大象传媒

A cold smack of rain across my face held me in check after I had scrambled onto an old Valor stove and pushed open the metal framed window of my boxroom in order to catch a final glimpse of my mother, as she cycled to work.

She would be rounding the corner of St.Botolph's Church now, with its glassy- sharp flintstone wall, making for the square of staff houses, dubbed 'little Moscow,' with their bleak, depressing entities. When she had passed these,I would be able to make her out, as if almost in miniature; she would cut on to the old cinder track, little more than the sweep of a scythe wide.She would have to be aware of the shifting cinder bank for under a deluge of rain the back-wheel would slip fast, sizzling into the ploughed field alongside and she would likely be up-ended. A farrago of noise would break out.The dropping of bombs by German aircraft would resonate through the night even from as far distant as London.The crow-black sky would be illuminated by brilliant searchlights issuing out of a wide brimmed base, as broad as Nelson's column, but reaching much higher still, seeking out enemy planes. Anti-aircraft fire would break out, peppering shells up above, whenever an aircraft was glimpsed, to blast and puncture it, bringing the 'eagle' down with an almighty bang.These camouflaged gun emplacements were dug in around the country hedges and scattered amongst the poplar trees, which dwarfed the hangars of the hospital.

With her nurse's navy cap pressed firmly down over her head and matching rainproof coat buttoned into place, she would crouch low over her handlebars, as she faced into the wind, pedalling so hard, the cornfield would, as it were ,part waist-high, and she would appear to ride above the damp ,dusky brown ears of corn, like a jockey in full flight along the rails of a racecourse.

As the night pressed into her half-hours journey to work at Middlesex Colony, near St.Albans, she would be increasingly aware of the intense activity in the hedgerows, the giant rods of light pin-pointing the gathering dark, the silver-white lights making a pin cushion above, while flabby, grey, barrage balloons with wires from their bellies, cheese-cuttered the sky, dragging for planes, and creakily holding the earth to the sky.

She would now virtually disappear from sight pedalling furiously into the middle distance like a stick figure bent and ricketty, into the curtain of smoke and smell of cordite,to disappear out of view. Some nights her path to work was so lit up by a full moon and drifts of stars. I am sure she felt protected and safely covered under this nightly galaxy of pilgrims.
Whatever the night, before she set off, she made sure to pep-up her bicycle batteries by putting them on the range, (by taking the cold and damp out of them appeared to restore their energy and boost the light, for during the winter months a cold battery soon became a worthless dud)
It seems that the mind stretches back to those days with ever more clarity as one gets older; one is more able to sharpen one's focus, almost like adjusting a television or computer screen.

My mother was never one to fuss over her own safety for she had an indominitable spirit. However, she never ceased to hurt me, when, departing for work, she would say: 'I have to put my boys to bed'.
That would sting my elder brother and sister too, but even so, we were all aware that in the war, life had to go on, in some way, and that there were others, even more deserving,- in need of individual help and support.

She would be leaving what maybe could be described as a normal household during the war years to enter what has been called a 'world within a world.'
Different rules applied in this world wherein the mentally handicapped were attended too.

The first charitable homes for what were called the feeble minded( a term used as late as 1978,in a golden jubilee handout)were founded around 1890.The less afflicted were often looked upon as either lazy or wicked.The certification of large numbers of these so-called feeble minded together with a need for economy, led to the advocacy of large institutions with a population of up to two thousand patients.
The foundation of the Eugenics Society in 1909, followed soon after by the Mental Defficiency Act of 1913, expressed the belief of many that the segregation of the mentally handicapped was esssential. Increase in the the birth of the defectives would thereby be prevented and society would receive the protection which it requested against the likely dangerous consequences of having the mentally handicapped living in their midst.

(One has an uncomfortable feeling, looking back to those times, regarding the segregation and dispossession to be employed with the inmates of the institutions, and at the same time hesitating to draw any comparison with the German experience or policy employed with such unfortunate beings,understanding that to be essentially a policy of brutal extermination)

With this support the policy was enthusiastically implemented of building large institutions in isolated country areas where land was cheap to purchase.The Mental Defficiency Act of 1913 came into operation in 1914, but the outbreak of World War 1 held up the services it engendered.

(Paradoxically,it was after the termination of this war that the land on which First World War aerodrome hangars remained was made availabe for sale)

Thus it was that in accordance with majority opinion in the community, Middlesex County Council in 1928 purchased the Porters Park Estate, so named after Roger Le Porter, the first owner, who took possession in 1340.The land thus acquired became the site for both Shenley and Middlesex Colony, the latter designed to house 2000,patients.
On October 25th,1928, eight male patients, mainly high grade feeble minded adults were admitted to what was known as the Hangars Certified Institution.'-of course the name being adopted on account of the three hangars which were survivors of the aerodrome on that site in World War1.They formed the nucleus of the foundation.During the 1930's the name was changed to that of Middlesex Colony since the authority was at that time the County Council of Middlesex.
(The word 'coloney' according to Faucault came into use in the Middle Ages with the formation of leper colonies.Later on 1st April,1950 the name Harperbury was assumed when the majority of my mother's work had been completed.

In her early days at the hospital she worked from eight-o-clock at night, until eight in the morning, with maybe an extra night thrown in as overtime. She was paid three pounds a week, and she felt she was in clover when her wages were raised by half-a-crown a day. The hospital at which she worked was built in 1928, on an old aerodrome site, four miles from St.Albans City. At that time it was ostensibly set up for the care and protection of the mentally handicapped in the community but its primary aim was to be an institute for the prevention of the increase in the disabled.At that time the wards and gates were kept locked permanently.

As a qualified nurse my mother had to be well turned out. A light blue one piece uniform was enfolded by a white starch apron. She also wore a hard, rigid collar not unlike a cleric's, but gold studded and unjoined at the throat, also white starched cuffs and cap. And of course thick dark stockings and sensible shoes.
A fair sized chrome whistle and a master key on a chain to a belt around her waist completed her ensemble.
At this juncture it would be well mention the Regulations appertaining to this work, for they call to mind the spirit and tone equally noted in relation to the Poor Law Institutions and the Prison Service. For example, the loss of a key by any member of the staff was to be met by summary dismissal, twenty minutes being allowed to vacate room and leave hospital premises. This example highlights the fear on the part of society as a whole to the importance of custodial care for the mentally handicapped and one of the factors in the establishment of mental subnormality hospitals.

There would be up to seventy patients on her ward and she had to cosset and comfort them as best she could.The dormitory was so crowded that it was said that one could cycle over all the beds. At that particular period in the care of mental patients, times were bad; there was not the financing of the hospitals to the extent of today. They were indeed a tragic looking set of patients young adults removed from their own hopes who suffered from immense medical problems along with being mentally deffective some would be highly disabled.They would be hard put to manage the ordinary affairs of life their toiletting and hygiene, diet and excercise all these things and more had to be catered for.Many in the social climate of the time would cast them out as lepers.Yet it was for these same people my mother was dedicated to and fighting for.Ironically while the war was raging on the Western Front some part of Hitler's philosophy was indeed set on doing away with these same poor infirm and crippled folk in order to create an Aryan master race. We were to understand that the Jewish race along with gypsies, and the suppposedly less genetically endowed members of humanity were to be killed off, which augured badly for such institutions as the Colony.

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Indeed, many people in those days were in awe of them, so frightened by their appearance that they were shunned like lepers.
Shambling about, they dribbled from both their noses and their mouths. Their hair was hacked off to prevent lice and they would congregate in corners like latter day punks. Cringing and gawkily awkward with arms and legs threshing about they were custodially subject to strict rules and kept under a regime of the hospital, which was more akin to that doled out to prisoner's-of-war. We can consider now with the benefit of hindsight these poor vulnerable souls were in much need of human kindness and real time professional care. They had been variously categorised as suffering from Mongolism, Down's syndrome, Schizophrenia, Epilepsy, and all kinds of ailments which the outside community was not prepared to countenance. Truth to tell your emotions were distinctly put out of joint when encountering them for the first time having been told scare stories of various hair raising types and having been painted pictures of inordinate abhorrence about their so-called mongol like features at this time.
One can venture the opinion that the nurses had it none to easy either for they were working in a heavily defined pyramidal structure subject for the most part to a largely male management. Thus when care and succour was being called out for there was a rigidity and strictness employed by the regime which was not you could consider appropriate for highly sensitive young adults. That's not to say that some discipline was not called for in the majority of cases it could be overdone. I call to mind going to see 'The Miracle Worker' in which Helen Keller a greatly disturbed young woman featured.In the long run with a reasonably amount of discipline and human kindness she recovered.Today we have overactive or so-called hyperactive patients who treated with tolerance,understanding and discipline can make good.

With the benefit of hindsight it can reasonably be assumed that the war-time strict regime had a detrimental effect on the patients. This regime had a hierarchical basis with a Dr Beasley as male supervisor, at its head.It was said that when he did his medical rounds the nursing officers fled in all directions. He it was as the chief medical practitioner who determined a boundary line around the hospital to keep the female and male patients segregated and,it was to be many years before mixing of the sexes was tolerated. Indeed, it is only in the last few decades that I have known a couple from the Colony get married and happily to say, have kept this relationship stable for a reasonably long period of time.

However, there was a surfeit of human kindness in the hospital, a charity that my mother with her abundance of maternal warmth amply supplied.

My mother would look after her charges throughout the long night. She would soothe any temper tantrums, quieten down and contain those with uncontrollable rages and reassure the sufferers of seemingly endless epileptic fits.
On occasion an air raid siren would shrilly cut through the incessant babble of the dormitory. It would then be time for my mother to usher her patients down the long corridors and into the dark, damp, musty brick shelters for safety. They would shuffle and sway out into the courtyard sideways and back on their heels like ill-kempt prisoners-of-war emerging into the early mist of the day.
When the all clear sounded she would redress them all the best way she could. They would wear ill-fitting old Grandad type shirts, a jacket and trousers nearly up to their knees. There was a small smile on their faces for the little they got. The whites of their eyes would fix on your face and the pupils tip back to the cast of their brows.
After a breakfast of porridge they would go to work at various therapy departments such as shoe-making, tailoring, carpentry and upholstery.
On her nights off work, my mother attended to the safety and care of her family with the same love and tenderness.
It was the time of the notorious V1 and V2 rockets,so-called Doodlebugs or flying bombs.Then the air was alive with the unremitting hum of these weapons, seeking out targets in London. Unfortunately for us, they did not always reach their destination. Air-raid patrolmen, ARP's would flash their torhlights in windows with irritable cries of "Put that light out!' A fellow in our road was thought to be a spy for a chink of light showed through his black-out curtains. He was promptly marched down the stairs of his own house with a bayonet levelled at his back and called all the names on earth.
Coincidentally, it was some time after the war that my father's brother Jack who worked at Harwell, the Atomic Energy Research Establishment spent time as a scientist looking into the workings of the V1 and V2 rockets.
Often there would be a shattering whizz and the house trembled as a bomb began its fall. Deafened, groping and praying hard, we would emerge from under the stairs. The plodding hum of the German bombers continued, then a rocket overhead cut off its engines, a paralysing silence followed as its deadly cargo rushed to the ground, heartstopping. We snuffed out the candles and made a dash for the Anderson Shelter.
As we were being carried in blankets by mother and father, a splinter or sliver of burning hot shrapnel glanced my arm. A further bomb would shiver the darkness, dust would rise at our feet, everything was a blur, and the shelter would seem to stretch and float an inch or two. Then in the grim surroundings, mother attended the scorch to my arm and it soon faded away.
If that were not enough to frighten mother and father a landmine was caught suspended by its filigree of lace and parachute straps on a high, royal oak tree above the wood, not far from our house. Just a brush with the ground and our street would have disappeared.
How my mother managed used to be a mystery to me, however, with the passage of time it has become clearer.
Being born in 1908, in Donegal, Ireland, she had experienced extreme poverty and hardship as a child (in comparison with the young children, today). Her difficult upbringing enabled my mother to equate more closely with the neglect,hurt and injury suffered by the mentally handicapped in the community before they were taken into the care of Middlesex Colony.
This in turn enabled my mother to bring up her own family in very difficult circumstances and at the same time to battle away for those less fortunate in society.
In retrospect, my mother felt she was privileged to be in at the birth of the hospital. To be there at the start and to influence the attitude to the disabled in mind and body and ensure the hospital's further development gave her great satisfaction. In point of fact as a 'pioneer nurse' she lived to see the evolution of Harperbury Hospital from its raw beginnings. She experienced great joy in its transformation. The original aircraft hangars for work therapy have given way to the world renowned Kennedy Galton Research Centre into sub-normality.
Behavioural modification and Makaton sign language is now practised along with art and music therapy. She was able to witness the retreat from a harsh policy of segregation of the sexes to the faltering but positive steps of full integration in the night-time socials and dances held for all.
My mother never boasted of her achievements but I know she is secretly proud of the contributions she made to help those in adversity when she worked at Harperbury Hospital during those dark years of the war.

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