Episode 5
Barbara wonders if the mental health system offers the same space for recovery she experienced. Concluded by Maggie Steed.
The Last Asylum begins with Barbara Taylor's visit to the innocuously named Princess Park Manor in Friern Barnet, North London - a place of luxury flats and careful landscaping. But this is the former site of one of England's most infamous lunatic asylums, the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Aslyum at Colney Hatch. At its peak, this asylum housed nearly 3,000 patients - including, in the late 1980s, Barbara Taylor herself.
Writing about The Last Asylum, Booker prize winner and memoirist, Hilary Mantel said, ''We believe our response to mental illness is more enlightened, kinder and effective than that of the Victorians who built the asylums. Can we be sure? Barbara Taylor challenges complacency, exposes shallow thinking, and points out the flaws and dangers of treatment on the cheap. It is a wise, considered and timely book'.
Darian Leader has described it as 'Superb, Riveting, insightful and relentlessly honest'.
Episode 5:
Gradually perspective returns, 'something inside me shifts'. The author recalls the return of hope but she also wonders if today's mental health system would offer the same space for recovery that she was able to find.
Reader: Maggie Steed
Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Jill Waters production for 大象传媒 Radio 4
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Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Reader | Maggie Steed |
| Producer | Jill Waters |
| Abridger | Jill Waters |
| Author | Barbara Taylor |
Broadcasts
Fri 21 Feb 2014 09:45大象传媒 Radio 4 FM- Sat 22 Feb 2014 00:30大象传媒 Radio 4
- Fri 1 Feb 2019 14:45大象传媒 Radio 4 Extra
- Sat 2 Feb 2019 02:45大象传媒 Radio 4 Extra
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