STARCROSS HOSPITAL what the voices tell us

STARCROSS HOSPITAL what the voices tell us

This is a link to the whole of the 160 page oral history project on the history of The Royal Western Counties Hospital in Starcross.

This will take a while to download and so the project will also be presented in installments on this weblog 

On your mobile phone: you can open in incognito tab, or use your Google account, or share on Facebook. Tap and hold the link to view the drop-down menu of all the options of how you can view this booklet.

If you are using a computer to here view the web version of The Starcross History Society's weblog: just click on the link to view the booklet. 

Did this revive memories for you? Was there something that stuck you as particularly poignant or interesting? Do you have something to add? Would you please leave  feedback by commenting below, or by contacting

starcross.history@gmail.com

Thankyou

Many thanks to Caroline Hill for allowing The Starcross History Society to publish this remarkable book.

Starcross Hospital: What the Voices Tell Us. Instalment 1.

Why can't I live in a house?

 Foreword 

 

A case study about moving to Care in the Community, written by David King, was published by the Nuffield Trust in 1991. [1] 

 

It sought to describe how and why the institutions around Exeter, in Devon, were closed in the 1980s, and to inspire and enable other health areas to follow suit. 

 

It was written from the perspective of overseeing the push from hospital to community care, as David was at the helm of the Exeter Health Authority throughout this period, before moving to New Zealand where he would lead similar change. 

 

Before the first of the institutional hospitals in the Exeter area closed – the Royal Western Counties Hospital at Starcross – David set in train a project to create an oral archive. 

 

Now, the opportunity has come to publish extracts from the interviews alongside a commentary drawn from David’s words – from then (1988 and 1989), from 1991, and with fresh eyes from 2020. 

 

I hope this will be a useful companion to the 1991 publication but also a tribute to those who lived and worked at Starcross Hospital as well as a window on an important part of the social history of the village of Starcross. 

Caroline Hill 

 

   

Starcross Hospital: What the Voices Tell Us

Caroline Hill is to present, on this weblog, a remarkable project about The Royal Western Counties Hospital. An oral record was made about the hospital shortly after it closed in 1986.

Caroline has  collected together the interview transcripts and reproduced extracts in an easy-to-read compilation, bringing what was said back to life.

"After more than 30 years, most of the contributors will no longer be with us, but their families and people who knew them may value being able to read what they had put on tape back in the late 1980s."

Caroline hopes that this project will be of interest to anyone seeking to know more about the history of the village of Starcross because of the memories it contains of life inside and  outside the hospital, going back to the 1930s.

 The full interview transcripts will be lodged with other Starcross documentation at the Devon archives in the Devon  Heritage Centre.