rang the number, rang the Royal Navy Benevolent… and I told John to tell the truth.  `Tell them you’re a registered alcoholic, that you’re in debt and you’re worrying…’ well… which he did.  Well they come round and see him, and they cleared all his debt, and give him a big grant so he could get himself up together… [pause]… About three months after… a knock on the door… I went to the door… a… a detective sergeant so and so… and I went, ‘can I see you?’… he went, `well, come down the police station’.  I went down… [pause].  He said… did you know… Bill?  I don’t want to mention ‘cause that on tape [???]… `Yeah…’… I said, `I…I’d made arrangements for Bill to… through the RNBT… to clear up his debt, take a bit of weight off his shoulders and all that…’.  He said, `where were you yesterday?’… err… no… `where was you…?’ well… whatever he said, `where were you so and so?’… ‘I was indoors, why?’.  What happened, was this, Judy, that… he was murdered.  Apparently they were looking for old people, and my name was on his… on his telephone pad, name, number and address… so he said… he said, `for a start off we’ve got to ask everybody… where they were.’  Yeah… and he told me… `[inaudible]… and… you  are least suspected… but we’ve got to check you out.’  But they did find the bloke that murdered him.  He got life.  So… ‘
 
`It’s a lot to go through.’
 
`Eh?’
 
`It’s a lot to go through, isn’t it?’
 
`Well it’s not that so much as… [pause]… you can get involved, can’t you?  But he was a lovely man.  He had a beautiful wife… and umm… what drove him to it, was… his alcoholic… his sons used to… always involved with the police, stealing and all that… and then… he, he… he was a master builder actually, Bill…’
 
`Did you meet him in hospital?’
 
`No… no… I knew him as a civilian, like… but I did meet him in hospital… he was a patient in hospital, with me, but… I knew him outside, previous to that.  His son… who… [stutters]… went… got… to … put in prison… and… left,  went in ... all over the paper and television all that… and it drove him to drink… and he come and said he was an alcoholic, you know… and that’s how it is… yeah…’
 
02:13:16:03
 
`So in hospital there was a wide range of different people as you’ve mentioned…?’
 
`Oh yeah.  Well… you… I mentioned different people, like… there was school teachers and… you know, all types of things… drug addicts and… err… err… everything, you know, like… you know, it… when you’re in there you, you meet all types of people.’
 
`And what do you think the general public thought about the people that were in there?’
 
`Well, it’s getting better now, but… I think it’s getting a bit, a bit better… but there is still a stigma to it… there should never be really, but there you are… because… as I said before, years and years ago when they… people went into psychiatric places, they would say… there was a paper or something, or the media would say `gone to a private nursing home’, so they could… they could… because ... [inaudible]’
 
`If that was a well known person, you mean?’
 
`Yeah.’
 
`Did you ever meet any well known people?’
 
02:14:22:08
 
`I… I’ve met… lots of people… I’ve met… met…’
 
`That were patients I mean?’
 
`Yeah… Harry Secombe was one… ummm… he was in a private ward, and I was a war patient there… as I… and I was put in a private ward because the war pension paid it… Harry Secombe was in there… and… there was…err...’
 
`I think you mentioned a comedian…?’
 
`No… he… no he wasn’t…a patient… I met him at Buckingham Palace… I’m trying to think of his name… he’s slapstick… he… this bloke that I… I never meet him in there… there was… there… well put it this way… if anybody wanted treatment, but… they… specialised treatment… they used to send them to St James’s, because… that was the Rolls Royce of psychiatric medicine, you know… and then… they would go there… and they… they had a private ward, they become private patients… you know what I mean… they were well known you see… it.. it was the Rolls Royce of mental nursing, that’s why… you met… you meets a lot of people.  A lot of people, I don’t want to mention, really…’
 
02:15:37:07
 
`Do you think other people found it as good… did other patients…?  Was there generally… did the patients think it was a good place in general, do you feel?  Or do you think you were different in any way…?’
 
`Well… [both talking together]… No, no, no… I, I… thought… when… when you are in… in places like that… you’ve all got a problem… and…you may need to console [ph] all your troubles and you may need…to open your heart up to… do that… and… and that… you get friendly… because you’re… you’re with your own kind… where for the people that have not been in there… consider you… nutty… fruitcake, and all that, you know what I mean… and all that.  I’ve had it said to me…’
 
`Have you?’
 
`Yeah.  And now… that came about really, because every time they done the garden I would… I said, I never… I’d… I’d done this garden, but I was taught in St James’s Hospital, got it?’
 
02:18:47:02
 
`So what did they say to you there?’
 
`Well they said… of course then that wasn’t [indaudible] you had that come out then, people read about it, read about, on telly and all that, ... didn’t understand that… they said well, he’s learned [inaudible] garden… [indaudible] gardening… he must be a nutter and all that jazz you know… and… see then its got its good sides to it.  I mean, I, I got a job out of it.’
 
02:17:17:12
 
`And how did that come about?’
 
`Well… [pause] I… I done my garden this particular time and it was televised… and… and… all… the news was involved and all that jazz…’
 
`Is that your garden at home or…?’
 
`Yeah… and they took photographs and all this, that and the other… ‘cause my garden was… err… always been good, but at this particular time, it was fantastic.  That was the one that… that one there like… with the girlse outside… and… ‘cause I knew, well they says… I could get a job as a gardener, just like that… of course, they… published that and everything… with the photograph supplement… big supplement…’
 
`And that was St James’s that helped in that process…?’
 
`Well, no… they didn’t do nothing about that… I… I…the way they helped me… they taught me gardening didn’t they… initially, didn’t they?  They taught me the gardening… occupational therapy they called it then… they do now… that’s the Green Fingers, it’s still occupational… OT… it’s still OT… that’s how it came about… and of course then… when they see the garden and all that… and… they got all the story… they said, Mr… would you like to be a gardener?  well… within twenty four hours I had the Navy knock on my door… a bit of a Max Matlow [ph] and all that… he wanted to be a gardener, and the Captain’s sent down his commander… from Whale Island [ph]… and he come down, the Captain, `I want to speak to you’… and… all that, this, that and the other… and he wasn’t… he wasn’t fully… up to… it, this captain… he didn’t know… he… he… I was taught in St James’s and he said, `what was you in St James’s for?’, to me… `a war disability, sir’…and he looked… then I told him… I said well, I was in the Royal Navy… I told him a story… he said `when can you start?’… because… at that time, at that time, under the Profumo Act… err… I… if you had any homosexual tendencies, if you was in hospital with any psychiatric illness… to work for the Admiralty… work for the Admiralty, where secrets are concerned… you were screened.  They ‘d want to know all about you and why… that’s… that came under that Christine Keeler’s Act… that come under, whatever… and still… and that’s still invoked today…’
 
`I don’t know what the Christine Keeler Act is?’
 
`Well, Christine Keeler… the Christine Keeler Act was… Profumo was sleeping with this girl… and he was a cab….he was a… he was a Cabinet Minister… and she was a prostitute… the girl… and… so he had to retire… he had to relieve his cabinet… administration… ‘cause he… he, he’d be too easy to get at by the Russians, you know what I mean… the… the… so, that was that… so, err… ev…eventually… our ‘phone went out that, ... or went out as Admiralty Fleet orders… and that’s right through the Army, Navy and Airforce that … if you worked in an establishment, you were screened… err … homosexual, whatever or… any sexual fettishes you had… you was screened on it… or any trouble with the police anyway…’
 
01:21:12:08
 
`So did you have to go through the screening yourself?’
 
`Oh yeah… well, when I… I told the Captain what my disability was… and he couldn’t believe it… I said `didn’t they tell you?’… I said, so look… and… that was that…’
 
`How did they react?’
 
`Well he didn’t know I was in the Navy… ex-Navy man, for a start… you see… and then… and then I… [pause] and then I had this Captain… same Captain… [pause] he sent down this bloke…  err.. his civilian administrator, and… and, and their head gardner from their establishment, and I had to go up and see him, and I talked him different things up… and… he said to this bloke who’d done it… he said, `he knows more about it than I do… and I’m head gardener…` he said, `he knows more about it than I do…’, so I started at Frazer Gallery Range [ph]… [shows picture]… that’s that picture there… and the headlines in the paper… know what it was?  Everything comes up rosy for Ted.  That’s the headlines, that was true… ‘
 
`So they were fine about your background as a…having a disability and so on?’
 
`Well… they had to not only me, they done it to everybody what worked in the… under the… with the Government… see… that place…’
 
`No, what I mean is, they didn’t mind…?
 
`…that place there… that…that… down there… that place there… was nuclear… that… they… that… see the gardens… you had all your guided missiles there… right… [pause] so they had to be careful what they said to you.’
 
02:22:59:23
 
‘Yeah.  But what I mean is… when you told them that you had been in St James’s, although you had to go through the screening, they didn’t mind that? They didn’t put… not employing you or anything?’
 
`No… no. They… they… they… said… when… when could I start?… that was on a Friday, I’ll never forget it… ‘start today if you want’… he said, ‘there’s no Monday to us’ … and I started that… [inaudible]… so I come out… I come out head gardener of that… particular place… that was a [inaudible]… that was back… in the sixties, I remember that…’ [???]
 
`And what age would you have been then, roughly?’
 
`For’… fifty… or something like that.. something like that.’
`And was that the first work you’d had outside…?’
 
`First gardening job…’
 
`Uhuh…’
 
`Yeah.’ [pause]
 
02:23:51:16
 
`At St James’s, did they… other than the gardening, was there any other type of industrial therapy, occupational therapy that you did…?’
 
`Well there was… you had… you had… industrial therapy… well… under the err … all the... they done it with every… psychiatric… they closed down the industrial therapy, where you work and get money for… right… they, they done all that… making… making the… the… the… bins and all that… plastic bins… or similar… they stopped all that…and… they had a carpentry section… they… they had knitting thing and all that… every type of therapy… then they had painting… err… classes… in that hospital alone…’
 
`So, would that have been split, originally between the men and the women?  Would the men have done the carpentry and the women, the knitting?’
 
`Yeah.  I never seen no men knitting up the hospital [laughs]… [inaudible]… I tell you… [laughs] and I never seen ladies doing any carpentry, neither… no, I didn’t see none of that.’
 
`And did you ever do any carpentry or assembly work?’
 
`Do you know… do you know… I’ve never been constructive… or ingenuity… I grow flowers, seeds… know the names of them, but if  you tell me to put a fuse in a… in a… in a light… I’ll have difficulty… now… I’m… I’m… I’m not very… no… I, I was no good at carpentry… never.’
 
`Did they ever make you do it against your will?’
 
`No… no, no, no, no… you… didn’t… have none of that… none of that, if you didn’t like it… but the gardening was… far… harder.. wasn’t it?… digging up a garden than… standing by a bench and sawing up a bit of wood… no, that weren’t my scene… no… I was not… no… I was… none of that.’
 
`So… what did the staff think of you then?’
 
`What, the hospital?… well… they obviously… they look upon me in there, you know, like…’
 
`How did they describe you?’
`Ted… I’m known as Ted… I’m always known as Ted, Ted Short… yeah, ‘we know Ted’… and… ‘you… you were on about television weren’t you?’
 
`No… I was… I think at some point you told me that they thought you were one of the best patients…?’
 
`They did… say that.  That was that.  But I’ll tell you a funny story about… there… I had… [pause] A summer’s evening, right… I said `oh, I know what I’ll do…’ I’d been to a darts match… I… I wasn’t playing, I was going to watch a team play… was up at… up at Milton… so I thought to myself, well, I don’t… I’ll walk back… well I walked through the hospital grounds. I went past the… oh, I know what I’ll do… so…now listen to this one… I got this… box… of beer… case… but… and the television… window was open about that much… I gets in, climbs in… I was lucky not to topple the telly over… now, you must understand this is half past eleven at night… so I gets in the window… right… creeps up… the nursing office… I’m sitting outside… I coughs.  They come out, `hello Ted… how did you get in?’, she said `everything’s locked…’, oh no… you write… to my community nurse and tell her… ‘cause that’s the first patient ever broke into a mental home… [laughs]… and anyway, she come round to see me the next day, `I heard about it’, she said… [laughs] and they drove me home, you know… yeah… they… well… yeah, there… pretty well liked.  The only… only one to break into a mental home [laughs]… break into it, yes… [laughs] yeah…’
 
`If people weren’t the best patients, were there unpopular patients, or… people that were disliked…?’
 
`Well no, not… as regards… a good nurse… a good nurse… male or female… you get patients, moody blues, moody, moody this and violent come to that.  That’s their job.  To look after mentally ill people with a disorder.  I’ve seen… I’ve seen… girls with broken arms and teeth knocked out… when they go off top… [???].  Seen all that.  It’s a dangerous job, working… in, in a psychiatric hospital… and as far… sometimes as far…it’s worse too… in an ordinary hospital, when they’ve got to be admitted like, in there for whatever… you know what I mean…?’
 
02:29:07:01
 
`So was that quite a common feature… violence?’
 
`No… [inaudible]… now and again, like, you’d get it, you know, ‘cause they’re… they’re… most of them are heavily drugged and… whatever you… do… you’re err, ...and… you’ve got… you always… being… under observation and that… and… and… well you know … whatever.  Practically everything you do out of order, is, is logged…’
 
02:29:40:24
 
`Did you ever come across… strong clothes… what are called strong clothes?[pause]’… you might not know what I mean?’
 
`[inaudible]’
 
`It might be before your time… that… one of the methods of restraining people and preventing them from tearing at their own clothes, is to give them what are called strong clothes… they’re made of sail cloth… I don’t know…’
 
`Straight jackets?’
 
`That’s part of the… yeah’
 
`[inaudible]’
 
`Did you ever see that used?’
 
`Yeah, I’ve seen that done.’
 
`Yeah’
 
`I’ve seen a straight jacket put on ‘em put into… a ward… and…and I’ve seen buckets of water chucked over them… in St James’s…’
 
`What kind of years might that have been… any idea?’
 
`In the sixties… fifty nine, fifty eight… when they…’
 
`Any other kind of forms of restraint that you could… recall?’
 
`I was… wet… wet towels… round ‘em… where you… you got a patient, went off top and there was two or three, they wasn’t nurses, they was orderlies… they get… bang… [???]… I never had none of that, but I have seen it. Yeah.  And some… some of the male patients and male… staff… as far as I was concerned, some of them used to glorify in that… they thought it was kicks… they thought it was a big thing to do… you know… I used to hear them… I was in sixties [???]… ‘Last night so and so and so and so and we give him a hammering and all that’… I heard it you know… oh it all happened… it had happened in there… wasn’t my spread, but it did happen [???]…’
 
` Did you have padded rooms, or seclusion rooms?’
 
`Yeah… they had padded cells.  Oh yeah, they had padded cells. [pause] We had a chap in… he, he… Sarapash [ph] his name was… and… [pause] he was Persian… he come over to this country to get educated.  His father was Chief of Police in Tehran … a lot of money… or his parents did… and… [pause] he… he couldn’t make it in his education, his brother did, they… they went to this university in Portsmouth, and Sarapash [ph] couldn’t make any… tried to … commit suicide.  Well, what… so they… they put him in there, they put him in there… whatever…’
 
02:32:23:15
 
`In a what?’
 
`In a paddy… in a padded cell.  And… anyway… eventually they… they let him out… and he had to come back in again or whatever… and then… I found… I found… I found this cut-throat… open… open cut razor… in his locker… and, and I mentioned about it to Mr Mallory [ph] who used to live across the road… I said, Stan, I said, he’s got a… Sarapash [ph] has got a… ‘What?!’… of course when they went in there… they…  you know… he’s… [inaudible]… his brother was bringing this razor in, you know what I mean… of course that was the end of that, but… anyway, they… they sent him out to… back to his own country, and about five months later… err… Mr Law [ph]… that’s the other charge nurse… one watch on, one watch off… that was Mr Mallory’s opposite number like… he said, `is anyone a friend of Sarapash? ... we said, `no’  ... ‘He… he finally done it… committed suicide.’… and… he tell us that what he’d done…’
 
`When he was away?’
 
`That was in… out in his own country.  Seen all that, and… I’ve seen padded cells, seen all that…’
 
02:33:43:17
 
`You were saying that his brother had brought the knife… the…?’
 
`No, I wouldn’t say that… but when he went out…’
 
`Ahhh…’
 
`He brought it back in on the second time… he brought it back in… his brother did… his brother brought him back in, you know.’
 
`In general, what sort of possessions were you allowed to have… or were you not?… Is there any you weren’t allowed to have…?’ [both talking together]
 
`Well… it… it… make no… if, if you… if, if you’re funny peculiar, you know… whatever… it’s all according to what you were … on admission… ‘don’t take it’…whatever you like… if they thought you were suicidal, well they’d take it away from you.  Whatever… and put you in a ward…you know… keep you under close observation… and… which they still do now.  There’s only one ward open in St James’s now… for observation ward… and, and the rest are open… open wards…’
 
02:34:36:24
 
`But other than that you were allowed to have whatever, if you weren’t considered suicidal, you could have anything you wanted?’
 
`No.. no… if you… had a nervous breakdown you was allowed… allowed… you were allowed your razor and all that… but if you were a patient not out of your mind… they shaved you, even washed you…’
 
`Yeah’
 
`You know… all that…’
 
`So, generally how would you wash if they …’
 
`You… you… you know… I mean… you had… you had the gents places in the… to wash and shave… you had a bathroom and all that… big bathroom… communal bathroom.  Some patients was allowed to bath theirselves [ph] some wasn’t…all according to what . . .’
 
`What do you mean by communal bathroom?’
 
`Well you had a communal bathroom… where people all… like you had about three baths there… you got a… you have a bath… then you’ll have some not private, where the nurses used to wash you, you know what I mean… they didn’t want you to see a lot, put it that way… the normal person, like, you know… with a breakdown coudl go and whatever… you know...that type of thing…’
 
`Were you afforded much privacy?’
 
[pause]
 
`Say, for going to the toilet, or washing, or anything personal…?’
 
`No… it… there… [inaudible]… you went, normally they… err.. they’d get some patients… the majority were alright, you know… they did some..’
 
`You had some privacy?’
 
`No… you had a lot of privacy, but some didn’t.’
 
`Oh, ok…’
 
`You know… [pause]…’
 
`Can we take a break there?’
 
`Yeah.’
 
 
`Ted… you had a few admissions over a period of years, is that right?’
 
`Mmmm.’
 
`In the time when you weren’t there… what sort of thing were you up to at home?’
 
`Well… err… I’ve always done… done my gardening… the seeds… mostly… all the time… ummm… [pause] ummm… then I run a football club, you see… and everything…’
 
02:36:54:18
 
`Was that in the local town?’
 
`I was… I was one of the first to start the Sunday football, in Portsmouth. [pause] Umm…’
 
 
`Was that with young people, or…?’
 
`[pause] [moves to get a photograph]… Can you see me there?  Can you see me there?’
 
`Take me a while to find you…’
 
`Not… not… I’m not… in a kit… I’m not… I’m the trainer…  [pause]  I could give you a clue but I’m not…’
 
`Ahh… glasses…’[laughs] `Tell me about the… about the football team?’
 
[pause]
 
`When did you start it up?’
 
`I… came out of hospital… and I served a bitter man in the Navy… Ron… [inaudible].. Ron…[???]  He said… we had a football team… or he had a football team… would I help him to run it?  Well, I said yes, I did… and… Sunday football wasn’t mentioned anyway… we… we organised a team, then Sunday football came and the [inaudible]… had a team and that… [pause] Err… Martin [???] become one of the best teams in Portsmouth… or in Hampshire come to that… [pause]. There were four brothers… played for my football team, four… [pause]… and they knew I’d have come out of St James’s at the time, and they.. they thought I’d  be handy to come on… come here, ‘cause I… matter of fact I played darts with them… darts with them years ago, whatever… and I joined a football club and I helped to run it… [inaudible]… [pause]… I ran the whole caboodle ... and there was four brothers… and they all played… and eventually they all took their own life… by… they all… they all was admitted in St James’s, they had a genetic, mental disorder which run through the family, and they all died.  Four brothers.  And they all played, and they’re all there.’
 
02:39:50:19
[Ted produces photographs]
`That one… got it?’
 
`Uhuh…’
 
02:40:05:13
 
`That one… [pause] that one… [crying]… that one… [pause]… they… they had this illness… they never done it automatic… they were just… hanging on, it was a genetic illness and… one day… the, the lady who lived next door, to…to my friends, said to me… after everything was.. gone… all over and everything, ... did… she said, `you was marvellous to them chaps… how you looked after them… and it was nothing to do with you how they passed on…’, I said, I know, it’s one of them things…’
 
`Still…?’
 
`That’s… that was… I think that… that was… they were my friends.  You see, I came out of hospital, you know… I took up the football… and… [pause]… and Gordon… Gordon… I won’t tell you about that one… He said, `I think you’re a fantastic bloke’… [inaudible] `… I’ll tell you that ... ‘you’re a very intelligent man, you are’, and that… I… you know… I’d visit him in hospital when… he… and I… and Norman, his children went in… but… the others… the others never made it, you know… like… as a hospital patient.  But they all died under their own hands.  So… all four [both talking together].
 
`At a similar time, or…?’
 
`Eh?’
 
`Over a period of time?’
 
`Over a period of time, yeah… yeah… and when I look back on it… there was… [pause] When I talk to other people… especially nurses in that profession… and… in that era… they knew… ‘cause they.. the nurses don’t know when... what… if you let a patient out they, they… they don’t know what they’re going to do.  Whether they’re the ten per cent… if you do… [inaudible] ...even if it was somebody else’s tablets, then go on a… go down a chemist and buy aspirins…  go in one chemist to another one and buy aspirins or aspro’s, whatever… so… the… ‘
 
`So that risk was always there?’
 
`Always there.’
 
`Mmmm’
 
`Yeah.’
 
02:42:32:06
 
`So did… how else did you find members of the team.  Where did you find the team?’
 
`Not being bigheaded… they said I… I… ‘I was’… it’s been said… I was one of the best trainers in… in… in football, with that team.’
 
`So they came to you… the young…?’
 
`Yeah. They was…’
 
`Were they quite young lads?’
 
`Eh?’
 
`Were they quite young lads?’
 
`I would say about the average age was between eight and… from eighteen, nineteen, up to about thirty… that’s what we had.  We had quite a good side.  I had… I finished up with three teams… A, B and C… and, well… one, two or three… I had a good side there.’
 
`So that kept you very much busy…’
 
`Yeah’
 
02:43:20:19
 
`In the times that you weren’t inside… and…?’
 
`That’s right, yeah… and my mother… she was blind, but my mother… my mother used to do all the… washing the shirts and all that… oh yeah… and as I said like… I went to garden… and I done another thing I haven’t told you.  My mother was blind.  I used to put this garden up… and… she couldn’t go out… and err.. not because of her age, it was because of being blind… so… I used to put up the garden… and I said to her, when I was in hospital I came out to see her one day, and I went out and ‘I’m going to put the finest… garden… on God’s earth… for you.’… I put every flower in God’s garden what smells, and for you… love her… so ummm… I did.  Err... anyway… but she couldn’t see, being totally blind… and people used to knock the door and say… when she used to go to the door and I wasn’t there… could they.. could they have a look at Ted’s back garden and all that… and it was famous… it was like… like a really fam… famous garden.  Did you ever see his garden, they’d say.’
 
`So word spread round about your garden?’
 
`Well… oh yeah… it went… it went all over Hampshire.  I was… they used to say, go and see that garden in the middle of the city.  They used to put a note, in the summertime… when it’s come out, with their cars, they used to put headlights on it, to see it… and they’d bring their friends down, and look at it… and take photographs.’
 
02:44:55:09
 
`Your mother must have really enjoyed that?’
 
`No, she thought it was a bloody nuisance !… really, truthful, she said… like she said, she and...said you’re a nuisance… um...  people, she said, `I can’t see what’s in that garden’, I said, `no, you’re blind’, ‘cause my mother… err ... like had  a lot of sense of humour… lovely mother really… and… Judy… she had a little bad turn, and… within a second she was dead.  She come out the… toilet… and… ‘Our Ted’... said, `I don’t feel well’.  I said, `lay down then’, and I called my brother up… I see her eyes go up, and I said to him… keep on pressing her chest and you know… see if you can give… and all that… and we had a couple of nurses lived across… so I banged them up… they come running in… and… well… one girl says, she was a nursing sister… ‘shall I make a cup of tea, Ted’.and err… anyway she brought the tea in tears… `she’s gone…’… ‘gone when you was in your house. ’…  [pause].  Umm… if she wasn’t my mother I’d have married her… she was the most beautiful girl, on God’s earth… a lovely woman… Yes, yeah… I’m very proud of her… oh yes, she was… I mean she brought us two boys up… and I had a nursing professional in my house... nursing sisters she said, `I had two sons, went to war… and they brought them back`, and said to sister… this sister… Pat… Pat Stilne [ph].   said to my mother, `thanks for looking after my boy’… my mother… and Pat… said to me… after everything was all over… `They were very proud to meet your mother`. She was courageous… very clever girl… yeah… you have to… errr… you know, I was like… [pause] err… I’ve had a sort of… up and down life, and… [pause], but what really happened… err… something happened between my mother and my wife… and… my mother told her a secret… and… and my wife Jessie, was supposed to tell me, when we were on our sort of… whatever… I don’t want to mention what it was… but I went wild over it… and I went back to my mother, and I said, `you should have told me first`, type of thing… and `you should have told her`, and I got it back the other way… and I… I sort of… went off  the… I got wild with my mother anyway… in the end, Judy, I… [pause]… it wasn’t worth… err… she wasn’t that t’… she… it’s not worth while… she that kind who’d… chuck dirt in your face, you know, like… that way, so… finally, my marriage disappeared.  I told.. I told the hospital everything about it, but I don’t want to put what it was, on your camera… but… I had a lot to get over.  I lost my wife… a son… through war… a lot of people in that… I lost my sanity… I got it back from St James’s, and there isn’t a hospital like it…’
 
02:49:04:09
 
`Did you have any other relatives?’
 
`No.’
`Uncles, aunts…?’
 
`Yeah… I had some of them… oh yeah… they all passed on… I… it’s only… there’s only… there’s… I’ve only got one relative alive… errr… and that’s… one alive, that’s all… all the others are gone.’
 
`And after you were growing up, and throughout your adulthood, did you… ever see your cousins, or uncles or aunts or…?’
 
`Only… oh, I… they’re all dead, yeah… I did see them all come down.  They come down to visit my mum and all that, and they passed on and… there’s only one… one… one boy today, alive… and… the last thing I heard, he had… he had this… I don’t know what … I do know the name of it… ummm… Alzheimers… type of thing.  And I’m not… not Alzheimers, something… he’s got the shakes all the time.’
 
`Parkinsons?’
 
`Yeah… that’s it… he got that, and then that’s… whether he’s still alive or not, I don’t know…  that’s it.  The only real… I mean the only family I’ve got is my brother.’
 
`Mmmm… and how old were you when your mother passed on?’
 
`It was only… only five years ago… she was ninety eight.’ [pause]
 
02:50:21:16
 
`A very good age…’
 
`I told her at the grave… I will miss you… but you cheated on me.  I wanted… I wanted that medal… you were to have that medal at a hundred… was out by eighteen months… yeah… [pause].’
 
`And you still miss her?’
 
`Of course you do.  You could have many fathers, but you can only have one mother… and, and I… I was very fortunate… mine was one of the best. Yeah.’
 
02:51:07:20
 
`Did your mother used to visit you in hospital?’
 
`No… she… no… never.  Ummm… ah, wait a minute… oh yes they… she come once.  She was blind, totally blind, as I say… and they… errr… and the hospital arranged… Well, I think they come to see her first, and they said… I think they went… but she said as I am, like this, I can’t get up there and all that… you know, all that there… and I think then… umm… I tell you who done it… now you’ll be surprised that I’ve now got a name come back… you knew… know Dad’s Army?  You know John Le… Le Mesurier …? You got him?  Well his sister used to be a psychiatric welfare officer… right… and it was her, who come to see my mum, and she made arrangements… to… to  get my mother up the hospital to see me… and that, that… was John Le Mesurier’s sister… and… she was a great friend to John Le…. [stutters]…[???] she come from the Channel Islands… she was a great friend of the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth… that was Phyllis Oak [ph]… so… yes, I did meet one or two famous people… yeah…’
 
`Interesting.’
 
`Yeah.’
 
`How did you… so your mother… how did she get around normally?’
 
`Well, I used to bring all the young ones in… you know, the young girls, and boys… married… the married ones… and I used to creep in then… I said here, look… she’s totally blind… umm… the only thing we done was peel the potatoes and put them in the pan… [???]… but she used to do … all the roast beef, roast lamb, cook… put it in the oven, take it out, make a cup of tea… in a pot…’
 
02:53:29:03
 
`For all of… for the whole lot?’
 
`Yeah… and plate it all up… totally blind… [inaudible]… and then…  course,  young couple … ‘you want to see Ted Short’s mother… you want to see the dinners she does… and totally blind, she can’t see a thing… she looks… perfect… better than I could do it’… go on like that…’
 
`So she was extremely capable?’
 
`Yeah… she… see the thing was, what I tried to do was… my mother couldn’t get out… I brought the public to her… I let the public come in to see my mother and our garden, and I proved two things… they come to see my garden, and to see my mother at the same time… and she got… making friends.  `I don’t know what you’re coming round for’, to my mother… ‘come to see that… that garden’… ‘what can you see in that…?’  you know… `oh it’s beautiful Mrs Short’,  you know… that did it…’
 
`So that was good contact for her?’
 
`Of course it was… yes.  But I was told by Pat Stilne [ph], ‘you’d make a bloody good nurse’… me… ‘psychiatric one…’
 
`So you got involved quite a lot with other patients… by the sounds of it?’
 
`Yeah… yeah… Err… Ned… I’ve got a diary here… people [inaudible]… I’ve got Manchester, Aberdeen… was it Aberdeen, Manchester, London… West Country… err… err… ‘bring… bring your bags up for whenever you’d like to stay with us’…’
 
02:54:56:12
 
`And they’re all people that you met…?’
 
`Recently, too…’
 
`Recently…?’
 
`At Tyrwhitt House… I gets… I gets phone calls from them… ‘you all right Ted’, ‘yeah’… ‘Where are you going today?’ ... ‘ Nowhere.’ Oh yeah, I gets lots of phone calls.’
 
`So… you…like you said they said you were a good nurse… what kind of things would you end up… in what ways did you help the other patients?’
 
`I suppose by conversations… I suppose mostly, I talk to them… and… sit let them talk about their troubles and handle that bit… and then… change it round quietly, in the end… to other subjects… like football, boxing, cricket… umm… whatever, you know.  That’s how I used to get on…’
 
`And in those days did they believe in talking as a useful thing?’
 
`Well… on, on… on the new… on this new... on this thing they got… the latest thing they had… was… talk therapy… isn’t it?… I , I was on that when they first started it in St James’s.’
 
02:56:07:08
 
`Is that psychotherapy or talking treatment, or…?’
 
`No, you just talk… you just talk…’
 
`Just talking…?’
 
`You know… whatever… you got to talk about…  They, they did some up at Tyrwhitt House, where I’ve just come from… at that nursing home… they got that… I said I’m not doing no more of that… I’ve already done it… I said… whatever, I said… and… they says… oh, they said, it’s not… it’s not like… compulsory… no, I said, I don’t want to do that no more.  I said I’ve seen enough, I’ve done enough.’
 
`Did you find it helpful though, as opposed to say… when you had the deep sleep treatments and physical treatments?  Did talking help as well?’
 
[both talking together]
 
`Yeah… I think when you talk amongst yourselves… like even talking to you… err… you… you… you’re relieving… the… you do the sort of  [inaudible]… to get it off your… get it out your nut… there’s no doubt about that.  When  you talk about it and… umm… but you do get some patients that incessantly talk about it… you know… and that gets on your uppers… you don’t like saying… you know… ‘forget about it’, ‘cause you can… you know very well they can’t… you know what I mean…? I… you know… I… I… cope, myself… if I… no… no good going to your doctor and saying I’m this, that and the other, you’ve got to do it yourself.  Now I can’t do any physical thing… where before I used to go and dig the garden up… knock myself… sleepy that way… I’m a very bad sleeper… I can’t do that digging up no more because of my… whatever, my disability with my heart and everything, so… you know… I’m dipping out on that, but… when I was up Tyrwhitt House, we have a talk… and all of that… ‘now I’ve got this problem…’ I’m… I’m getting lost, you know, but… when I went to Tyret House they used to take me around in a bath chair and put me on the bus and all that… and they used to push me and I know they wanted me there… ‘Ted, you’ve got to come’… ‘yeah, but I can’t if I can’t walk’, you… you know what I mean.  ‘If I cannot walk’… and I said it when they were pushing me in, in a chair, you’re missing everything yourself that you want to see, but they still took me.  They got the wheelchair out, put it in the van.  In fact… the wheelchair went in first before anybody else did...'’
 
02:58:33:03
 
`What is Tyrwhit… I can’t pronounce it… Tyrwhit House?’
 
`Well, Tywhit House is for… is… for psychiatric pat’… for combat stress… people who have been through the war… not only just the war, and whatever… but a bereavement or something like that… err… you get a lot of Northern Ireland people come back from Northern Ireland… a lot of people coming back from all different… all [inaudible] of war… I’m… I’m sure we get some back from… that Yugoslavia where we are now… [inaudible] … and wars we shouldn’t have got our nose in … to my way of thinking… fighting somebody else’s wars, and they’re not going to come back… those who… they aint going to come back… like that.  Because they soon forget you… this country forgets you.  They’re… they’re [inaudible]… and my disability… which I’ve got a pension for… it’s ridiculous… for all I went through, to get fifty per cent pension…’
 
`So you get a lesser pension than you would have done otherwise, is that right?’
 
`No… when they assess it, I go for a… I don’t do it now, I got a fifty per cent pension.  I appealed against that and he said, no you’re disability… limits you… we need to give you a medical.. you’ve not sort of gone back the way.. you… you… normally… whatever… I had to have a medical in my own home, by a doctor whose retired… Judy… Eighty two years of… age… and what… I tell you why I never got an increase… she went and… has a look in my back garden I said, ‘ I does that for occupational therapy… [pause]… that’s when it gets me.  Able to do that… and… when they closed down psychiatric hospitals… for us people… like war pensioners… it’s a good thing they’ve got places like Tyrwhit House, ‘cause we’d have nowhere to go.  When they closed them down, they never… forgot the war disabled… like with the… psychiatric illness… ‘cause this illness don’t go away… you get your repercussions, you get your bad dreams, you know, you do get depressed at times, you know…’
 
03:00:55:12
 
`Sure…seems unfair though…’
 
`Well you try to tell the… whatever, I don’t care what… you get… you… they’re taking they lump you… A1 and all that… and then you get all mixed up … you sort of get bored…as they come back.  ‘Cause I think mental illness is far worse than losing an arm and a leg… ‘cause you know you’ve lost your arm or you’ve lost your leg… but you… you lost your reason, that’s a different thing.  [pause] That’s the way I look at it.  And… and if anybody had been through psychiatric hospitals, they would say the same… but if you lost your reason… you know…’
 
03:01:38:04
 
`Did you ever imagine that you… that that would happen to you, when you were younger?’
 
 
 
`No… no… I didn’t.  Well, like everybody else,  I mean, you finished up in hospital, you… like… in a… like that… [inaudible]… as I said just now.  That… they… they thought it’s asylum, it’s a nut-house and that’s it.  You’re incurable, that’s it, and you’ll be there forever.’
 
`Did you believe that, about yourself?’
 
`Yeah.  No, I never believed it when I had it… when I got it, I never did think that, but I did believe that if you did go away, when I was a young kiddie…,  that you’d go in and you’d have… you’d be locked up, forever, and that was, you know.  Because that did happen.  You could… the front gates was locked.  All the wards was locked, you know what I mean, in those days.  That’s before the war.’
 
`Were they still locked,  the outside gates when you first went?’
 
`Yeah.  And it had a lodge there… yeah… they had a man at the gate.  Yeah.  And all the… you couldn’t get out the hospital… you… [inaudible] the bloke had … to let you out… you know, with a key.  They had a master key that opened all the doors, yeah… well it’s changed  all over now ... you go in there then got, you, you… whatever… now I does the … observation and… put on a ... what d’you call it, you’d walk in and out, walk round the grounds, go… go out down the road for a cup of tea… pint… and all that… it’s different now.  Which it should be.  But there is… they’re patients who can’t do that… not allowed to do that… you know what I mean.’
 
03:03:28:03
 
`Ok… we’ll take a break there… thank you.’
 
[end of DVCPro tape two]
[start of DVCPro tape three – VHS one continues]
 
03:00:31:17
 
`So Ted, you’ve got a funny anecdote to tell me about St James’s?’
 
`Yeah… I was… errr… errr… I’m going up as a day patient, and I’m sitting in the rest room, you know… patients’ rest room, and… errr…. I went to the confectioner’s shop there…they had the shop there then, and… [pause]… so I put a … I wrote something on this bit of paper… what was it… [pause]… and went like this… [inaudible]… this is to the nurses I’ve done this for them [inaudible]…. and I put this to this senior nurse… senior nursing officer… you know, in mental illness, you get people who… think they’re Napoleon and… Hitlers and all that jazz don’t you… and… I’ll try to get it right.  [pause]… there you go… [pause]… oh, it’s gone right out of my head now… [pause]… I’ll come back to that.’
 
`It’ll come back to you.’
 
`And… [pause]… an… an incident… appertaining to… when you’re hospitalised… in that era… in a… mid forty fives… you know, forties and forty fives… that you had a… you had a billiard room … and everything else you know, and…’
 
`You had the…?’
 
`Errr… a snooker room… and a patient come to me… it’s very true this one as well… said, in those days the snooker balls was made out of ivory and… this patient come up and said, `Edward, what are the… what is them billiard balls made out of?’, I said ‘Ivory aint they?’… `yeah, you’re right…’, he said, `but…’, he said, `you cannot… get snooker balls out of it.’   I said `sure you can’… `you can’t.’, I said well you tell me why… `well he said, they haven’t seen a red elephant yet.’ Think about it.  See the… but the snooker balls… you see snooker on… what are snooker balls made out of, and what colour are they?’
 
`Red’
 
`Got it. They haven’t seen a red elephant yet’ [laughs] You haven’t got that one have you?’
 
`It takes a while… [laughs]’
 
`And I said… [pause]… it goes like this… I’d put a thing on the doors… umm… [pause]… ‘Once upon a time… I knew all your names’, something like that… [pause]… I forgot it… I’ll have to come back, but if I don’t I’ll write it on to you but…’
 
`Ok…yeah…’
 
`But, I’ve… I’ve forgot it for the moment, I get like that… but ummm…’ [pause]
 
03:04:23:07
 
`It sounds like you had quite a bit of fun… banter between staff and patients, is that…or most of the patients?’
 
`Oh yeah… umm… this is not many years ago… I would say about six or seven years ago and… and… I think I mentioned this before… I’m not sure… but… getting… getting in the window… the little top window, nearly knocked the telly over, but… the nurse drove me home that morning… not night… and… then… they informed my keyworker, ‘that Ted has errr… not broken out, but he’s broke in’… and he said… told him… they said, ‘how he got through that window we do not know’… said… Pat said, my keyworker said, `that’s my man…’, so… because… in my… for the love of my fellow man, and… or persons, that the mental illnesses are very… [pause] errr… with patients being very ill and this, that and the other… there’s, you get a lot of humour amongst patients… umm… similar to servicemen get esprit de corps… you… you bond.   Err… a statement was made at me, and Tyrwhit House…I was there, three weeks ago… we all had to go home to our different places in London, and Scotland, and… and… there was seven of us, who palled up.  I wasn’t very well at the time with  my physical illness with my leg trouble… and… one… one patient came round and said, ‘there’s only seven of us…. `ain’t it marvellous we gel’d… together… all pals…’ whatever.  We went to Hastings… Royal Naval Club… and… they entertained us… as war veterans… or war patients.  They had a standard… they wanted a standard for their… branch, they couldn’t  afford it… and, so I started it off… put £2 pound in the jug which I got off the landlord… and collected £105 pound to help buy a standard, and a standard costs over a thousand pounds…’
 
`To help buy a what, sorry…?’
 
`A standard… you know, a standard?  With a  plaque on it… a standard…’
`Right.’
 
`And… ‘
 
03:07:33
 
`Where was that going to be for?’
 
`That’s… that’s for the Royal Naval Association… and they wanted a standard for the branch, and they couldn’t afford it, themselves… to buy it, so they went into individuals… to put so much in, but I went round with a… with a mug and collected a hundred and odd pound, and that was that… and…. by doing that… the… the other things… the… Chairman came in and… offered us a membership… life membership to all those that was there at the time, to go in and out that club, without paying any money or… entrance… and… I thought that was… err… very, very nice of him, to do that… and his… members and… staff… err… Knowing the fact that… that we were all war patients… war patients in different nature and different disabilities and… and different… attitudes… what I found was that you… whether you’re Royal Air Force, Army, or Royal Navy… you found that esprit de corps, all that comradeship… still exists… and that only can happen to trained men… of the services.  And although… although the war had been over… the second world war had been over… I… I found that comradeship… and… espirit du corps still exists amongst us… and I must pay a special tribute to… Tyrwhit House.’
 
`Can you explain what Tyrwhit House is, please…?’
`Tyret House is for… it’s for… combat stress.  People either in war or out of war… got stressed, been through stress and have nervous breakdowns, and… you are allowed six weeks a year, rehabilitation.’
 
03:09:57:16
 
`When did you first start going there?’
 
`I first started going there… I would say about… nineteen… nineteen eighty nine… or near enough, and how I came there… I had a major operation and I was… ministry of pensions  got hold of these people and they… and that’s how I came there to the war pensions… and you go there for six weeks every year.  You get either two or three weeks, or… or two or three weeks… or one four and one two… but you have six weeks a year… to give you a different… outlook on life, and different surroundings and all that… and I came to say that… Tyrwhit House… as a nursing home… it’s a… sort of holiday thing.  The staff is excellent, and… you… you get… all your food… and… accommodation, free, you don’t pay a thing… but they go… it’s nothing to do with any government, it’s staffed by public funds… by pri. . .private donations etc. and… I want to let it known that… ummm.. that is a… they don’t have to be psychiatric… it can be any illness… you can go there for a rest… and… as I said, I hope people who… whoever listens or views this video… that Tyret House needs money, because its run by public donations… it’s not run by any government, by other… and seeing that the hospitals are… is… hospitals are closing down… us patients… are very appreciable… to … umm… a nice place to go to, and the… hard work the nursing profession puts in there… and the ancillary staff… and… that’s what I’ve got to say.’
 
03:12:27:07
 
`What’s the best thing about going there… what… what sort of things do they have on offer?’
 
`Well you go…’
 
`What help can they give you?’
 
`Unfortunately now… owing to… the money’s not coming into… combat stress… you… you… you used to get trips to Holland… trips to London… trips… all over… but they cannot do that now because… the… society, Combat Stress… haven’t got the money to do it, and… so they have cut backs.  So… so… so you’re outgoing part of Tyrwhit House is cut right back, and err… a lot of people will miss their little trips out, wherever it is, London… whatever… or days out or… owing to the… owing to the lack of funds, they are on a tight reign, and… they’re just going to have to…’
 
`And how is it different to what say, you might get if you went for a stay in a hospital… what’s different about Tyrwhit House?’
 
`Well Tyrwhit House is not a… it’s not… it’s… it is for war patients… it is… they mostly deal with psychiatric, but it’s not wholly and truly… what’s different with Tyrwhit House to a hospital… you’ve got no doctors on the premises.  If you were taken ill physically, you… they send in the doctor or you go to a doctor.  Ummm… you’ve only got… one psychiatrist, and he visits you every time you visit, he… he… he looks at you, but you’re only in there for about twenty minutes, quarter of an hour… it’s… he would help you in any domestic trouble… or write to people for… you know… if you got any financial or… problems… housing, whatever… he’d get your welfare officer… and… for people who… who can’t cope, and unable to do it… the welfare officer will do it if you give him the information.  It’s… it’s a good society.’
 
03:15:01:09
 
`So what kind of backgrounds have the people got that work at Tyrwhit House?’
 
`Well… you… the head of home…. the head of home is a qualified charge nurse.  The night nurse is a qualified charge nurse, or sister.  You’ve got… now you’ve got all staff… it’s got… in Tyrwhit House… all qualified nurses, but then you’ve got also, carers… they are not qualified.  They only help you to make your bed if you can’t do it, or various other things… or keep an eye on you… if you’re not well, and they report that back… to the nursing profession… whether it’s the charge nurse or staff nurse… whichever is on duty.  You’ve got plenty of freedom.  You’ve got a lot of love and a lot of care.  Understanding… and I think I’ve said it all, really.’
 
 
03:16:09:09
 
`Do you meet up with… do you meet the same people when you go there… do you meet up with old friends when you go there?’
 
`No… you… you… err… they… each month… or… each fortnight, there’s thirty one members… new members get there, so every… every fortnight, it gets thirty one new members.  That carries right on through the year.  If you’re lonely, if you live on your own… you, you… they invite you up there for Christmas or something like that, so… that’s if you’re on your own, or you’ve got no… nobody… if you’re on your own.’
 
`Do you live on your own?’
 
`No, not really, I don’t live on my own.  The home I’ve got is… I’ve got a brother who’s… not very well… and I can do everything myself… shopping, and the lot… everything… whatever… everything… I’ve got to do it. And he’s not err, ... unable to do it, so… err… I… although it gets me down, but I don’t want to.. because I can’t walk, it’s all taxis I’ve got to get… I can’t walk from A to B… so it’s costing money for me to do this and that and the other… and… it comes to a little bit too much for me… but… there it is… if you sit down on your backside… and… so you’ve got to get up and try and do it.’
 
Did you ever find the transition, from when you were in and out of hospital… did you… how did you find the transition from having things done for you, like having meals provided and so on, and not having to handle money…how was the transition when you then went back home in between?’
 
`When I… when I was in hospital… there was different things like… in hospital… when it started first of all … they did… they did provide meals for you… that’s a breakfast, lunch and supper, whatever… that was provided… that’s something they always did … and… its not so good now, because you’ve got day patients… one day patient whatever… you pay for your meals now.  If… if you’ve got money enough.  But if you’re on social security, err… it works out about £1.50 a meal.  That’s…’
 
03:18:55:23
 
`Did you ever find it… the transition difficult, from say, having the meals provided, to going home and having to go and shop and cook for yourself?’
 
`Not… not for me personally, because… not for me personally because… I was trained to cook in the… [inaudible] and Royal Navy… and… various things… I… I was able to grow my own stuff… or… I had no problem with that… I was… I could cook my own meals… from soup, savoury entrée [laughs]…’
 
`Good range…’
 
`Eh?’
 
`A good range…’
 
`Yeah… yeah…’
 
`So you didn’t find any… ordinary things particularly difficult, handling the money and…?’
 
`Yeah… I didn’t but you might find that… err… other patients in my… in their capacity… not able to do that… it’s all… varies as the gravity of illness… you’ve got… the… err… before… if you can cope alone, or anything at all, you got… your… your nurse is there… you… they would see that before you leave that hospital, that you‘ve got somebody to look after you, if you’re not capable on your own.. that’s all done, they do the social security for you… I never had a problem… but very fortunately… err… I haven’t called on social for… umm… any help whatsoever… and… not even for money wise.  The only people that ever come to see me was the Royal Navy, so I’ve got to thank them for… different things they’ve helped me out in my life…umm… whatever, which they did… money and physically… that’s… I mean you’re not drawing any money, not working, all that… and you’d got things to pay and… and… the… they… your carer, whoever it is, your nurse or doctor, writes to the Association, and they comes round and… they’ve helped me… tremendously…’
 
03:21:29:12
 
`We were talking a bit earlier about… your earlier… I’m thinking of education, you mentioned… you touched on it just now…’
 
`Yeah… the… umm… I’m thinking… it’s coming back, little bits… how much I’ve forgotten to tell you… that… well my brother was a very good sportsman.  I’m… an average sportsmen… and he… he was top, in all his… other education, he was a very clever boy… but I had to do different things of… of going to do the shopping and do other chores… I missed out on my education… going to get my mother from… the bus stop and… take her back, whatever… I dipped out on that.  And the most education I ever done, when I joined the Royal Navy, I… I lacked a bit on education… and so… I went to see my superior officer… so I went to school when I joined the Navy.’
 
`And what did they teach you there?’
 
`Not much.  Umm… oh yeah.. they’d… when I say not much… they, they learned you… I could spell, read and write… umm… I ... it’s still now… its difficult for me… to… to put down on paper… but orally… I think… I try to… I try to do my best… like this interview I’m having now… I’ll try to put things in its right perspective… genuality [???] and truthful…’
 
`And when you were a young boy, would you have gone to the library, anything like that?’
 
`No… no, no… umm… funny thing… funny thing you say that… that even on my botany and my gardening, I never went to a public libarary to read a book… and the simple reason was… I… I’m a very short sighted man, and… and… when I joined the Navy it wasn’t so bad, but I got through it… but to give you an incidence… we… we were coming through the Bay of Biscay, during the war… and… I… I thought, at that time… a group of us on the quarter deck, and I looked… looked on the… errr. Starboard side… and I thought I’d seen a submarine periscope… but it wasn’t… there was something…different… and… I was called to see the commander.  He said, ‘you never made a mistake… it was a… a dolphin’, whatever, ‘a fish’… he said, ‘I’d rather you shout that, than not at all, ‘cause there could have been a submarine’.  That’s how bad my sight was… and… we were there [inaudible]… and Lieutenant Commander Martin [ph]… now he was the… Sargeant Commander.  Sargeant Commander, Lieutenant Commander, he sent me up to… Europa point… and, ‘come back with a pair of glasses’, and… Woodruffe [ph] which was the Commander at the time… and I served him a drink in the boardroom… he said, `if I see them glasses off… your face, Mr Short… or Ted… you know, steward Short… then you will be in the ... rattle.’  So as regards of… writing… it wasn’t the case… and I was… and when I used to write I always… you know… even when I wrote to my wife… there was always one… you know… [inaudible]…  Yeah… you know at that time . . .’
 
03:25:46:11
 
`Did you have any kind of a religious upbringing? Have you read the Bible or anything…’
 
`Well… I went to Sunday School, and my brother… my brother and I… he went mad at Sunday School… he won more prizes than me… on the Bible… but I won more prizes than him on gardening.  Unfortunately for him, the brains my brother had and the eudcation he had, which was very, very good… he never used it.  But the limited  education I had… was by self learning… I used it to my full capacity … and that’s… I didn’t have to go to… any library to read books, I was self taught.  I’d go and look at peoples’ gardening, I would go and ask people who were older than me… who done gardening longer than me… and I don’t know nothing about Latin… in Latin… I call a spade, a spade.  There’s only… err.. I, I… I call a  wallflower a wallflower… and a primrose, a primrose… I forget about them…all you’ve got to learn about gardening… the time of year you put it in… and if you want to keep with the wallflower, just give it… forget the… the Latin… the Greek name… it don’t do you any good anyway.  I leave that… I leave that to the lads… the Greeks…’
 
[pause]
 
03:27:24:13
 
`I was wondering whether you’d be able to take me through… a journey perhaps, through the hospital…?  Do you remember we were talking about the locked gates…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Just before we broke…?’
 
`Well… when…’
 
`If you take me through, sort of… a journey through’
 
[both talking together]
 
`When I was… when there was… locked… they locked gates... and you had.. you had the… the… err… you had… a…. a… the doors were locked… you had… and you have to… then had to come through a wicked [ph???] gate… with… with the man on the gate… to get in… even when you’d got to enter, after… you had to come that way, and that gate was locked all day.  Err… apart from the little entry gate.  All the wards was locked.  There was no way, you’d get in that hospital region… it  was all… big iron gates, you know.’
 
`So once you’d come through the main gate, where would you… where would that lead you to then? If you were outside the building..?’
 
`Well then you had… you got… you had to go in… in a circular door… you know, a revolving door, type of thing.  And… you’d go through that way, but when they got you, you, the doctor met you on the ward… whatever… and they knew what time you come in there, and that old… chap on the door would inform the ward… and then a nurse would come and get you or the… who’s ever in charge come and get you, and then he’d take you into your ward, unlock the ward, and let you in… and that’s… and then you just… you’d stay there until… you know, they let you out into another ward.’
 
03:29:00:22
 
`Can you remember anything about the… decoration of the ward, or your first impressions?’
 
`Err…?’
 
`… of the ward?  Of the corridor…?’
 
`Umm… [pause]… there is a word for it… umm… very depressing… the wards was.  Err… they did find out about thirty years later that different painting would make a restful… [inaudible]… on the mind… so they, they repainted different wards up, in different colours and colour schemes… they found out in the end… but those days you went straight into a ward that’s… [pause] Unless you, see it you, you couldn’t believe it, it was…’
 
`What would you see… what would I see if you… if you could take me back there now, what would I be… confronted with… what would I see?’
 
`You… you would see… you’d see wooden floors, for a start off.  You wouldn’t see no nice lino lay and that… and… everything that you know… you… if you was in a ward you had to work really… you know, whatever… you had to do your own washing up… and… floors… make your own beds if you could… if you were able… err… because if you didn’t do anything they wouldn’t let you go out, because you’re not helping yourself.  It’s… if you don’t make beds, if you don’t… err… clean the ward up… if you can’t do that they can’t… won’t let you out… you.. .you’ve got to do something… and… also, they used to allow you cigarettes at a time… free… if you didn’t do work on the ward, you didn’t get no cigarettes..’
 
`So how did you get the cigarettes? Did you..?’
`By working… I did.’
 
`So how did that work out… how many cigarettes did you get… for how much work…?’
 
`Ten a week.  On a little roll… you roll them round, yeah…’
 
`And would you get them one by one, or would you get a packet at the end of it?’
 
`You’d get a packet.  They were mainly woodbines…’
 
03:31:03:15
 
`Were there any other sort of rewards systems… was there any money paid… for the work, or… tokens…?’
 
`If you… if, if, if you worked… later on if you worked… in the greenhouses or anything like that, umm… you did get… you did get recompense… err… I think it was about six pound a week.’
 
`And that was paid in cash?’
 
`Well you’d go up to the bank and get it from the… like the hospital bank and get it… or if you don’t draw it… didn’t draw it… like in my case… they sent it on to me and I refused it at the time.’
 
`And was it… if you went into hospital, say with a sum of money… would you have kept that on you to use when you liked?’
 
`Oh no…no… if you got a large amount of money, they would get… two people… they’d take it off you, and they’d put it… log it… they’d take you to the bank and put it in their bank… and if you’d got to get anything out of that bank, you’d got to go to the ward sister, and get it changed… a nurse would come with you to get it.  But you was… it was only a limited… certain amount of money to take out…’
 
`So even if you had more in, you were only allowed to take out a small amount?’
 
`Oh yeah… even then when you had your… all your pensions and all that, or… whatever… they… you had to go to the Post Office… down there across the road, and the nurse had to take you on the bus… to draw your money… but once you’d drawn your money, you put it in the… the bank, to safeguard your money.’
 
`What would have happened to it otherwise?’
 
`Well, you’d keep it in your pocket, and somebody would… steal it.  And then.. that’s… that’s how they’re safeguarding you… or you might live… mislaid it yourself… you… if you had the treatment, the electrical treatment… you.. you would forget.  You wouldn’t know…  your… your own name and that… you wouldn’t know who you are.’
 
 
03:33:08:15
 
`Mmm.. and what sort of things did the hospital shop sell?’
 
`Well in my era I think St James’s had one of the nicer, err… you’d get… at that time, you’d get your cigarettes and all that… and matches and all that… but latterly they stopped all that… in all hospitals, not only psychiatric hospitals, because the smoking… and cancer… and what have you… and even the wards… you weren’t allowed… the wards… they had their own smoking areas you know, and all that… this has changed… even now…  You’d no… no smoking on the wards.  You got… if you’d got to smoke they’d… they’d take you.. got a special area where you… each ward has got a special area, where you could smoke… you don’t contaminate any of the other patients.’
 
`Is that something that’s changed over the years from…?’
 
`Oh yeah…’
 
`…say the forties or fifites?’
 
`I smoked like a trouper in… in the old days… you know…’
 
03:34:02:08
 
`Did you get… could you drink as well there?’
 
`No… not… not in the first time… in the early days, no you didn’t… but later… when it came under… come under… when you were allowed to go out, they… they, they… oh didn’t go… excessive… you… you… they didn’t mind… they didn’t mind you going out of a night time, and have a pint.  They didn’t mind you going out during the day, having a pint… but they… it’s all according to… what patient you are.  If you were alcoholic… no way.  You know… they knew that… err… they wouldn’t let you out, unless you were with one of them [???]… you know what I mean… and they never written down… oh, it was accommodated…’
 
`Were you ever… were you always a voluntary patient?’
 
`Yeah.  Never… oh… I… I know… in the last year my way of thinking… they were… I know you can get sectioned… [pause]’
 
`Was there quite a difference between…?’
 
`Yeah’
 
`…you know, being sectioned or being voluntary in terms of what you were allowed to do?’
 
`If you were sectioned, you don’t go out… there’s certain things you can do and all that… you come under… you’re sectioned… you come under the Home Office.  You see.’
 
`But you never had that happen?’
 
`No, never… [inaudible] [both talking together]’.
 
`So you… uh, huh’ [pause] `You felt free to leave whenever you wanted?’
 
`As a voluntary patient you… yeah… you were allowed to leave.’
 
[pause]
 
`Did you ever hear anything from anybody else, if they tried to appeal against their section?  Have you ever heard any stories, around that?’
 
`Not in my era… if, if you was sectioned… sectioned… they’d generally send you…err… to another hospital… like Park Royal… they did, in Hampshire… if you’re sectioned… and when you got… sort of… whatever your disability is… to the patient… they used to send them back to the hospital to their…’
 
03:36:17:12
 
`So at St James’s the majority were voluntary, in your time?’
 
`No…’
 
`No?’
 
 `No I wouldn’t say that, no.  There was… there was a lot of… patients was… and they were very severe cases… but… St James’s had had a psychiatric unit for nervous breakdowns, but then you had… for… for the insane… for people who were schizophrenics… paranoid jobs… who… they was on different wards… but on the observation time, you… when they done… you’re put in one ward and they’d do… do the observation then, suss you out, and then… put you on what ward they… see… it would be nice at.’
 
03:36:58:12
 
`Can you remember the names of any of the wards or villas there?’
 
`Yeah.   Can’t forget it.’
 
`Tell me a few’
 
`Umm… Dr…. errr.. Beeton ward [ph]… err… a [inaudible]… Solent ward once home to ... um .. villa … ummm… see… and… then they had the villas… they had lovely villas… there was about thirty lived in a villa… and they were self contained in the hospital… you had… all… there was no tinned food… it was all fresh veg… from the farms… and whatever, all greenish stuff… cucumbers and lettuce… tomatoes and all that… had their own pigs… and then, you eat your own bacon, ham and all… whatever, yeah...’
 
`And that’s different to what you would have got on the wards, is it?’
`No.. you get that on the ward… no, you get it on the ward… but last time… later on in years, that… in the hospitals… they, they never done that.  You know, there was no… errr… brought more tin opener things [laughs]… and pull the plug, that’s what they did do, you know…’
 
`So the food became more and more processed and...?’
 
`Yeah… yeah… yeah’
 
03:38:22:04
 
`Do you recall anything about how medication was… given out?’
 
`Well… medication there… you’d see… see the doctor in there… and that was getting… about the, the… the main… like your treatments [inaudible]… ECT… [inaudible]… the only time I had that… about thirty lots of it… over a while… more than that… you had… I had ECT straight… you… you didn’t know much about that, but you… I see… I… err… in, in these wards… on one ward then, we done the… given the treatment ... you looked at it for a while… two or three weeks, then you had to have it… that wasn’t very nice.  But then… as there’d got to be… sleep treatment, that’s… intra… intramuscular, or intravenous… you had that… narcosis treatment… and… I had… modified insulin, deep insulin, narcosis treatments, modified narcosis… deep… narcosis… you had all that, and that was given you by an nurse… and, and you… you… you didn’t know what you were doing, you was out.  You… you were on the big sleep, and that was it…’
 
03:39:47:20
 
`And when major tranquillisers came in, probably around the 1950’s…’
 
[both talking together]
 
`The only… the only tablet… I ever had… in, in the hospital… was two tablets actually… I had… was Pheno’ ... Phenobarb… and Dalmane…’
 
`What was that one?’
 
`Dalmane… they called it… D.a.l.m.. I don’t know, something like that… Dalmane… you know, and that’s the only two tablets I ever had in that hospital… and… I had them… I had.. had the other type of …of… with the needle, you know… that’s what I had, and ECT… you had… I never had the needle for that, they give you it straight then… when I had… in those days… it’s different now…’ [pause]
 
`Going back to a journey through the hospital… what other areas would you have come across… you know, thinking of the grounds as a whole?’
 
`Err… as regards to the grounds… St James’s was very restful grounds… one of the finest grounds you could get… as… as a hospital really… I mean… err… you, you had the sea water around you go up to… the harbour… [inaudible] harbour… you’d go for walks along the canal and all that jazz… and… oh, they take you… oh, they… if you weren’t well enough they would take you on the front… a bit like.. you know, like Southsea front or something like that.  I never went on them… gardens, I didn’t want toi see … any water… you know what I mean… I had , err... being them days … I didn’t want to know… you can take me out into the country and look at the… look at the condors, I love that, yeah… not on the sea.’
 
`You’ve had enough of the sea?’
 
`Yeah.. I’ve had enough like…’
 
`So… you built up the gardening, didn’t you?’
 
`Yeah’
 
`During the times that you were in and out of the hospital?’
 
`Yeah… well that was… I think that was how I… I done that… and done it well… in hospital, and I come out… and… I done it on my own, gardening then… as I said earlier on the tape before, that… umm… they took a photagraph of it, and the story behind that… the… I got a job out of it… I was head gardener for Fraser Gallery range… and… so… I, I thought… at the end of it… I thought… I always thought pretty well of… you know, I finished up with a job, good money and everything, and… and I stayed there until they closed her down, really… and then… I was transferred to…’
 
03:42:49:01
 
`That was when you were working for the Navy?’
 
`Yeah… and they transferred me to… on Ballerford [ph] as a reserve fleet… [pause] then… I, I met a man there, he… was a service man… and… being a… being in that branch, and not the stores branch, I was in the… what do you call it… the… err supplies secretarial branch… so they put me in for a storekeeper.  Well I finished up on… on… Ballerford [ph]… as a… a civilian, as head storekeeper of that… and… as you questioned me before, I said, I haven’t got a bad memory, but I had a servant chief… and … I could go through the rate book… he had to go and look up a thing in the rate book… he… he said… about… Chief [inaudible]… his name was… he was in a paper shop… at my… near my home, New Guinea [ph???]… and apparently he’s still serving… he said, `there’s nothing wrong with Ted’… he said, `I served in the Navy… as a soldier… like a chief steward… a chief storeman… [inaudible] like… he said, `he.. he never had a look at a rate book…`, he said, `he could memorise every number`, you know, like what I did do… and I… I’ll never forget… that’s what I did do… and… when… err.. last year, I went to the guns crew.  The Portsmouth  [ph??]command gun screw…’
 
`Where’s that?’
 
`Portsmouth  [ph??] command… they had… at Earl’s Court… the… `Portsmouth  [ph??] Command… was going in there… going in for the guns crew… and you never heard of it? … well the guns crew… they go… the gun carriage, it goes over the… over the stage they got to pull ‘em all up together and receive that…[???]   Well… I was at Earl’s Court and… this… this Wren…’
 
03:45:04:07
 
`When would this have been?’
 
`Last year… and they seen my tie and… and said… `Are you Portsmouth  [ph??] Division?`, I said `I was years ago, not now…’ to this Wren… She said `you’d better come in the Mess and have a drink with us then.’  So we went in… and where I sat, we was all… stores… so `what was you in there?’, I told them… I done stores… when I went out… he said, `you’re brilliant’… he said, ‘we… all… all ours is on computer’… I said, `I do know’… so, yeah… so… that came to that then… so I haven’t got a bad memory…and that… you know really…’
 
`That sounds like a good memory’
`Yeah.’
 
`Can we break a sec…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
 
 
`Can you hang on a sec?’
 
`So you were quite well known for your gardening Ted, around Portsmouth… what sort of prizes have you won?’
 
`Oh… umm… certific’… oh, well… I had… when I first entered… I first entered the… whatever… the second and third’s like… and that… then… and then… that went to first, exemplary and whatever, and then… to silver, gold and all that jazz, you know.’
 
03:46:31:11
 
`And what competitions would they have been?’
 
`That’s… that’s… like… err… here and nationally, you know… really… and… as I was going to… but in this big country ... whatever… and… I ordered up this drink, in the Countryman… this pub… and… the landlord said, `I’ll get that’, I said, `I don’t know you, you taken over the pub like?`, he said, he just knew me… you know… `do you remember me?’, I said `no’… well, he went upstairs and he come down… and brought this photograph down of my garden, right ?… it come second… and he took the photograph of the [inaudible] cannon too … when it caught fire… so I had first and second… see … and he said, `you remember that? That’s you isn’t it?’… `yeah’, I said, `how did you get that?’… `I was the photographer… on board the ...’
 
`Ohh…’
 
`….. [inaudible]… and I… I was only out there for a day… he… and I stayed for a week.  He… he… he fed me and… give me drinks and all that… and… you know, I could have stayed longer… I… I… I wouldn’t do it in the end… the… I… I… I said `no, I…. let me buy the drink…’, and I couldn’t do that ‘cause I felt uncomfortable with it… but that’s what happened, so that, yeah ...’
 
`So It’s taken you all sorts of places…the gardening, hasn’t it?’
 
`Oh yeah… yes…’
 
03:48:06:02
 
`What sort of people have you met via winning the prizes?’
 
`Oh… err.. Duchess of Kent… and Prince Phillip.  I’m not much for… Duchess of Kent, yes… because I spoke to the Duchess of Kent… I thought I’d brought them actually, but I don’t think I have… but you can have a look through in a minute and see if I have…’
 
`When did you meet her?’
 
`I met the Duchess of Kent… twice I met her in the last three years… and… she’s very, very concerned, about mentally handicapped… very, very… err… she… she… the… she… she liked the… she… don’t discard the physical one… but she seems to switch on to the mentally handicapped because… but, I expect you know… really handicapped… the mentally handicapped… she was great with them, you know… the Down’s Syndrome people and whatever… and she would… she’s magic.  Now… I’m not right to run the Royalty down… umm… I wasn’t a Diana man, really… ummm… I’d rather have the Queen… and the Ki… the Queen, than a President, understand that.  But there’s too many people in the Royalty, who’s hangers on.  You get people like the Duchess of Kent… and the Duke of Kent… they… they seem to be more… genuine… for the… like, you take Prince Charles… I… umm… I’m not against him as a person… now, I… I know he’s ex-Navy and whatever, and Andrew and all that… I’ve… yeah… but the people who do work, is like the Duchess of Kent… I have very little time for… Margaret… you know… umm… I mean… as you know ... you must of read the papers ... was a big let down in the end, wasn’t it?  in a way… with this… fiasco with the Royal Family… umm… the Queen Mum… alright on the surface… Scottish, Glamis [ph]… and all that… nice person… but… when… when I went to Bucky… Buckingham Palace…’
 
03:51:05:14
 
`Why did you go… how did you end up being at Buckingham Palace?’
 
`Well, we went for the… for the war disabled, see… you got the invite from the… from Buckingham Palace… I got it through… what was it… `Lest We Forget’… there’s a big society… Lest We Forget… and they write to you say, ‘you… err… we…are you interested to go to Buckingham Palace…?’ this, that and the other… and I’ve been twice… and… there’s nothing for you… you… [pause] you give more than they did… tea and biscuits… all you get is a cup of tea… you don’t get… there’s no… nothing else… there’s so many people there… people like the show business people, they talk because they’ve been to Buckingham Palace and… [inaudible]… Royalty’s concerned… and that’s always the case isn’t it?.  I’m trying to think of that comedian… oh… I had a photograph of him… and… Linda Lusardi, and… I had… I’ve got photographs of her… somewhere… and…they’re in there somewhere.’
 
`Which member of Royalty did you meet when you went to Buckingham Palace?’
 
`Oh… oh… you… when I went Clarence House [???] I seen the Duchess of Kent… at Buckingham Palace I seen the Duchess of Kent… but you never saw, like the Queen or… she’s at Balmoral or somewhere like that, you know… it was… I think she had to… she never pushed the boat out, put it that way.’
 
`You also had opportunities when you met various Lord Mayors, is that right?’
 
`Oh yes… umm..’
 
`In connection with your gardening?’
 
`Oh yeah… umm… it… it… it was on record that… the corporation… well mine was called the corporation, that belonged to the City Council… and the best kept gardens… and all this, that and the other… I entered it… and I… I was fed up winning it, but they still come down.  Now Phyllis Lowe [ph], she was Lord Mayor… she was Matron of St James’s… I had them all… all the lot… but I never done it for me.  I done it for… the mentally ill.  ‘That’s how I was taught at St James’s Hospital, I done this… they got me a job’… umm… you know, whatever… I would put them.. which was correctly done… put them… put the public in position, it’s an excellent hospital… if they can do that to me, they can do it to other people can’t they?  That’s how I looked at it.’
 
03:54:05:20
 
`So you wanted to really help promote the hospital…is that right?’
 
`Psychiatric nursing.  There’s no difference between St James’s and Warnecliff [ph] in Sheffield… or Collairne [ph] in Scotland, or… Garlochnatosh [ph] in Scotland.  It’s the nursing… the quality of nursing, and the care.  But unfortunately, now with this… cut backs, you’re not getting the… the patients are living outside and they’ve got community care, and there’s not enough nurses to go round…community nurses to go round ... and especially you, you’ve got people that lives in high rise flats and… the… nurses… the hosp… well, they had a lecture in the Guildhall… and Pat, that’s my… keyworker… she’s top in her field… and I got up … I spoke.  I said, `you never give you nurses enough chance… to… put us in community`… I said, ‘… as myself`’, I said, `I’ve got my own place. I’m happy with that’, I said, `but there’s other people who haven’t got any place to live, and..’ I said, `you have to get a doc… get a doctor for them.. you have to get bedding and… furniture… and they had to do that, in a couple of weeks.’ I said, `the government … switched over too quick.’
 
03:55:38:13
 
`So when did the hospital shut…?’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`…sort of the beginning of…?’
 
`It’s not only St James’s, it’s all right through the United Kingdom.  You know.’
 
03:55:45:12
 
`Did you agree with principle of community care?’
 
`No.  Never did.  No.  Because… if you… you was in hospital with a… whatever… my age… elderly… they keep an eye on you.  They can’t do when you’re on your own out… in Talbot road … can they?  They can’t do it… and… and… the nursing profession… I spoke to … and that’s top of the field… says the same as me.  They’d have done far better to put these elderly people… in little houses in St James’s… or other hospitals like it… to be looked after… and be kept an eye on, mentally and physically.. on these patients.  They haven’t got cars to run down Southsea or… Cossham [ph]… like that.  They haven’t got the time.  Now… that’s not the same…’
 
03:56:59:13
 
`So do you know what became of some of the people that were in hospital for a long time, the [inaudible]? [both talking together].
 
`Well… they was… Day Centres, they went in.  They put them in Day Centres… that’s what happened.  They put me in a Day Centre… and… Pat had gone back in to the hospital, so I lost her… ‘cause they put her back into the hospital… and they found …a new one… and they put me in a Day Centre… oh…and the chap who was in charge of this Day Centre, I knew… he… he… I remember him, like them coloured people, who come to the hospital… he was only a boy about eighteen.  `What’s wrong Ted?’  I said `I’ll tell you what’s wrong… I’m not staying here’. `All due respect’, I said, ‘to the patients concerned , … who suffer Alzheimer’s disease… and… who… really sick people… but with my type of illness, I get more depressed in here, than ever’.  `Anyway’, I said, `I think young… and I’m old.  But I don’t think I’m old’.  And he agreed with me. `No’, he said, `I knew that… I knew that, Ted’… and… and I told the hospital that, and they, `it wasn’t your scene’… `oh, we knew that...’ and it wasn’t.  They don’t see it… they don’t see it. You’re sitting in that… all, you do is sit in that Day Centre, they got the telly on, nobody’s looking at it… got wireless on, nobody listen to it… they degenerated… geriatric… umm… err… mentally ill patients.  It’s not good if you… if you’re a little bit switched on.  You go round… you, you go round the Oliver… and that means Oliver Twist… go round the bend.  That’s the way I think about it.’
 
 
 
03:59:04:09
 
`And when… when did that Day Centre begin?  Was that in the nineties?’
 
`Oh… about three years ago… I… I… I remember I was in there… I was under err ...[inaudible]…and they said to… this nurse came out, a Spanish girl… ‘Hello Hilda’ or something like that… ‘it’s your birthday’… `is it?’… `yeah, it’s your birthday’… So I thought to myself or whatever… I said… to the nurse, I said `Is it her birthday?’, `yeah’, so what happened… I went up the shop, got her a card, ‘to Hilda’ … she didn’t have one.  `To the woman I love` and a box of chocolates… and… I just give it her, and this nurse looked at me… made her happy didn’t it? … and… that type of thing… but… and I said to her, I said, `I’m not coming back… not to this Day Centre’…’
 
`It would have been too boring and…?’
 
`Oh yeah… yeah… I was bored.  I was… terrible.  And they were filling it with sick people, mentally... and physically.  But… but the… the sick people… young mentally as well… and I felt sorry for them, and there was no way I was going to get myself ill or depressed, you know… and… whatever… and… my, my Pat… you know… Pat Steer [ph] … see I knew that.’
 
 
 
`Why do they send me up there?’, she… I said… `well’, I said…`I…’, so she kept telling ...  She looked after young people.  Not only that… but if she never had a nurse, free… right… she used to get a… not a nurse, a carer… and… they… the patient… when they were going for a day trip, she used to ring me up.  `Are you free today, Ted?… ‘well, I’ve got no nurses to go on the wagon…’, and I had to go out and be the doctor… whatever, you know what I mean, and… all that.  But I will tell you this one.  I play the bones you know… you know the bones?… and we were going down to… Salisbury… and this… one of the patients got a mouth organ… so… can’t play it… Bill.  We jumps off… said, ‘where can we park the wagon?’… dropped in at that police station, and when I see the Sergeant I said, `err.. patients of the St James’s Hospital, Portsmouth’, but…where’s a nice place we can go?’  `Salisbury Cathedral…’.  `Hang on a minute…’, policeman… whatever… ‘just park it in the police station.’  Right?’
 
`Were you in a minibus or something?’
 
`In a minibus… they all comes off the minibus… so… the girl said, who I was with, looking after the patients, with…with me…`I’m going to take them to Salisbury Cathedral’, I said `all right then.’  So two or three others… wanted to come with me, so we gets down to this [pause]… in Salisbury… it was a hotel like… where they… years ago they… where the horses, like went in… and there was a bloke playing a mouth organ… and… whatever… and… I started plonking on the bones… and started playing the bones.  He said, `you’re good at them’… [inaudible]… but my mouth organ’s no good, and I said to Bill, `give me your mouth organ’… gives it to him, to Bill… and he starts playing.  Getting the Ferryboat, then South of the Border… err… Woodpecker song… Tango jealousy … this, that and the other… and the money’s coming in… I got my… hat down… my hat… he got his hat down… and after we stopped, there was fifty pence pieces and pound coins were in there … he lifted my hat up, I said, `what are you doing with that?’.  He said, `that’s mine’… `not all the time I’m here, it ain’t`… I said `that’s mine, that’s your hat…’, I got the bones, you got the mouth organ.’  `Well I’ll have that mouth organ back’, so I give him his mouth organ back, so and then… before I went, I said, ‘come on’ come over with me… and give us a pint of shandy each in a pub.  Then we went in the fish and chip shop and I bought us fish and chips supper… with the money. [both laugh].  That’s how all that happened, all that type of thing, … and all that …’
 
`Quite a talented musician?’
 
`Well, not bad, and… and… they put on the noticeboard… oh, what was it… Billy Butlin [laughs] of St James’s… [inaudible] [both laugh] ‘Me!’ … ‘cause they called me Billy… err. Billy Butlin of St James’s… ‘cause there was… umm… have all of the… put all the musical shows on there… oh yeah… yeah… it was good, yeah. [pause].  And.. what’s his name… he… who… who…charge nurse he died of cancer… belonged to my surgery… and he saw me in the surgery.  He said… he said… `You, Ted… you certainly got that hospital going…’.  I…said, ‘well I only got better when I had a moan… now we like to…’ they said, `you’re great’… can have more tea breaks [laughs].’
 
`OK… we’ll take a break there.’
 
`Yeah.’
 
[end of DVCPro tape three]
[start of DVCPro tape four – VHS one continues]
04:00:35:21
 
`When you were… the Chair of Integration, and you got involved in having a say about the running of the hospital, why did you think that was so important?’
 
`What… well… what, on integration?’
 
`Integration… not just integration, but… other things that you got involved with?  I understand you were involved in… encouraging student nurses to hear patients’ views, is that right?’
 
`Yeah.  Yeah.  Ummm… they… they come… the different nurses from different hospitals… like, whatever… and they come and… to learn part of psychiatric medicine… they would come… and… and they would talk about… they come from… the Naval office [inaudible]… they used to come… and they used to come from the Royal then, and the Queen Alexander, and the nurses would come in and learn their part of the psychiatric.  Now… and… whatever.  And… seeing its all changed now… you got… there’s none of that now.  It’s the Day Centres and… umm… umm… ‘cause they haven’t got the nurses… the nurses, to go on the wards and community at the same time.’
 
`So when you were involved, when it was running, you know, say in the fifties, sixties, even seventies, what sort of things did you get involved in?  In terms of…?’
 
`Well you were…’
 
`…of training and…?’
 
`You were… you had your normal OT, you had your… you had the… you had the… you had your [inaudible] team, then you had industrial therapy, that’s when you earned your money and all that… and then there was… they would have.. holidays, you’d get holidays.  They’d take you over Haling Island… I didn’t go on them… pay for you all to go over The Isle of Wight, fortnight… that type of thing or take … there wasn’t minibuses then, they was ordinary coaches, and then they used to take you out… go shopping and all that, as you know… I didn’t do none of that.  I used to go on the bus and t’be quite honest … I just went out and had a pint! [laughs].
 
`And in what ways did you get involved with… was there anything else you were involved with other than being the Chair of Integration?’ 
 
[pause]
 
04:03:09:16
 
`Did the staff involve you in any other… things?’
 
`Well… no… errr… you, you done… the… you, you… I got involved in… inviting school teachers… into the wards… to see how we run our… ‘cause you had to run your own ward, and all that… you can… you had a… your music and… whatever… and was… for your own … recreation… we had the snooker championships and dance… we went dancing every… lots of weeks you went dancing in the… in that main hall.’
 
`So you invited the teachers in?’
 
`Oh yeah… there see.’
 
`And why did you want to do that?’
 
`Well to try to make you back into the classroom and… to… to… tell their… tell their pupils what psychiatric hospital is…’
 
`And why did you feel that was important at that time?’
 
`To tell to their children.  It’s not a funny farm.  It’s an hospital’
 
`And what do you think people used to think?’
 
`I don’t have to think… they did say it was a funny farm.  A lot of people think that now, which it’s not.  And that’s my attitude towards that. Err… who is it… the more… even on this media, I got the right word… and I’m trying to put a, a line out to say… mental illness is an illness, and it’s got to be understood.’
 
 
04:04:44:03
 
`You felt that was crucial?’
 
`Yeah.  I feel that now.. and for the future.’
 
`What other groups of people do you feel you’ve managed to get some of those messages across… during your lifetime?’
 
`Oh.. I’ve… given… different groups.. I’ve been to different groups of people in different…err, had chats about it … and… what it was like…and.. how it was like, and all that.  Never… no names mentioned… not like personal… nothing like that…’
 
`What sort of groups would you have… spoken to?’
 
`Well I… I… I’ve done… a lot of church… church and Salvation Army’s another one… and British Legion, I’ve done it in… and… just give a lecture on it, you know… a talk and all that… they ask you questions.  And you have a few laughs as you go along the way.’
 
`That’s important.’
 
04:05:40:19
 
`That’s it… have a few laughs.  You can tell a lot of tragedy… but there’s a lot of… a funny side to it, you know… which I’ve seen a lot… and I… there was a chap trying to commit suicide in St James’s… and when you go up… Greenfields, I’ll show you.  You know them… about them bowls, don’t you… woods then, they called them.  He got one of these fish nets, tied them in that, and pulled the string to go up the tree… and then stood under for all the… rope… for all the balls to come down and hit him on the head, while we watched him… we watched him do this… we knew what he was going to do… and when he climbed up the tree… he was only young fella [ph], I’d say about twenty eight… go up the tree, pulled the net and every one missed him… ‘cheers’ [laughs].. you know… that type of thing.  So, there’s a lot of funny side. Yeah.  I seen tragedies up there as well.  Umm… and… you know… I have seen a lot of… not only me, it’s other people in there.  I found more people genuine in that hospital… that hospital… than a normal person outside.  Really.’
 
`What do you mean by genuine?’
 
`Well… if… if you… if they found out… even these… some of them today… found out you’d been in a psychiatric hospital, they don’t want to know you… they think you’re… [inaudible] diddly … daft… which is partly the truth.  I mean you get a lady with baby blues… comes in… I’ve seen, all that.  Had a doctor, she came.. came in, she had baby blues, and… she was… Elizabeth… practising doctor… and… everywhere I was she wanted to come and take me… out…’
 
`She was admitted was she?’
`Yeah, well she had baby blues, you see… umm… she had a baby, got… natal… you know, post natal depression, if you know what I mean.  Yeah.  Yeah.  Her husband was a doctor… I mean… well known people, and… you know…  I’ve been around.’
 
04:08:20:01
 
`How do you find people’s attitudes now, say if you go into a pub or a shop and you mention that you’ve been in St James’s?’
 
`Well… no… I mean… what made a… what made it a little bit easier, would be the drug scene isn’t it?  They got to go in and get dried out, a lot of them now… so… if they go where… there’s a… there’s the clinics now, you know, got drug units and all that… it’s… I’m up against a lot about that… that you’re self inflicted… you know, put the needle in them and… and take them… med… you only give them… have needles and medication, when they give it to you and not when you want to take… every ten minutes… no way.  But I… I realise its an illness though.  But they’re a waste of space… the way they can spend money… and really… self inflicted on ‘em [inaudible].’
 
`Do you think people’s reactions to you, if you say oh, I was in St James’s, do you think the public’s understanding is better or worse than it used to be.’
 
`I’ll let them all know… I gets the first dig in… I gets the first dig in.  I talk about it.’
 
`And have you always been that way?’
 
`Yeah. Oh yeah… I do that because… it’s got to be… it’s got to be listened to… it’s got to be understood.  And that’s why I’m on this interview.  Really, to speak the truth, like, you know… whatever.’
 
`And…did you find other patients as willing to be open as you are?’
 
`No… a lot of… a lot of people didn’t want to know that, you know.. didn’t want to know that.  You know, they… umm… whatever… and even when they speak to you and they didn’t say `you been up St James’s?’… they ... I do ...’
 
`They said…’
 
`They say, `you been up St James’s?’, oh.. you know, and all that… they’ll say… they would say, `you been up… been up the club lately?’, you know what I mean?… don’t say St James’s… I said… I turns round and says, `what are you talking about, up the club?… what? St. James’s hospital you mean…?’ [makes a verbal sound] Go away.  Got no time for that.’
 
04:10:35:23
 
04:10:35:23
 
`What sort of problems do you think people… other people came across when they did say that to their friends or neighbours, or family?’
 
`Well they’re ashamed of their bloody self aren’t they, really?  They was ashamed of themselves… it’s… there’s… there’s no shame in being… if you’ve got pneumonia or a broken leg, that’s an illness… so is a nervous breakdown isn’t it… really?  A matter of fact… it’s harder to dissect what caused it.  I mean, if… if you come across a… a who’s mentally ill, you’ve got to talk it out of them… ‘What happened?’… what’s worrying them, you know… that’s what… as it is… psychiatric nursing, isn’t it?’
 
`And what do you think the best form of treatment is?’
 
`I think… you’ve got to have pills… and ECT do work sometimes.  I think the talking programme… talk about it… I know there’s a lot of places can’t do that… where they need medication like… tablets and all that.  When I stopped taking tablets I told Dr Till [???] that… I don’t want any more of that… that… that’s… my life’s not my own, which it wasn’t… you… you walk about like a zombie, and I stopped it, and she… after a while she agreed with me.  `You’re a lot better Ted’, I said `I know’.  Even now I’ve got sleeping tablets, and 30 ml Temazepan… and… and I gets about two hours sleep, per night.  Hard to believe but its true.  I think I’ve had every channel on that television I’ve got [laughs]… I have, yeah… yeah… ‘cause I can’t sleep.  I’m not the only person who’s got that ... whatever it this… A lot of it I think is… the war done a lot with it ... when I do go to sleep I do wake up with nightmares… and then I’ll… psychologically or… I don’t want to go to sleep in case I dreams… that type of thing… I think it’s got a lot to do with that…’
 
`What are the main dreams that you fear? What sort of dreams?’
 
`Well… I get… drowning… something like that.  You never… never been in the water in your life have you? ... really… never been in the water.  You go in the water and drowning… you get panic stations, you… you’re really dodgy… you know… and many like me… a lot of them have been in the water.  Do you know, I can’t take a shower?  I’ve got to have a bath, I can’t take a shower.’
 
`Why is that?’
 
`Well, I’m frightened the water’ll go over my head.  Like when you’re in the water you go under and under and don’t you? …’
 
04:13:30:06
 
`So… it all dates back to…’
 
`Yeah.’
 
`…being in the war…?’
 
`Yeah.  That’s what you get.  A lot of people don’t realise that… what you call flashbacks.  I mean I’ve lived with people in a Japanese prison of war… I remember their flashbacks… screaming and holloring [ph].  And… we had a sister, Sister.. Sister… Jenny… Sister Jenny… she was a brilliant Dutch girl… she was a nursing sister.  When… I was a patient… and when us patients went funny… and you had a bad nightmare… she… she’d go down and she’d have a look at you, first off… make a cup of tea… then she… she’d talk you out of it.  `Oh, what were you dreaming about?’, oh yeah… very kind lady.  She had to retire.  Another good one.  And she done that voluntary… never got paid… don’t it voluntary.  Her… ‘cause her country was over run by the Gerries… and she… she liked the British and err… she… she took… went to college and all that… done psychiatric nursing… at university… and she looked after a twit house (ph Tyrwhit House) … voluntary.  Never took a penny off the government.  I think her husband was a millionaire… I think… she.. she had… she moved out the country and she’s living in… living in France now… so I was told when I was at Tyret House… Charwin [ph] House.
 
04:15:16:08
 
`Did… you knew a lot of the nurses for a very long period of time, is that right?’
 
`Yeah. Yeah…yeah’
 
`How long would you have known… Pat for… for example?’
 
`Six years… seven years.  And… Pat is a…. a recent one… Pat is.  She rung me up, a fortnight ago.  `You all right Ted?’, I said, `Yeah…’, `Come out… we’ll go out in the country if you tell me what flowers I’m going to buy… ‘cause she… she don’t know…’, like that.  She was using me… I said, ‘using my brains… what you gave me back’.  She knows that. Yeah. Oh, she’s a great nurse, that one.’
 
`Do you think nursing’s something you might have gone into?’
 
`She told me that.  She… I’d make a good nurse… she said that.  She’s got a lot of patience.’
 
`Do you think you would have enjoyed it if you’d gone into nursing?’
 
`Yeah, I think I would have done.  I think I’d have been far better on a psychi… psychiatrics side.  The… although I’m not funny with blood and all of that… but… I don’t think I’d be… so eager… you know what I mean…?’
 
`But you would have been interested in psychiatric nursing?’
 
`I would.’
 
`Would you have been allowed to train in that if you’d wanted to?’
 
`No… not allowed to.  No.  When I went to school… a… I know a girl who wrote a book... and I was… a Children’s Chairman of Integration, and… I grew flowers.  I told Pat some months ago… years ago… that I.. if I write a book, `From Integration to Propogation’… and she looked at me… ‘how do you think of that?’… , ‘just think about it… I was Chairman of Integration, I loved my gardening and St… in Jimmy’s… Propogation… sounds right to me.’
 
`Have you written the book?
 
`I’ve started writing it.’
 
04:17:25:09
 
`You’ve started it?’
 
`Yeah.’
 
`Is that one of your projects for the future… ongoing project for the future?’
 
`Yeah… be a lot in it… you know… yeah… you know. Yeah. [pause] And what I was trying to say to you… I put that notice there, up on the door… in the nurses, a little thing… , ‘once upon a time I thought I was James the first’ ... you know… these people think… they’re … like… they’re Hitler and all that… they’re… so I put… on… on the nursing office on the stairs… I give this boy a bit of cardboard.  ‘Once upon a time…’
 
`Sorry I thought I was going to sneeze…’
 
`So, ‘Once upon a time I thought I was James The First… please can I be James Last?’ [laughs]… know what I mean?’
 
`Yeah’ [laughs]
 
`And they loved it.  Ted Short, they say, `come in’… That summed it up because it… it’s a nice hospital, you know what I mean? Yeah.’
 
`You had quite a reputation?’
 
`Oh yeah.  Yeah.  They say they’re frightened of me to come back … they said I cures them so quick…’ [laughs]
 
`Sorry?’
 
`I cures the patients so quick. Yeah. [pause] Yeah.  No, what… what… what I’m saying is very true that… it… it is a fantastic hospital… or was… and… that… that place had some benefit.  I know they’re not getting paid enough and… and… they haven’t got enough nurses… and they put them in the community and that don’t work.  Not to me, it don’t anyway.’
 
04:19:14:10
 
`Were you ever aware of any patients that were not so happy with it there?’
 
`Oh yeah… dozens of them… but they was in the hospital… these… elderly patients, and the nurses, who looked after ‘em … they thought they was their sister or mother, and the men thought they were… were their uncles or dads.  And when they put them in… in the community… they had nobody.  [inaudible]… put them… put them in the… in the Day Centre…’
 
`So it was like a [inaudible] for them?’
 
 `…and you’d sit.. sit… you’re sitting there like a zombie.  That’s not nursing. Life’s easy for the nurses… not for the patients.  All the nurses… they… disagree with the community… all… all… or most … in that hospital anyway.  I mean… when you… you’ve got to run up the stairs… run… and… about three or four times a day… somebody.. err… tried to commit suicide in our time (???)… know what I mean… not very funny is it… for a nurse, you know… Yeah…’
 
04:20:25:23
 
`So… how do you spend your life now?’
 
[pause]
 
`What kind of things do you like doing most?’
 
`Well… I… I tell you what I do a lot… I go… I got my Sky… I like the… I like the garden very well… and I like the animal sections, you know… wildlife… very keen on that… umm… and during the day… I do my chores in the house… do them… whatever… then I go up the Legion and… and have a pint and have my dinner… and then I come back about half past one… and… put the box on… then I get up and make my tea, about half past five… I’ll have the box on ‘till about ten, and then I try to sleep… you know… [pause].  I… I do get people come round to see me, like, you know, whatever… I went up to the local pub, up the road… I… and all that, you know… and I.. I’ve been missing in this pub for about… one month… I went to the… to see Campbell [???]… they come round and found out where I was.  You know.. `you all right Ted?’… `Yes… come in, what’s up…?’, they came to ask ‘cause of my leg and all of that… and, ‘I can’t breathe… this emphysema’ I said … and… they always make a… a… you know, a… make a quip, you know… a manly one… `yeah, go on… you’ll be getting on your bike…’, and you know…’
 
`You enjoy music as well?’
 
`Oh yeah.  I… I like string music… Mantovani and all that… everything like that… and I… I don’t mind The Beatles, really… I don’t like Cliff Richard… don’t… like no… not him… Nat King Cole… Perry Como… I don’t like that Spanish one… err… Double Glazing! Ingles… never heard that saying? Double Glazing?!’
 
`Julio Inglesias…’
 
`You got it… [Judith laughs]… and… err… the other one, that… he died… very good singer… umm… what was that song he sung… ?  I forgets his name.  He was a good singer.  He… he… he were quite young when he died… I was about forty… thirty five… what was his name… Roy Orbison.  Yeah, I thought he was great… him… you know… Roger Whittaker, I… I can stand him up to a point… you know what I mean… country and western?  Umm… I don’t like Pavaroti or something like that…. like that… and… I… I… as I said to you downstairs… Beethoven, to Bach to the Beatles ….’
 
`It’s a very broad spectrum.’
 
`Yeah.  Yeah.’
 
04:23:49:18
 
`Do you remember when television and radio first came in?’
 
`Yeah.  I can’t forget it.  Them… them brothers… who… committed suicide… they was in my football team… they… they bought the television… I’ll never forget it… they went and bought this television, and that was the only one in the city, I think, at the time… and so they… they… when the football come on they used to invite me up their house.  Yeah… I know why they put their own television on…’
`What did you think of the new invention at the time?’
 
`I thought it was great.  Know what I mean?  That… I… I… I… I’ve only had the television, my one… this nice one… Eight years I had a black and white one.  And then… that… I… a mate of mine… he… , `you ain’t got colour have you Ted? ‘No, I got black and white… why?’… he said, `you want a colour television?’, I said, `well…’, he said, `I’ve got a… what do you call it… umm… got video and all you can have’, I said `how much?’, he said `nothing’… and `I’ll come round and fix it up for you’, so I got a video and… err… [pause]… yeah…’
 
`And do you still listen to music?’
 
`Oh yeah… umm… I have… Radio two… channel… I’ll have channel five on for sport… that’s the radio… but I gets… I’ll have… I likes TVS… and then you’ve got channel five on… on the telly… I have most of the adventure and history programmes on, you know…’
 
`And you’ve been on telly yourself, is that right?’
 
04:25:45:11
 
`Yeah.’
 
`What was that about?’
 
`Well that… that… that was… when… you know… when the Lord Mayor come and… that was a seventieth… that fiftieth anniversary thing, wasn’t it… when earlier… I showed the photographs of it, didn’t I?’
 
`Fiftieth anniversary of…?’
 
`Of the war.  Thirty seven.  And then we had a party in the streets and all that… and I decorated my house up and all flowers out the front… and all the ships… what was made… you know… another handicapped person done that… he put them outside my house… come and put it out, Roy… you know… sent the Lord Mayor, and that was televised… twice I’ve been on tell with gardening… with different things…’
 
`And on the radio as well?’
 
`Yeah, and the radio. Umm… They all write to me and then I… you know… I didn’t even… err… I didn’t… even ask for it… I was only up at… Tyrwhit House, they came up.  They come on a visit and… and… talked… talked… get the… he said, ‘they come round and they only want to speak to you’, and they asked me like, ‘would I have this interview?.’  I said… ‘oh’, and I told them, ‘oh yeah… ‘ and I never asked… you know what I mean…?’
 
`They’d come to you?’
 
04:27:09:19
 
`I think Tyrwhit House knew… myself… I got set up, I think… yeah.’
 
So when you look… back over your life so far… out of the things you’ve told me… what would be some of your happiest or saddest memories?’
 
`When I lost my wife… I must say that.  And the other one losing my mother, four chaps… and I think… the best achievement I think I done this… when I done my garden as an appreciation… for mental nursing.  I achieved… you know… a lot, haven’t I?’
 
`You certainly have’.
 
`You know… everything… really… Yeah.  And that’s it… and I don’t think I can say too much more…’
 
`What time… we’re going to go and have a look at the Green Fingers Project…’
 
`Yeah…’
 
`Which you…were one of the founders of, I understand.’
 
`And I think you’ll find that the staff there now’s not the same… as when I was there.  I know one’s not there… err… I think that what they’re doing now… they’re growing a lot of stuff for…the summer, you know what I mean?’
 
`Perhaps you’d like to show us round it?’
 
`Yeah.  Yeah.  That’s if they’re open… I don’t… don’t think they close though, ‘till late.  What time were you there yesterday?’
 
`Err… I was there ‘till about five’
 
`And they was open then?’
 
`Yes.’
 
`See anybody?’
 
`No.’
 
`Yeah… you see… you only got… when you see the people there, they’re only patients what looks after it, you know… all  the other ones are in the office.’
 
04:29:23:02
 
`Oh… it’s totally run by the patients?’
`Yeah.  None of that… and none of the other staff… they get taught by a… a… whatever, you know… I don’t know who’s doing teaching down there, yeah…’
 
`Ted, would you like to show me some of the pictures that you’ve brought along?’
`Yeah’
 
[pause while Ted gets pictures]
 
`Well I… that… this photograph was taken… in nineteen hundred and forty four, while I was under treatment with… electrical treatment in St James’s hospital… hospital…’
 
[pause]
 
`Another one?’
 
`Yes… yes… ok?’
 
`Yeah… this is a photograph of HMS Eagle… a year before she got sunk.  This… that would be in nineteen hundred and forty three…’
 
`Is that one you were on?’
 
`Yeah.’
 
`OK’
 
04:30:47:10
 
`This is… HMS Ark Royal… err.. Captained by… Moland… Captain Moland [ph].  She was sunk in August, of nineteen hundred and forty two… by err… German U boats.  So.. with the torpedos… umm… two at mid ship and one at stern.’
 
`OK’
 
`This… this is my football team, Star Athletic… that was the first division Sunday team football… taken… [pause] at Alexander Park… in nineteen hundred and seventy.’
 
`OK’
 
04:31:49:02
 
`This is a photograph of myself… Taylor Frazer Gallery Range [ph] in nineteen seventy one… when I was employed as the head gardner.’
 
`OK’
 
`And this is the medal I… I won… for… for Portsmouth in Bloom… Portsmouth and Southsea in Bloom… which was run throughout the United Kingdom… and I won the Portsmouth and Southsea Bloom, of that year.  Does that sound right?’
 
`What year was that?’
 
[pause]
 
`Nineteen ninety two…’
 
`Nineteen ninety two… so that’s the … [inaudible]’
 
`OK’
 
`This is a photograph taken at Clarence… Clarence House… in nineteen hundred… and… ninety six… [pause]’
 
`Who’s the picture with?’
 
`Err.. Cilla Black … is that right?’
 
`OK’
 
`This… photograph is Tyrwhit House, of Leatherhead… of… err. for the… had a War Disabled… at Tyret House… at Leatherhead.  There’s us… ‘
 
`OK’
 
`This front garden was taken in nineteen eighty nine… and which I took first prize…’
 
`Is that your house?’
 
`At…my house in fifty six Talbot Road, [ph] Southsea.’
 
`Who are the people?’
 
`I’m [inaudible] know that … the two children, I know they were school children, unknown to me.  And my statement to their mothers was, `I’ve got a pretty garden, but I was going to make it all… prettier, with the two children.’
 
`OK’
 
`This postcard is… black and white… is taken in Talbot Road… in the year of eighty five.’
 
`OK’
 
`This is my war medal from nineteen thirty nine… to nineteen forty four… umm… and… there were…’
 
`What’s that medal there in your hand?’
 
04:35:00:05
 
`And the… the one on my right is the… for the Russian convoys in the … in nineteen hundred and forty one and forty two…’
 
`What’s the names of the… star shaped medals?’
 
`Well… here you got… I’ve got the Atlantic… Atlantic… yeah…?’
 
`Yeah’
 
`Err… you’ve got the… umm… the Victory Medal… North African with bar… and the End of the War, 1939/45.’
 
`And what about the badges on your lapel, on your jacket?’
 
`Well, that’s only… err… badges I’ve got on there… are of the Royal British Legion Portsmouth Set.’
 
[Faye] `Could you hold the other medals down, a sec, Ted…? That’s it…’
 
`You’ve got three on there…’
 
`Yeah.. what’s what…?’
 
`You’ve got… one is the… summerland?’
 
`I got one… I got one… I beg your pardon?’
 
`Summerland… is that one?’
 
`Yeah, I’ve got one from… one… one from Canada, British Legion, Canada, which I’m a member… honorary member, and also one… with the British Legion, Portsmouth… what’s the other one I’ve got on there? Let’s see it…?’
 
`The Royal Navy…’
`Oh yeah. That is the… that is the badge of… of the Royal Navy.’
 
`And on your breast pocket?’
 
`Look at that… that is the umm… this is… when I done my boy’s training… at… at HMS Ganges.’
 
[break in recording: change of location]
 
`Ok…Ted, this is Greenfingers Project at St James’s Hospital… how does it make you feel now to know that the project’s still running?’
 
`Well… I think its… to me, I think… I’m very proud to… have some.. a small… I had to… steps… of… one of them to start it off… I thought… I think its fantastic, and its good for patients, for their therapy, and it learns them a lot about horticulture and whatever, and… I’m very… proud, you know, at this moment… to be…’
 
`How long’s it been running?’
 
`I… I.… roughly I would say about twelve years, Greenfingers has been running.  Prior to that they had… had greenhouses, you know… and growing prod… and that was… and years ago they used to have that… even when I was in here, they had that for… growing tomatoes and… cucumbers and all that… they had about four greenhouses at one time. You know, its very, very good.’
 
`And what kind of plants would we see here, now?’
 
`Well… there’s… there’s… I see some Antirhynnms [ph] there and… and… some Lobilia [ph], but… at the moment that’s all I can see.  There’s… obviously there’s lots of other plants…’
 
`Do they still grow vegetables here, do you know?’
 
`I don’t think so… I don’t think the… they… the… ground’s been taken over by other buildings, so the vegetable part… of the hospital…the ground… they’re not using for… I don’t think so anyway.’
 
`They sell products to the public…?’
 
`Yeah… they sell… the plants and the products to the public…’
 
`And is that how it was when you were here?’
 
`Yeah… they started off… they… they didn’t start off when I… when I was here, but they started it off… after I did… everything was up in motion… then, there… over a period of eighteen months, two year… they started selling plants and… different other things, you know… in plant life.’
 
`So you are one of the original Greenfingers?’
 
`Yeah, I would say so.. yeah.’
 
`Do you ever get up here yourself these days?’
 
`No I don’t get up here to… owing to my general health, I don’t get up here but… I tell people that… that its about… you know, the general public… I say `go and get your plants at Greenfingers’.’
 
`It must be a nice feeling knowing that its going to carry on?’
 
`Yeah.  I’m glad its still…you know, going on so well, really.’
 
 
04:39:46:15
 
`You were explaining to me what the plots were, over there… could you tell me again?’
 
`What the… in the main building?’
 
`The plots of ground here, where the canes are.’
 
`Oh they’re… in there, they’re probably hardy… hardy plants, they put them in there… at… at the moment, I can’t see anything… the names of what they got… they could even be a bit of stick… that I… it could be either runner beans or it could be sweet peas, you know what I mean?’
 
`You said that each plot… is a patient’s plot?  Is that right?’
 
`Each plot is given to a patient to either grow… err… what… they told them to, like you know, like what the nurses tell them what to do… there was… there was… [inaudible] and vegetables, radishes or lettuce, or… any other… and flowers… and that type of thing.’
 
`And is… this is where your career began, is that right?’
 
`It was yeah… that’s… not on this particular plot, but… in another location in the hospital… I started off in large greenhouses.’
 
`And then you went on to become one of Portsmouth’s best known gardeners?’
 
`Yeah… that’s correct… Yeah.’
 
`Ok… thank you very much.’
 
`Thank you.’
 
[end of DVCPro tape four of four – end of VHS one of one]