The oral history’s intended purpose
In April 1986, I wrote about the aims of the oral history, as David King was going to send a letter about it to the Principal Medical Officer at the Department of Health and Social Security in London:
The project will give a refreshingly telling, new approach to the recording of a service at the point of change.
Both staff and residents will, in their own words, be able to record their personal experience of change itself, and of life before and after the change. What more fitting memorial to the lives of these people?
The project achieved much of this, but fell short when it came to following up on experiences in the years after the change. Nevertheless...
By presenting the words of the staff and the residents themselves, rather than impersonal and dehumanising facts and figures, a unique impression of the reality of Starcross will unfold. Supporting documentation will be preserved so that points of fact may be substantiated.
This was done. (See the appendices for details.)
Such an archive will not be one researcher’s analytical viewpoint – with all the bias that that inevitably carries with it. This will, instead, be a vehicle for these people to present themselves for what they really are; a series of snapshots or portraits of people at this fascinating point in history.
This is the evidence we need to bring to people who continually put the point that “they” would be better off in hospital. Documentation relating to management and committee work would only serve to put “them” over even less as people. We do not want to promote the idea of people with mental handicap [today I would prefer to say learning difficulties or special needs] merely being statistics.
My view, looking back, is that the later interviews, carried out in collaboration with the university, were conducted from a more analytical viewpoint. Instead of being quite so simple and objective as the early ones had set out to be, they focused to a greater extent on the management of change.
The project will, in the exciting and well-received mode employed by the best of America’s current researchers, be a revelation to the many people who have no idea what has transpired behind the walls of institutions like Starcross, and it will illuminate the plight of people who lived there.
Overly-grandiose words! It was really to try to preserve a first-hand record of reality, before time distorted it.
The tape-recorded interviews will be a valuable resource of candid first-hand accounts for future researchers, historians, other health authorities, and the public to benefit from. Much interest in the project has already been expressed, both by the people who will be the subjects and by academics here in Exeter, London, Essex and even Canada.
I also saw it as a gift back to the village of Starcross, because the institution had been central to life there, to employment, to family life, and the building was such an imposing landmark. I anticipated creating access to the stories, through exhibitions, open days...
Today, we wonder what went on in the minds of the Starcross builders. However, future generations will know through this project what was on the minds of people now [at the time of closure in 1986 and the subsequent demolition of the building]. The intentions of carrying through change to care in the community should not be lost along the way.
The recording of impressions at the moment of change, as distinct from a written evaluation, surely has its place.
This is a story of Starcross Hospital which could not be told so colourfully or so memorably in any other words, or by looking in the records.
Although many documents were preserved [see Appendices], this oral history, as with any, is arguably more truly representative of the realities, and at the very least balances, or contrasts with, the written evidence.
Please note appendices will be published at a later date.
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