Starcross History Society: Starcross Hospital. What the voices Tell Us. Instalment 8.

Part II What the voices tell us... about:

How people came to be there

It should be remembered that male and female patients were admitted from every part of the country – from Newcastle to Portsmouth, and Kent to Cornwall – and many of those known as “high grade” were Poor Law children without caring relatives and would never have been certified under the Lunacy or Mental Deficiency Act had it been possible to place them in a less competitive environment. Arthur Mortimore, Hospital Secretary

The classifications described in the Mental Deficiency Act were “idiot”, “imbecile”, “feeble-minded” and “moral defective”.

Moral defective was usually the ladies, one criterion being to have more than one illegitimate child. A variety of reasons would be given in addition to the classification, for example found without visible means of support or ineducable. This went on until the late 50s. It was seriously and religiously applied. If a patient went out without permission they could be prosecuted. Peter Nutley, Hospital Administrator.

One revolutionary change for the better occurred with the Mental Health Act of 1959. Until then, parents had suffered the trauma of seeing their children or other relatives “certified” or received under a Place of Safety Order prior to admission…. From 1959, such procedure, with its degree of stigma, came to an end… Those who witnessed over the decades the heartache and guilt complex suffered by many delightful families shared this unbounded relief at such a forward, humanitarian reform. Arthur Mortimore, Hospital Secretary.

We really had some bright ones. We had one there, he had an IQ of 120, a brilliant pianist, organist, but drink was his problem – he liked his tiddle… He practically finished all his days at Starcross. Len Vaughan, Nurse.

We had some psychopaths… I remember [one]. He was highly literate. He could compose a damn good letter and he would abscond from the hospital from time to time and … go round knocking on doors saying he was the welfare officer from Starcross. Dr Prentice, Medical Superintendent.

The patients when I went there [1923], they shouldn’t have been there. They came from bad homes. Miss Ford, Dressmaker In Elm Court [a house owned by the hospital] they were moral cases and defectives – the girls had had babies. In those days they shut them away. They used to come to us pregnant. Sometimes they were found jobs and sometimes they stayed on. The babies were adopted. Lots were shut away that would never be shut away these days. Mrs Price, Nurse.

I realise that the patients we had originally today would never have been there. But of course it was all moral behaviour, which, if you read the history of the hospital, it classes them as “moral defectives” needing care and attention and protection. That’s why it was originally set up. I am not going to say that they were all, but the biggest majority were. A lot of them you wouldn’t designate [mentally handicapped] today. Mary West, Nursing Officer.

** had a brother who was a patient at Moorhaven, the mental hospital. I think it was a poor family background and ** could easily be led astray and she was rather unstable and could have been in trouble rather often, and therefore the hospital background was, on the whole, helpful to her. But she became too dependent on it. Dr Prentice, Medical Superintendent.

I can understand [the hospital order] for the delinquent patients who had to come to us through the courts… but most of our feeble-minded patients … now they call them sub-normal, and the lower grade patients in those days we called the idiots and imbeciles… Well, why did you need a legal procedure for idiot and imbecile children who had no knowledge, who were often faulty in their habits, come in front of a couple of magistrates once or twice a year and had to be certified… In the mental hospitals from 1931 onwards you could have voluntary patients… Unfortunately, in mental deficiency that didn’t happen till 1959… and you’ve no idea how that helped. Dr Prentice, Medical Superintendent.

This idea of the permanence of their disability bedevilled everything you tried to do for them… … The Board of Control – inspectors they had, not even medical personnel – were the same, which every textbook expounded, that it was a permanent condition… But the Board of Control altered completely and became far more progressive than we in hospital. 1949 I think it was, they said there should only be two years on licence… some of our patients had five years, 10, even 20, which seemed ridiculous to be out that length of time in the community [without being discharged]. Dr Prentice, Medical Superintendent.

We had a lot of sort of high grade less handicapped… because people came in if they were at all promiscuous or people who just couldn’t cope in society and who fell foul of the law for one reason or another. If they were at all shown to be mentally handicapped they came into us… Much later on… we only had very severely mentally handicapped in and you didn’t admit willynilly. Dr Strange, Medical Officer.

Hundreds of them [misfits]. Hundreds of them – sent into hospital because, perhaps, father had sexually abused them and they had a kid… Perhaps Mum was simple and she had a baby and they didn’t know where to put them, so they put them in the workhouse and they’ve been there ever since. Were they mentally handicapped? No, no they were environmentally handicapped – by the environment around them. Jean Waldron, Nursing Sister.

Sometimes they came in just sort of “in need of care and attention”. They’d be picked up, sort of living rough in Torquay or somewhere. They were brought in and cleaned up and you’d either find them somewhere to go or the family would take them back…. I suppose their IQ would be somewhere in the 70s or 80s, they weren’t severely handicapped, just couldn’t really cope with living on their own… Two or three at Starcross seem to have been sent there simply because they had an illegitimate child – mentally, well they were maybe not very bright, I mean they weren’t that stupid either! Dr Mary Kemp, GP.

When I worked at Stoke Lyne [in Exmouth, part of the same hospital group as Starcross], we had four living-in, what they called them was the “working girls”. One was 74… she was in because she had an illegitimate child. … There was quite a group that were elderly and I don’t think there was very much wrong with them. Shelia Easby, Nursing Officer.

One lady, who had actually been sent to Rampton when she was 11, discharged when she was 61 … 50 years of her life, shut away in Rampton… that to me is criminal… and then the poor lady ends up with osteoporosis disease and is always breaking her legs… her life absolutely ruined … she came to me and she couldn’t understand that the cutlery wasn’t counted and that she didn’t have to have a locked bedroom. Jean Waldron, Nursing Sister.

If you got admitted to Exminster [a psychiatric hospital near Exeter], in Exminster you stayed, but if you got admitted to Starcross and you were mentally ill, there you stayed. The fact that you should have been up the road [at Exminster], they just didn’t have a swap. Jean Waldron, Nursing Sister.

I think we did once take a mentally handicapped patient, who’d been in [the Exminster psychiatric hospital] for donkey’s years and who blossomed when she came to us, but not really any cross-over at all. You had occasional links with Rampton because your worst patients you tried to get in there, the really disruptive ones, and they’d maybe send you back someone who’d “burnt out” and was now a quieter member of the public. Dr Mary Kemp, GP.

We used to have what were called “working boys”… They’d got ordinary jobs out [of the hospital] and they were coming back to stay the night. It was just unbelievable that that was going on…. Psychiatrists working there had special interests in forensic work… so they would then have people referred who were mildly mentally handicapped, or non-mentally handicapped, been in trouble with the law and they were banged in hospital. Dr Chris Williams, Psychologist.

I think people were put into Starcross because they weren’t acceptable outside. Whereas now it’s changed. I don’t think people accept them more now but they have accepted they will live in the community. Some of the older ones that were there, obviously you would never have put them there. Some of them had done silly little things… and they were put there. Night nurse.

The children:

They would be from school age, I suppose eight years of age b’time they discovered they weren’t getting on in the normal school…. And they used to send them here… the welfare workers used to say to the parents: “Johnny’s going to a special school at Starcross for further education.” Well, it was a bit of a con… because the attendants weren’t qualified to teach them really…. And then they graduated from the juniors into the seniors, see, and it wasn’t really a good thing, I didn’t think in those days, they ought to have a special school for them, somewhere other than the institution. I remember where the parents lived [in one part of Plymouth]. And they lived in terrible conditions… I felt sorry for them in lots of ways because their child in some cases might have just done a trivial thing like, for instance, smashing a telephone cap [on the telephone wires] or misbehaving himself in some way. They [the parents] would be under the impression that they [the children] would go there [the Courtenay School or Starcross] for a short space of time, because he would be about nine or 10 or 11 years old. Well, during the … course of time, Johnny would be 14, 15 and 16… they would have a devil of a job to get their boy released because [of] the Board of Control… Those poor little children… were virtually dumped in amongst all the number of patients that were there. They were frightened and scared… Stormy Adams, Hospital Mechanic.

At Stoke Lyne [Exmouth, part of the hospital group] … Parents had died of some of them and nobody wanted them and they were brought in as children. Sheila Easby, Nursing Officer.

Some never had any parents at all… I knew so many like that … if you’d say to a boy that had nobody at all “Where do you live then, Charlie?”, “Up the line” he’d say. He’d hear the other patients say “Up the line”, he’d automatically say “Up the line”. Well, it could be anywhere… there were so many who had no Mum and Dad… Stormy Adams, Hospital Mechanic.