Page 24 - Community Living Magazine 35-1

oral history
When the past speaks back

An archive of residents and staff discussing the closure of a Reading what the interviewees said, it is
longstanding ‘mental handicap’ hospital should cause us to possible to appreciate that staff did their
best within the very limiting confines of
reflect on trends in care provision now, writes Caroline Hill an institution.
Updating the buildings drained
resources while doing nothing to alter the
ockdown was an opportunity to revive King, who later headed health services fact that this was a life apart from the rest
a long-neglected oral archive from the in New Zealand, has contributed a of society for those who lived there.
Llate 1980s, and bring to light the commentary to the now-published Meanwhile, by the 1980s, the majority
first-hand testimony of an asylum’s former archive extracts. of people with learning disabilities or
residents and staff. He writes: “Institutions like Starcross special needs were living with their
It also seems very timely, as Hospital harmed human life and must families or trying to fend for themselves.
contributors to Community Living have never be repeated.” What the contributors said about the
been lamenting the regressive steps they His is a voice that should resonate pride staff took in their work, the
have seen back towards institutional loudly. He questions how it took so long institutionalisation of those who lived and
“care”. The lessons of the past should not to end institutional care. worked there and the perceived
be forgotten. The idea to close the hospital had come inadequacies of the early efforts to move
When the purpose of the Royal Western from within not above, yet even those patients into the community all help to
Counties Institution, Starcross Hospital, a with a vision for better care and the explain why the status quo endured for
former “idiot asylum” in Devon, started to determination to succeed were so long.
be seriously questioned, it had existed for emotionally torn, as the archive reveals.
more than a century. Hundreds of people Speaking soon after the closure, nursing Caution over independence
had lived out their lives there in a officer Viv McAvoy, who was heading a There was also a deeply ingrained belief
separate, regimented world. new local support service, recalled: “In that the patients could not learn or adapt.
What followed was the first closure some ways I felt quite sad and, again, I felt Medical superintendent Dr David Prentice
of a large “mental handicap” hospital in quite glad. The whole thing is a conflict of explained: “We were always bedevilled by
favour of a range of new community emotions and still is.” this feeling of permanence that there was
care services. The interview extracts also shine a light no way out for them ever standing on
Health authority manager David King on the circumstances that led to people their own feet.”
asked for an oral archive to be created being admitted and then living out their However, staff discovered otherwise.
before the memories of Starcross Hospital lives at Starcross Hospital. In many cases, As King put it: “Although hospital care
faded. Staff and residents were staff lived out their working lives there too was supposed to be beneficial, release
interviewed and what they said was – even their own holidays were spent with from hospital has been as good as a cure
recorded and transcribed. the people in their care. for so many who were thought to be
King went on to head the national Nursing tutor Tom Bush said: “People beyond hope.”
Mental Health Task Force and wrote a said they would never close it – it has The testimony in the interviews
book on how the transition to community been a wonderful place. But I think they suggests that Starcross might not have
care was achieved (King, 1991). He were very much living with a dream… an been necessarily representative of
foresaw a day – correctly, it now appears old idea… old memories… If you talk to the large asylums in general and, perhaps,
– when the realities of institutions might new staff coming in, the youngsters would suffered from fewer of their most
be forgotten. say: ‘Oh, it’s too big, it’s so impersonal’.” regrettable traits.

Read the stories from the Starcross archive

he doors of Starcross Hospital All had lived or worked at Starcross
closed in 1986. Fast forward 34 Hospital and had agreed to share their
Tyears to a document box, opened thoughts and memories at the time of its
in the first lockdown of the pandemic. closure. The archive contains colourful
As I read through the contents, the memories stretching back to the 1930s of
voices of nearly 40 people, talking life in and around the imposing Victorian
decades previously, come back to life building and how the closure came about.
– I could hear some of these voices Residents and staff have at last been
in my head as I had recorded many honoured in a compilation of interview
of the interviews and listened to a highlights I have edited. Starcross
number several times while typing up Hospital: What the Voices Tell Us is freely
the original transcripts. available at: https://tinyurl.com/6tehvys6 Image from the Starcross archive publication

24 Vol 35 No 1 | Autumn 2021 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk