I left secondary school in 1981, seventeen years old and unsure of what work I wanted to do. I wasn't old enough to work in a general hospital as a nursing assistant or to start nurse training and 'A' levels and University held no appeal for me (and as an average student at a  standard comprehensive school, nor was I encouraged to aim in that direction). Both my grandfathers had been milkmen in the days of the horse-pulled milk cart and I had a vague notion that I ought to follow in their footsteps so I enquired at the local dairy for a job but (fortunately in retropsect) I received no response. I also enquired at the Post Office because I was quite keen on the idea of sitting at a counter dolling out stamps and travel cheques and occasionally pulling down the 'Gone to Lunch' side in the face of an awkward customer. I don't think I mentioned this in my letter to them but they didn't reply all the same.

 

Then somebody told me that the '18 or older rule' for working in a general hospital didn't apply to psychiatric hospitals, so I turned my attention to another big employer in my area, Napsbury Psychiatric Hospital. To my delight they did answer my letter of enquiry and after a fairly laid back interview, I was appointed to work there as a full-time nursing assistant.

 

Napsbury was about 20 minutes from where I lived in St.Albans. It was one of a cluster of hospitals established between the 1860s and 1930s in the South of Hertfordshire to house the mentally ill of Middlesex and the surrounding area. Contemporary documents describe the hospitals (Napsbury, Shenley, Harperbury, Hill End and Leavesden) as providing care for those people of the district who were mentally defective, socially unacceptable, poor and neglected. During my time there, I saw the records of patients who had been admitted for conditions such as nervous indisposition, hysteria, fainting fits, insanity without reason and nymphomania. Several had been admitted with child and in disgrace.

 

Napsbury was built on the outskirts of St.Albans, close to the village of London Colney (now reputedly one of England’s largest villages). It was designed in ‘country estate’ style by architect Rowland Plumbe in 1900 and it’s easy to see how its spacious corridors, high ceilings and impressive breadth emulated the grand estates of earlier eras. The hospital stood in its own extensive grounds, large enough to grow food and keep animals as well as house various workshops and the staff residences. Although the farm was no longer working when I was there, some patients did still work in the gardens or carried out general maintenance jobs like collecting rubbish. There were lovely open green spaces with mature shrubbery and trees dotted around and whatever the weather, there would always be a patient or two standing around under the canopy of a spreading Horse Chestnut, masturbating al fresco.

Napsbury opened its doors to patients in 1905 as the Middlesex County Asylum. Originally designed to accommodate about 1200 patients, a further 600 beds were added only a few years later so presumably demand for beds was high. Over the years many patients and staff passed through its doors but by the time I went to work there in the early 1980s the trend for mental health services was already moving toward smaller care settings with much better integration into the local communities.

With six O’levels and just my experience of Cell Barnes to draw on I arrived on my first day of full-time work to be sent to Blackthorn, the admissions ward, for an induction period. Dressed in standard NHS beige (without injurious cap, badges or jewelery) I arrived on my first day in this most unfamiliar of environments. All the wards had open dormitories, bathroom, toilet, kitchen, linen storage and day room areas. Windows throughout the ward were big but with many cross bars so panes were relatively small, keeping window breakages to a minimum. Floors were tiled or laid with shiny linoleum and all the wards smelled; urine, faeces, sweat, saliva and food – all the base smells of human life. Doors were solid wood, painted with heavy gloss and paned with thick, wire-meshed glass. Entry doors were locked with a hefty metal key and if a patient went missing an immensely loud alarm rang out right across the hospital grounds. 

Most patients were housed in the open dormitory with each bed being fenced by a small wardrobe for personal effects. Personal effects were cleansed of all potentially dangerous items (combs, nail scissors, laces, belts etc.) on admission and were usually fairly minimal. Some patients had single rooms for closer observation or quiet and most wore their own clothes as did some staff, making it hard to know who was who sometimes.

Smoking was a feature of hospital life. Cigarettes were highly prized with many patients smoking the less expensive roll-ups. In the small shop at the hospital’s man entrance cigarettes were sold in singles so even the poorest of patients could get a smoke fairly easily. Patients would typically eke out their cigarettes until the very last shred of tobacco had burnt away. You could tell the hard-core smoker by the dark brown nicotine stains between their fingers. Any discarded butt would be quickly picked up by another patient and pulled apart just in case anything useful was left to re-roll. It was also common for both staff and patients to smoke, again making distinction between the two groups really quite difficult at times.

Patients were admitted to Blackthorn for observation before being discharged or being moved onto a more suitable ward. I was shown a strait jacket on my first day but whether for effect or not I was never sure, I never saw it used. Clinical management included a padded room which I did see used several times. Early on in my time on Blackthorn I also accompanied a patient who going for electro convulsive therapy (ECT).

With the patient on a trolley and me walking alongside we went with the porters down the long corridor to the ECT suite. The corridors were all long and wide with plenty of window light. The walls were tiled half-way up with highly glazed, chestnut brown tiles above which the walls and ceiling were painted a non-descript green/blue colour. Walls were often hung with pictures and paintings by patients. The occasional patient would be seen shuffling down the corridor, sometimes chatty or maybe on the scrounge for a cigarette, other times head down, eyes averted; nearly always alone. On one occasion I saw a male patient standing to one side of the corridor chewing earnestly on a mouthful of Maltesers, some of which had dropped to the floor. As I got nearer, a foul, faecal smell hit me and I realised the Maltesers were just balls of faeces which he was carefully rounding in his mouth then spitting out.

When we got to the ECT suite, I watched whilst the doctor sedated the patient and applied the electrodes, the patient was then strapped onto a raised narrow bed. There were other people in the room at the time and we were all asked to stand back before the treatment started. When the current was applied I saw the patient’s hair start to rise up and his body started to twitch. When it was over, we pushed the patient back to the ward and transferred him into bed to sleep. I found the whole experience quite disturbing but nobody said a word about it to me either before or afterward. In fact in all my time at Npasbury (which by the way I ended up loving) I don't think anybody ever talked to me about what we were doing there or why.

Next week, working on the female elderly care ward, with split back nighties, buxton chairs and little thought to privacy or dignity...