Survivors History
Recommended web address http://studymore.org.uk/mpu.htm
Survivors

Mental health and survivors' movements and context

A history organised by the Survivors History Group in association with
the survivor history internet forum and network and
the mental health history timeline

The Survivors History Group was founded in April 2005 to value and celebrate the contribution that mental health service users/survivors have made and are making to history. It is working towards a comprehensive history on this site and in a book. It will also preserve historical material in digital form on this site, and in printed and other forms.

Jessie looks into the future with Hannah.

Alphabetical index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z     Home

Joan Hughes' drinking
habits
Joan Hughes 1928-2008 Survivor historian

Survivor timeline   1373   1393   1417   1533   1539   1620   1621   1651   1654   1738   1772   1803   1812   1830   1834   1835   1836   1837   1838   1839   1840   1841   1842   1843   1844   1845   1858   1859   1860   1861   1862   1873   1890   1892   1884   1894   1900   1908   1913   1916   1926   1927   1928   1929   1939   1940   1941   1942   1943   1944   1945   1946   1947   1948   1949   1950   1951   1952   1953   1954   1955   1956   1957   1958   1959   1960   1961   1962   1963   1964   1965   1966   1967   1968   1969   1970   1971   1972   1973   1974   1975   1976   1977   1978   1979   1980   1981   1982   1983   1984   1985   1986   1987   1988   1989   1990   1991   1992   1993   1994   1995   1996   1997   1998   1999   2000   2001   2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012   2013   2014   2015   2016   2017   2018
leaflets and downloads
contact
Annual Reports
members' forum
Survivors Speak Out project
Critical Perspectives
Community Archives Conference
Manchester 2011
Preston 2011
Edinburgh 2011
Health rights 2011
Nottingham 2010
Manchester 2010
Birmingham 2010
Kingsley Hall 2010
Asylum 2010
Birmingham International 2009
Hendon 2009
Brighton 2009
Bristol 2009
Canterbury 2009
London 2009
State of Mind
Manchester 2008
May 2008 conference report
Essex 2008

Under contract with a publisher, and with the help of other members of the Survivor History Group, Peter Campbell is working on a book about survivor history. Andrew Roberts is writing a series of manuscript articles, based on this website, which may assist the book project.
This website will be preserved by the UK Web archive and the (international) Internet Archive. See links from Andrew Roberts' home page or go directly to the 11.7.2007 archive of this page. The UK Web Archiving Consortium, who run the web archive, aim to preserve sites for at least one hundred years. Andrew Roberts plans to preserve the orginal location for ten years or more.
The website includes, or will include:

  • The story/stories of the movement in the form of a timeline.

  • Individuals' stories inter-related to the story of the movement. See, for example, Charlotte and Freda Mew - Eric Irwin - Joan Hughes - Valerie Argent - Frank Bangay - State of Mind.

  • Information boxes about particular features such as Survivor's Poetry

  • Indexes such as that of survivor history features in Asylum magazine.

  • Reviews and summaries of books, articles and other printed material that record and discuss the story. See, for example, Contesting Psychiatry (2005)

  • Copies of articles about the movement and its history. Some of which are listed in the leaflets and downloads section. Others - for example, Mark Cresswell on the self-harm movement - are listed separately.

  • Copies of documents from the movement's history. Including - Perceval's narrative (extracts) - Ken - The General Grievances of Patients in Hartwood - the Fish Pamphlet - MPU Declaration of Intent - Edale Charter -

  • Lists of paper records about groups in the movement that individuals and others have preserved - See histories - libraries - archives

  • Book and pamphlet lists. See libraries - especially the Anne Plumb Collection

  • Records of where papers, books and pamphlets are preserved.
    See listed archive listed archives

    Building this record has to be a collective effort, and we hope you will help us.

  • Leaflets and other material to download

    About the Survivors History Group

    Leaflets - newsletter/leaflet - leaflet - exhibition

    Articles - Survivor History

    General histories

    From the Survivors History Group: Survivor Voices 1908-2008 - A timeline from the Survivors History Group

    From Beyond the Water Towers Sainsbury Trust 2005 From Little Acorns - The mental health service user movement by Peter Campbell

    From the Mind website: user/survivor empowerment leaflets

    Report on Conference with Historians - May 2008
    Celebrating our history - Valuing ourselves. A pdf of the whole report
    Part one as a web page

    Histories with a special theme

    From the Greater Manchester Survivors History Group: Greater Manchester leaflet and timeline

    History of Survivors Speak Out

    From Time Together (Together: Working for Wellbeing) - Andrew Roberts' articles relating individual survivor lives to the movement - "The Story of Valerie Argent" Winter 2008 - "The Story of Joan Hughes" Summer 2009 - "The Story of Freda and Charlotte Mew" Winter 2009 - "A Celebration of Survivor History" Summer 2010 - "The Story of Frank Bangay" Summer 2011 - Emotional journeys December 2011

    Judy Chamberlin (1944-2010) Psychiatric Survivor Activist, from Asylum September 2010 pp 20-21

    "Scotland the Brave - User movement roots" by Andrew Roberts

    Tools for teaching survivor history

    Compiled by Clare Ockwell for CAPITAL:

  • A reading list
  • A Quiz
  • 1973 Demands - What have we achieved?

  • Where have We come From? - Appreciating our roots

    By Peter Campbell

  • Teaching and learning survivor movement history

    Questions for discussion

  • Five questions
  • Lots of questions

  • Survivor Timeline

    Several items in this timeline (chronology) link to fuller items further down the page or on other pages. Use it as one index to the page. There is another index in the margin.


    about 1373 Margery Kempe born Margery Brunham. She was the daughter of John Brunham, sometimes mayor of Lynn, in Norfolk. She married John Kempe, who became a town official in 1394. They had fourteen or more children at least one of whom (a son) survived into adulthood.


    The 1995 USA paperback (left) of her medieval story has been sub-titled "autobiography of the madwoman of God"

    A chapter by chapter analysis of the book is available on the mapping Margery Kempe website


    about 1393 Margery Kempe had a child and went "out of her mind" for about eight months.

    " And in this time she saw, as she thought, devils opening their mouths all inflamed with burning waves of fire, as if they would have swallowed her in, sometimes ramping at her, sometimes threatening her, pulling her and hauling her, night and day during the aforesaid time. Also the devils cried upon her with great threatenings, and bade her that she should forsake Christendom, her faith, and deny her God, His Mother and all the Saints in Heaven, her good works and all good virtues, her father, her mother and all her friends. And so she did. She slandered her husband, her friends and her own self. She said many a wicked word, and many a cruel word; she knew no virtue nor goodness; she desired all wickedness; like as the spirits tempted her to say and do, so she said and did. She would have destroyed herself many a time at their stirrings and have been damned with them in Hell, and in witness thereof, she bit her own hand so violently, that the mark was seen all her life after.

    And also she rived the skin on her body against her heart with her nails spitefully, for she had no other instruments, and worse she would have done, but that she was bound and kept with strength day and night so that she might not have her will. And when she had long been laboured in these and many other temptations, so that men weened she should never have escaped or lived... "

    Margery was relieved of her madness through a vision of Jesus, and against the advice of her "maidens and keepers" her husband returned to her the keys of the domestic cupboard and her freedom to communicate with her friends.

    1413 (soon after her father's death) Margery Kempe left her husband to take a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. She returned via Rome and left Rome in Easter 1415

    "She had so much affection for the manhood of Christ, that when she saw women in Rome bearing children in their arms, if she could ascertain that any were man children, she would then cry, roar, and weep as if she had seen Christ in His childhood.

    ... If she saw a seemly man, she had great pain in looking at him, lest she might have seen Him Who was both God and man.

    ... the Father of Heaven ... told her that she should be wedded to His Godhead.

    ... 'I take thee, Margery, for My wedded wife, for fairer, for fouler, for richer, for poorer, so that thou be kindly and gentle to do as I bid thee'"

    1417 left on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, via Bristol. On her journey back through England she was twice interrogated and imprisoned. She returned to Lynn sometime in 1418

    "Kempe recounts several public interrogations during her travels. One followed her arrest by the Mayor of Leicester who accused her, in Latin, of being a "cheap whore, a lying Lollard," and threatened her with prison. After Kempe was able to insist on the right of accusations to be made in English and to defend herself she was briefly cleared, but then brought to trial again by the Abbot, Dean and Mayor, and imprisoned for three weeks. She returned to Lynn some time in 1418." (Wikipedia)

    "During the 1420s Kempe lived apart from her husband. When he fell ill, however, she returned to Lynn to be his nursemaid. Their son, who lived in Germany, also returned to Lynn with his wife." (Wikipedia)

    1431 Death of John Kempe and the Kempe's son.

    1436 Margery Kempe finished dictating a book about her spiritual experiences.

    Thomas Moore and the beating of the frenzied heretic

    In his apology (1533), Moore explains which heretics he had ordered to be beaten whilst Lord Chancellor (October 1529 - May 1532):

    "Another was one which, after that he had fallen into that frantic heresy, fell soon after into plain open frenzy beside. And albeit that he had therefore been put up in Bedlam, and afterward by beating and correction gathered his remembrance to him, and began to come again to himself, being thereupon set at liberty, and walking about abroad, his old fancies began to fall again in his head. And I was from divers good holy places advertised, that he used in his wandering about to come into the church, and there make many mad toys and trifles, to the trouble of good people in the divine service, and specially would he be most busy in the time of most silence, while the priest was at the secrets of the mass about the elevation. Whereupon I, being advertised of these pageants, and being sent unto and required by very devout religious folk, to take some other order with him, caused him as he came wandering by my door, to be taken by the constables, and bounden to a tree in the street before the whole town, and there they striped him with rods therefor till he waxed weary, and somewhat longer. And it appeared well that his remembrance was good enough, save that it went about in grazing till it was beaten home. For he could then very well rehearse his faults himself, and promise to do afterward as well. And verily, God be thanked, I hear none harm of him now."

    1539 Juan Ciudad Duarte

    Known examples of collective action are exceedingly rare before the 19th century. A 1620 "Petition of the Poor Distracted Folk of Bedlam" is often mentioned. The primary sources for this (see below) are ambiguous. Whilst it is possible to read them as evidence of collective action by patients, they can also be read as evidence of complaints by others being investigated. By contrast, the Alleged Lunatics Friend Society, founded in 1845, is well documented.

    1914 The Story of Bethlehem Hospital by Edward O'Donoghue, page 160. The "court books" refers to the Bethlem Court of Governors Minutes

    The relative of a Bethlem patient, Elizabeth Slater, complained about her treatment in 1620:

    "In April 1620, a committee was appointed to hear the complaints made by a Mr Slater about his daughter's mistreatment and abuses in general; in July, three Governors were ordered to discuss and investigate further alleged abuses." ( Andrews etc 1997 (Kindle Locations 2007-2008).

    "The Governors undoubtedly expected inmates to be looked after in a way that did not damage them. When the father of Elizabeth Slater, a woman transferred from Bridewell to Bethlem in August 1620, complained that 'her foote was rotten . for want of good looking to' a mere three weeks later, they immediately ordered a committee to investigate this and any other possible abuses." ( Andrews etc 1997 (Kindle Locations 3594-3596).

    From A transcript of the registers of the company of stationers of London; 1554-1640, A. D. Edited by Edward Arber. Volume three. available in the Haithi Trust Digital Library

    In 1635 William Jones was one of the twenty two master printers of London (same source). He may have had a printer son who died in 1627. The family were puritans and one or other was prosecuted in 1609 in a case that the king (James 1st) took an interest in. William Jones (the father?) died in 1643. His printing business was a continuation of that of Ralph Blower and was continued by Thomas Paine (See Library of Congress name authority file)

    Peterson 1982 refers to this. In his bibliography he lists "Anonymous The Petition of the poor Distracted People in the House of Bedlam London 1620 No known copies remain" (p.355) and on page 47 he says

    "I know of only one piece of protest writing from the seventeenth century, a pamphlet entitled The Petition of the poor Distracted People in the House of Bedlam, which was registered in 1620 but then lost"

    Other people tell different stories: "as far as we know the existence of a 1620 Petition of the Poor Distracted Folk of Bedlam is no more than a rumour" - "the existence of a document called a 'Petition of the Poor Distracted Folk of Bedlam', supposedly composed by patients and submitted to the House of Lords. Although widely reported (including a reference in the book Personal Development and Clinical Psychology) ... does not appear in Bethlem's archives, and as far as the archivist, Colin Gale, knows, it is a 'phantom reference'. ... if the first genuine patient perspective of Bedlam dates from as late as 1818" (Madness and the Theatre blog)

    1621 Robert Burton

    1651

    Winter 1651 George Fox's vision of blood in the streets of Lichfield

    assasination 1651 or 1652 Birth of Christoph Haizmann (died 14.3.1700) who became a painter and, in 1669, engaged in what he saw as a "pact with the devil".

    The pact is said to include the words "I, Christoph Haizmann, subscribe myself to this Lord as his bounden son till the ninth year. Year 1669"

    1654 John Pateson

    1677

    assasination 29.8.1677 In church, in the Seignory of Pootenbrunn, near Vienna, painter Christoph Haizmann was seized by convulsions. Shortly afterwards he confessed to a pact with the devil made nine years before.

    The picture of the first meeting with the devil, a genial genleman walking his dog, is taken from a three part (Triptych) thanksgiving painting by Haizmann which shows the exorcism of the devil in the centre.

    1738 Alexander Cruden

    1772 Pageant: James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw's life narrative

    1803

    14.2.1803 John Thomas Perceval, founder of the Alleged Lunatics Friend Society born (Gault, H. 2010, p.49). He died 1876.

    1805

    26.3.1805 Birth of Luke James Hansard, original founder of the Alleged Lunatics Friend Society. His father (James Hansard 23.3.1781-1849) was the second son of Luke Hansard (5.7.1752-29.10.1828), founder of the firm that printed reports of parliament. See 1820 - 1828 - 1845 - 1846 - 1847 - 1848 - 1851 -

    assasination
    Monday 12.5.1812: John Thomas Perceval's father assassinated

    1820  

    Luke James Hansard working in his grandfather's printing firm?

    1824  

    June 1824 Edward L. Peithman, aged about 20, came to England from Germany. In 1827 he published Peithman's Latin composition, in 1830 Peithman's Latin grammar and in 1832 Peithman's French grammar. See 1840 - 1854 - 1855

    1825  

    1826  

    December 1826 First of the Albury conferences in which an elite group gathered in a Sussex banker's house to discuss the "unfulfilled prophesies". Spencer Perceval junior took part.

    1827  

    11.5.1827 The new Caledonian Church in Regent Street, minister Edward Irving, built for 1,700, was full filled to overflowing at its opening.

    1828  

    29.10.1828 Luke Hansard died at the home of James Hansard in Southampton Street. He had returned to London from Worthing 10.10.1828 and had been "carried up-stairs" by James, Luke Graves Hansard (a brother of James) and Luke James Hansard (aged 23). The firm became "James and Luke G. Hansard" (Trewin and King 1952 p.162.

    1830

    March 1830 At Row (now Rhu) on the Gareloch and the Clyde coast:

    "On Sunday, 28th March, 1830, Miss Mary Campbell spoke in tongues and some days later was miraculously healed of consumption at her home at Fernicarry on the Gareloch in the parish of Roseneath, Dunbartonshire." Strachan, The Pentecostal Theology Of Edward Irving, p.13.

    June 1830 John Thomas Perceval went to Scotland to enquire about the Row Miracles

    7.10.1830 Begining of Spencer Perceval's busy month of London madhouse visiting

    Christmas 1830 In Dublin, John Thomas Perceval was "unfortunately deprived of the use of reason". He was admitted to a private asylum (in England) in January 1831

    1831  

    January 1831 John Thomas Perceval confined in Brislington House.

    14.2.1831 Spencer Perceval's first motion (withdrawn) calling for a day of national fasting.

    1.3.1831 First Reform Bill introduced into the House of Commons

    March 1831 Spencer Perceval making some London madhouse visits

    July 1831 Second Reform Bill in the House of Commons

    October 1831 cholera in Britain

    December 1831 Third Reform Bill in the House of Commons

    1832  

    21.3.1832 Spencer Perceval to the House of Commons:

    "I tell you that this land will soon be desolate; a little time and ye shall howl one and all in the streets. I tell ye that the pestilence, which God is now holding in, will be let loose among ye, and that the sword will follow it ... I tell the house more than this: the Church of the land shall be laid low, for she hath corrupted her way before God ... trouble yourselves not with this Bill; for this which I have told you is your doom ... God looketh into your hearts, and seeth that you care not for him. He seeth that ye think that ye have got your Sovereign into a net, but..."
    and later
    "Ye may think me mad, and ridicule me as a man beside himself ..."

    (Quoted Gault, H. 2010, p.125)

    21.3.1832 National day of fasting and prayer

    May 1832 John Thomas Perceval moved to Ticehurst Asylum

    7.6.1832 Royal Assent to the Parliamentary Reform Act

    1833  

    1834

    31.3.1834 John Thomas Perceval , married Anna Lesley Gardner, a cheesemonger's daughter, who was described by his family as "quite out of his station in life". They went to Paris, where their first two daughters were born: Jane Beatrice, April 1835-1893 and Alice Frederica, June 1836- 1941 (1921?). Their third daughter, Selina Maria, 1838-1925, married her cousin Sir Horatio George Walpole, assistant under-secretary of state for India. Fanny Louisa Charlotta, 1845- 1862, died when she was 17.

    1835

    John Thomas Perceval's elder sister, Isabella, married Spencer Walpole who, as Tory Home Secretary, in 1859 set up an inquiry into lunacy laws that John Thomas gave evidence to.

    1838 Birth of Herculine Barbin (1838-1868), who became Abel Barbin after 1860, otherwise known as Alexina B. He killed himself in February 1868. (Wikipedia - Foucault)

    1838 A narrative of the treatment experienced by a gentleman, during a state of mental derangement: designed to explain the causes and the nature of insanity, and to expose the injudicious conduct pursued towards many unfortunate sufferers under that calamity by John Thomas Perceval published anonymously.

    24.8.1838 Richard Paternoster's confinement reported in The Times

    5.10.1838 Advertisement?

    MR PATERNOSTER

    TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

    Sir - It is due to Mr Richard Paternoster, whose seizure and confinment an insane person have excited so much interest, that the public should be informed that after a full investigation of the circumstances by the Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy (set on foot immediately upon their being acquainted with the fact) and after a detention of six weeks in Mr Finch's Lunatic Asylum at Kensington, he has been released. We are, Sir, your most obedient servants, LAKE AND CURTIS. Solicitors to Mr Richard Paternoster. 11 Basinghall-street, October 5, 1838

    Nicholas Hervey (1986) appears to suggest that this was an advertisement "for others to join him" and that it brought John Thomas Perceval and Paternoster together, to be joined in 1839 by William Bailey and Richard Saumarez.

    1839

    Marquis of Normanby Home Secretary 30.8.1839 to 3.9.1841 - Preface p.x to 1840 Narrative, Perceval says that "since the present work was placed in the hands of the printer", the Marquis (in contrast to others previously) had attended to his suggestions "with as much courtesy as good will". Perceval speaks of the confidence inspired in him by his previous publication had enabled him to approach the Marquis.

    22.9.1839 Letter from John Thomas Perceval in The Satirist. The letter was written in Paris in August 1839

    1840   16.2.1840 Letter from John Thomas Perceval in The Satirist. The letter was written from Kensington.

    10.6.1840 Edward Oxford fired shots at the carriage of the newly married Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He was found insane and sent to Bethlem.

    1840 A narrative of the treatment experienced by a gentleman, during a state of mental derangement: designed to explain the causes and the nature of insanity, and to expose the injudicious conduct pursued towards many unfortunate sufferers under that calamity by John Thomas Perceval published with his name on. [Different content]

    9.8.1840 Perceval's Narrative reviewed in The Examiner

    29.6.1840 Edward Peithman sought an audience with Prince Albert and found himself detained in Bethlem.

    October 1840 The assault on his wife (below) led to Arthur Legent Pearce being confined in the criminal lunatic wing of Bethlem, where John Thomas Perceval used to visit him. It appears to have been in visiting Pearce that Perceval met Edward Peithman (above). The conditions in Bethlem led Perceval to protest and in the early 1850s this led to inquiry into Bethlem and Peithman's release. For Arthur Legent Pearce see 1843 and poems in 1851.

    "ATTEMPTED MURDER.-On Friday week the neighbourhood of Kensington Gravel-pits was thrown into a state of considerable excitement, in consequence of a report that a lady had been shot by her husband under circumstances of a peculiarly painful nature. The lady in question is Mrs. Elizabeth Pearce, the wife of Mr. Arthur Legent Pearce a respectable surgeon, residing at No. 23, Bedfordplace, Kensington. Mrs. Pearce, who is about 36 years of age, has been married to her husband some years, and has three or four children, one of whom is still an infant in arms ; and she has possession of considerable property in her own right. For the last week or two an alteration bad manifested itself in the conduct of Mr. Pearce. He had been heard accusing his wife of unfaithfulness to him, and also with having made repeated attempts to poison him, by introducing arsenic into his food, &c. On the afternoon of Friday they were visited by a friend, who remained, with the intention of taking an early dinner with them. Between two and three o'clock, just as they had sat down to the dinner-table, Mr. Pearce suddenly rose, and, complaining that the room was insufferably hot, pushed up a window behind where his wife was sitting, and at the same instant discharged a pistol at her. Mrs. Pearce immediately fell off her chair, and while the friend who was sitting with them ran towards Mr. Pearce, she contrived to creep out of the room, and escape into the street, where her cries and her appearance, her hair hanging dishevelled about her ears, without shoes, and her dress (a light muslin one) on fire, soon brought several of the neighbouring residents to her assistance, when, her burning clothes having been extinguished, she was assisted to the residence of Mr. Taylor, her medical attendant, in High-row, Kensington Gravel-pits. On Saturday, at the sitting of the magistrates, at their office in Kensington-square, Mr. Collison, the solicitor of Mr. Pearce, applied for an adjournment of the case, it being essential that his client should have counsel. Before doing so, however, he would have an interview with Mr. Pearce. Mr. Collison, after an absence of nearly an hour, returned, and said it was still his wish that the case should be postponed for a day or two, that he might consult with the friends of Mrs. Pearce, who he must say had met him with the greatest consideration in the matter. Mr. Jennings, on behalf of Mr. Pinto, the guardian of Mrs. Pearce, had no objection to the postponement of the case on the grounds stated. The magistrates determined to hear some evidence before they adjourned the case, and Mr. Pearce was placed at the bar. He appeared greatly agitated and much dejected, holding a handkerchief before his face during the investigatimi. Mr. Rodes, apparently a military man, stated that he was on a visit at the prisoner's house, and, as they were about to sit down to dinner, Mr. Peace complained of the sultriness of the day, and threw up the window with some violence '  at that instant he heard the report of a pistol, and Mrs. Pearce fell to the ground. She then crawled from the room, and running through the garden, reached the street, her clothes being then in flames from the lighted wadding catching them. In his examination by the bench, the witness said he did not see the pistol in the prisoner's hands at the time, nor did he see him fire it off. Mr. Taylor' the surgeon, deposed that Mrs. Pearce was wounded in the breast, but he could not say that it was by a ball ; it might have been by the wadding ; no ball was found on probing the wound ; she was much burned about the arm. He further stated that Mrs. Pearce was suffering very severely from the wound and the burns. Mr. Pilkington adjourned the further examination until Wednesday, and the prisoner was taken in a fly to the New Prison, Clerkenwell." (The Tablet 24.10.1840)

    25.10.1840 Letter from John Thomas Perceval in The Satirist. Refers to the suicide of Edward Perceval

    1840 Sir John William Lubbock (Age 36) and his family moved into High Elms, Downe, Kent. From 1842 they were neighbours and friends of Charles Darwin and his family. In 1846, John William Lubbock was one of the three trustees of the Alleged Lunatics Friend Society.

    1841  

    June 1841 Proposal for an association of asylum doctors

    December 1841 Richard Paternoster's The Madhouse System

    1842  

    1843  

    21.11.1843 Arthur Legent Pearce, now an inmate of Bethlehem Hospital [Bedlam] in the parish of St George, Surrey: commission and inquisition of lunacy, into his state of mind and his property. The National Archives, Kew C 211/20/P205

    "LUNACY.-On Tuesday an inquisition, in the nature of a writ de lunaticø inquirendo, issued against Mr. Arthur Legent Pearce, at present an inmate of Bethlehem Hospital, St. George's-fields, was opened bcfore Mr. Commissioner Winslow, at the Horns Tavern, Kennington. The jury, without requiring the learned Corninissioner to sum up, returned a verdict to the effect "That Mr. Pearce was of unsound mind, that he was ncapable of managinghimself or his affairs,: and that he had been so from the 16th of October, 1840."

    12.6.1844 Pageant: John Clare's The Nightingale

    1844

    Perceval's letter to the Home Secretary about William Bailey

    1845

    Perceval's letters upon the reform of the law affecting the treatment of persons alleged alleged to be of unsound mind

    3.1.1845 Start of a conflict between Luke Graves Hansard, who was controlling the printers, and Henry Hansard, who considered he should be a partner.

    6.6.1845 Lunacy and Lunatic Asylums Bills to be introduced to the House of Commons by Ashley, James Graham (the Home Secretary) and Vernon Smith

    25.6.1845 House of Commons at the Committee stage of the Lunacy and Lunatic Asylums Bills

    1.7.1845 Perceval's petition presented to the House of Commons by Thomas Slingsby Duncombe MP, calling for an inquiry "into the treatment of Lunatic and other patients and ... the laws affecting their seizure, detention and release" before the Lunacy Bill became law. If that was not possible Perceval wanted specified amendments be made to the bill to provide greater security of civil liberties.

    2.7.1845 Duncombe stated that if the Bill was not postponed to the next session, to allow for an inquiry, he would "divide the House on every stage". He was supported by Sharman Crawford and Viscount Duncan and secured 15 votes (to 117) for postponement.

    3.7.1845 Petitions of Lewis Phillips, Joseph Digby and William Bailey

    7.7.1845 Alleged Lunatics Friend Society formed. (Gault, H. 2010, p.190) - See above and below - See publications of the society - publications of John Thomas Perceval (and index of sources about)

    Thursday 14.8.1845 First meeting of the new Lunacy Commission

    1846

    1846 A Report of the Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society published covering the period 7.7.1845 to 7.1.1846

    Perceval became (honorary) secretary to Alleged Lunatics Friend Society in succession to Luke James Hansard".

    "Luke James was withdrawing into an eccentric world of his own. He was only mad nort-north-west: when the wind was southerly he could still govern Turnstile and Parker Street with his own shrewdness. But there were now periods of blurring when he thought merely in cloudy symbols". (p.229)

    March 1846: From an advertisement:

    ALLEGED LUNATICS' FRIEND SOCIETY, founded July, 1845 - At a meeting of several Gentlemen feeling deeply interested in behalf of their fellow creatures, subjected to confinement as lunatic patients. It was unanimously resolved :-

    That a Society be now formed, to be entitled "The Lunatics' Friend Society," and it has subsequently been agreed to name the same "The Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society,"

    That this Society is formed for the protection of the British subject from unjust confinement, on the grounds of mental derangement, and for the redress of persons so confined, also for the protection of all persons confined as lunatic patients from cruel and improper treatment.

    That the Society will receive applications from persons complaining of being unjustly treated, or from their friends, aid them in obtaining legal advice, and otherwise assist and afford them all proper protection.

    That the Society will endeavour to procure a reform in the laws and treatment affecting the arrest, detention, and release of persons treated as of unsound mind.

    VICE-PRESIDENTS

    Lord Viscount Lake - James Ackers, Esq., MP - W. Bagge, Esq., MP - Sir H. Winston Barron, Bart., MP - Peter Borthwick, Esq., MP - Col. Henry Bruen, MP - R.A. Christopher, Esq., MP - W. Sharman Crawford, Esq., MP - Hon. W.N. Ridley Colborne, MP - T. Slingsby Duncombe, Esq., MP - Major-Gen. W.A. Johnson, MP - Sir John W. Lubbock, Bart, - S.C. H. Ogle, Esq., MP - John Patrick Somers, Esq., MP - Edmund Turner, Esq., MP - The Hon. C. Pelham Villiers, MP.

    [MORE]

    26.3.1846 The Alleged Lunatics Friend Society was noted at the weekly meeting of the Lunacy Commission, attended by Ashley and professional commissioners. At the same meeting, Haydock Lodge became an issue.

    27.11.1846 entry in the Visitors Book on the Criminal wing of Bethlem Hospital

    I visited the Hospital this day for the purpose of seeing my Friend Mr. Pearce, and being ushered into the waiting room, & finding this upon the table, I beg leave to call the attention of the Governors to the following observation. Having myself been confined some years back from a temporary derangement of the understanding, I knew the irksomness of long confinement without hope (except that which inwardly maintained me from a confidence in the reasonableness of the views I entertained, when I was of opinion that my liberty ought to have been restored to me, and my trust in the Power and Wisdom of a Divine Providence) and the depressing influence of such a confinement & of every circumstance that rudely called it to my recollection. Amongst the most painful of these circumstances was the constant sight of heavy bars to my window, which in my extremely nervous state even produced a sensation of physical pain to the visual organs. I observed the bars to the windows in this Asylum are peculiarly massive-and they remind me so much of the horrors of my former situation, that it is with a considerable effort, that I am not persuaded by my feelings from fulfilling my intentions, when I come to the gate of the Asylum. I think the Committee might safely remove these bars, and substitute windows with small sashes in iron frames-or adopt in some cases, the plan pursued in many private asylums, of having Venetian blinds to the windows. This would give a more cheerful appearance to the Hospital outside, and relieve in a greater degree than can be conceived by those who have never secluded under such circumstances, its heartsick inhabitants.

    1847

    15.5.1847 Luke James Hansard's advertisement in The Times attacking Joseph Hume MP which led to his losing the contract for printing parliamentary reports.

    19.5.1847 Notice in The Times from Henry Hansard saying that the partnership between himself and [his older cousin] Luke James Hansard "is this day Dissolved, and that the business will henceforth be carried out by me alone". Luke James denied in the press that Henry had ever been a partner, he said he was just "an Allowance Clerk". Luke James' father (James Hansard) took legal action against him - [which may have been to apply to Chancery for a Writ de lunatico inquirendo] - Henry and Luke James fought the issue of the partnership out. It was resolved in Henry's favour in October 1847 and the firm recovered the printing contract. (See Trewin and King 1952 p.231).

    1848

    25.12.1848. Entry in the journal of Henry Hansard:

    "The Times of this day contains an advertisement from Luke James being entitled 'An Appeal to the People of England of All Classes of the United Queendom!' The only opinion that can be passed upon it is that it a confirmation - were confirmation necessary - of his condition... This wretched man has been enabled to prolong the Chancery suit for nearly two years, to bring his father from worry and vexation to the brink of the grave, to involve the concern and myself in enormous expense and perhaps destroy my fondest hopes in life and to be in all probability - amounting almost to certainty - the ruin and means of degradation to his own family consisting of six or seven children" (Quoted Trewin and King 1952 p.232).

    1850

    1851

    1851 A Report of the Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society published

    28.1.1851. Entry in the journal of Henry Hansard:

    "Saw an advertisement in the Times by Mr L. J. Hansard to the Governors of Christ's Hospital asking for a presentation for her child, reciting the numerous charites of her husband and his having been 27 years Printer to the House which appointment he had lost owing to his having neglected his own interests in the cause of philanthropy and stating that he is now absent from the country from inability to meet his pecumiary engagements" (Quoted Trewin and King 1952 p.235).

    1851 Poems by a Prisoner in Bethlehem (Arthur Legent Pearce) published by Perceval

    1852

    1853

    1854

    Autumn 1854 Edward Peithman, having been released from Bethlem, saw fit to approach Prince Albert again, and was detained in Hanwell. He was allowed to leave the country in the company of John Thomas Perceval.

    1855

    1855 Case of Dr. Peithman published by Perceval

    5.5.1855 Ann Tottenham taken to an asylum. 28.6.1855 Inquiry into Ann Tottenham's case.

    21.8.1855 [Walter] Abraham Haigh born Mayfield, Derbyshire, to James Haigh, cotton merchant, and Sarah Crompton Haigh. Living with his parents as lodgers in Over, Cheshire, in 1861. Matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge, 8.10.1876 (of Stafford). Received his BA from Cambridge University (not Oxford) in 1881. A school tutor at May Place, Main Road, Hanley Castle, Worcestershire in 1881. At this time, his father James was a patient in St Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth, London. Walter A. Haigh was admitted to Bethlem Royal Hospital on 18.10.1882 and discharged 20.7.1888. See 1884. Ordained deacon (London) 1889; priest, 1890; Curate of Bromley, Kent, 1889-1891. Curate of Christ Church, Chelsea, Middlesex, 1891-1892. No address given subsequently, and disappears from Crockford, 1902. [Mostly from Cambridge University Alumni] (Museum of the Mind and Sarah Chaney 2015)

    1856

    4.1.1856 Ann Tottenham escaped

    1857

    1857

    1858 Herculine Barbin an assistant teacher in a girl's school. She became the lover of Sara, another teacher. Excruciating pains led to a medical examination in 1860 and a decision that Herculine was a man. She changed her name to Abel Barbin.

    17.7.1858 Release of Rosina Bulwer-Lytton from Inverness Lodge

    Friday 23.7.1858 Mrs Mary Jane Turner at Acomb House near York. Not only was she insanely jealous, or just jealous, but also, should the asylum keeper degrade a lady?

    Late 1858: Mr Laurence Ruck at Moor Croft House, Middlesex. Was he drunk or insane when he abused his wife and other people? Should doctors profit from recommendations?

    Late 1858? Case of Reverend William Leach confined in Sussex House. Was he mad to want to marry a servant girl? Was she a gold-digger? How close to God was he?

    1859

    1859 A Report of the Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society (for 1858) published

    January 1859 Public Meeting at Exeter Hall (The Strand, London) called by the Alleged Lunatics Friend Society in the wake of the cases of Rosina Lytton, Mary Jane Turner, Laurence Ruck and William Leach. A resolution was passed to petition for a government inquiry into the operation of the lunacy laws. (Wise, S. 2012 p.286)

    April and August 1859 and July 1860: Three reports from a Select Committee of the House of Commons "on the operation of the Acts and Regulations for the care and treatment of lunatics and their property"

    1860

    18.7.1860 news item in L'Écho Rochelais about a modest and pious woman of twenty-one who believed herself to be feamale and was so believed by everyone else who had been found to be male on medical examination. "une erreur de sexe a été reconnue... La jeune fille était tout simplement un jeune homme". (source)

    1861

    John Thomas Perceval living at 3 High Street, Herne Bay, Kent. Their youngest daughter died in 1862, aged 17 ( Gault, H. 2010

    1862

    John Bull 25.1.1862: Letter from John Thomas Perceval quoted ( Gault, H. 2010, p.252:

    "In your paper of the 4th of January... you allude to the horrible treatment of a paralysed patient in the county asylum at Hanwell. I am sorry to have to remind you that this is not a solitary instance... for a few months ago inquests were held on another patient in that asylum who had died after receiving very dreadful injuries, as well as on one who was accidentally scalded to death. And only lately... two keepers were tried for the murder of a patient at Colney Hatch, who had died with eleven of his ribs fractured, their ligatures separated, his breast bone broken in, and his liver ruptured"

    1860

    1864

    1865

    1866

    1867

    1868

    1868 August Natterer born in Schornreute near Ravensburg, Germany. He studied engineering and became an electrician. A 1907 vision led to a suicide attempt and confinement. He spent much subsequent creative energy drawing his vision. Died 1933 - Wikipedia

    February 1868 Abel Barbin committed suicide by inhaling gas from his coal gas stove. His memoirs were found beside his bed.

    1869

    1870

    23.6.1870 Selina Maria Perceval, daughter of John Thomas Perceval married Sir Horatio George Walpole, son of Rt. Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole and Isabella Perceval. She died 5.11.1925

    1871

    1872

    1873

    21.5.1873 murder

    Lunacy Law Reform Association

    1874

    1875

    1876

    28.2.1876 Death of John Thomas Perceval (Gault, H. 2010, p.194).

    1877

    1878

    "Rachel" met her husband to be "Martin Grant-Smith". She became Rachel Grant-Smith (pseudonym) in 1881. - See Cheadle 1900 - 1914 - The Experiences of an Asylum Patient 1922

    1879

    1880s Charcot's work on hysteria. Foucault (23.1.1974) says "we salute the hysterics as the true militants of antipsychiatry".

    1880

    [Archibald] Archie Meek, who first suggested a union of mental patients to Thomas Ritchie, was born about 1880. He died in Shotts, Lanarkshire in 1973, aged 93. [569/331]

    1881

    1882

    One of Vincent van Gogh's early drawings of an old man with his head in his hands. This one has the title "worn out". [Pencil on watercolour paper The Hague: November, 1882. Now in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam]. The drawing is one of a series of studies of Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland (pensioner 399) on which Van Gogh commented: "The poorest woodcutter, heath farmer or miner can have moments of emotion and mood that give him a sense of an eternal home that he is close to."
    Van Gogh used this picture as the inspiration for the oil painting called
    At Eternity's Gate , painted shortly before his own death in 1890

    1883

    1884

    Hippolyte Bernheim published De la suggestion dans l'état hypnotique et dans l'état de veille. Foucault (1974) argues that "the age of anti-psychiatry begins with the suspicion that... Charcot actually produced the hysterical fit he described"

    1884 Birth of Sabina Spielrein, an asylum patient who became a psychoanalyst.

    1885

    1886

    1887

    1888

    1889

    1890

    1891

    1892

    Johanna Stuten-te Gempt published a pamphlet "Mijne ervaringen in het Haagsche Krankzinnigengesticht" (in Dutch) [My experiences in the mental asylum]

    1893

    1894

    click for Charlotte Mew The sisters' kiss - both sublime and ghastly - A page of the gospel which the priest never read.

    1895

    1896

    1897

    1898

    1899

    1900

    1901

    July - September 1901 Birth of a James Ollier registered in Chorlton, Lancashire. Born Widnes. Father John James Ollier (born about 1877). Mother Elizabeth (Previously Collins. Born about 1882). In 1911 they lived in five rooms at 3 Roscoe Street, Hulme, Manchester. John James was a General Carrier and an employer. In 1924 a James Ollier (literate, with a neat hand) organised collective action by inmates in the Royal Albert at Lancaster. The James Ollier born 1901 died (aged 66) in Haslingden, Lancashire in July-September 1967. He may have run a taxi service in Delamere Street, Winsford, Cheshire, from 1939 to 1962.

    1902

    1903

    1904

    1905

    1906

    1907

    survivors' history 1.1.1907 August Natterer (Neter) (1868-1933) saw a vision lasting about half an hour and including about 1,000 images.

    This pencil picture depicting one of the images was drawn about 1911. It is catalogued as "witch with eagle, crocodile and cornucopia". Inventory number 151 in the Prinzhorn Collection

    This is one of the images by Natter that featured in 1922 in Hans Prinzhorn's Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the Mentally Ill)

    1908

    March 1908 America A Mind that Found Itself. This was published by Longmans Green in New York - But London, Calcutta and Bombay are also listed. The date is shown as 1908, but the copyright as Clifford Whiitingham Beers 1907. The book was published in New York and London and reviewed in British papers.

    1909

    21.10.1909 Rose Nuttall born. About 1953 she had a "complete cure" following a pre frontal leucotomy", which she spoke about on Radio 4 in 1972. She died Winchester, aged 72, in December 1981.

    1910

    1911

    1912

    "Arnold Schoenberg composed Pierrot Lunaire, a suite of semi-spoken songs for a moon-touched loon" (Ben Wilson 14.11.2002) - Listen over the internet

    10.11.1912 William Smart Harnett admitted to a private asylum - In 1922 he was awarded damages.

    1913 Charlotte Mew had written Ken, but it could not be published because magazine editors "believed in the segregation of the feeble-minded"

    1914

    1915

    12.6.1915 Christopher Paget Mayhew born London. As chair of the National Association for Mental Health from 1969 to 1978, in which time it became Mind, he is said to have drawn "on his own experiences of psychiatry in the 1940s and of his television work", including one into the mental effects of hallucinogenic drugs in 1955." (Robert Ingham DNB). Sometime in 1956 he spent a few days in a ward at Warlingham Park Hospital in preparation for the television series The Hurt Mind, which he presented in January 1957. He spoke in the debate on the Percy Report in July 1957.

    1916 Charlotte Mew On the Asylum Road published

    1917

    10.6.1917 Birth of Stephanie [or Stephani] Mary Allfree, daughter of Alice Mary [born Godwin] and Geoffrey Stephen Allfree, Cherry Allfree's uncle.

    With her husband, Stephanie created a fantasy world called Thessyros (desired?) which included "Cupid and Cherry". The story is told in The Starlight Years: Love and War at Kelmscott Manor 1940 - 1948 (Dovecott Press March 2015) edited by her son, Joscelyn Godwin

    See 1940 - 1944 - 1948

    1918

    16.4.1918 Terence Alan [Spike] Milligan born in Ahmednagar, India.

    1919

    "In 1919, Nijinsky became mad. He expressed himself solely through his "diary", a story and a mystical quest, and through numerous drawings declining endlessly a single geometric figure, the circle." (source) "During the early part of his breakdown Nijinsky would shut himself away all night, feverishly drawing and writing. Many of his drawings include stylised human figures and portraits, all based on the circle." [The Mask] "seems to belong to a group of less figurative drawings which he produced as his mental state approached a crisis, described by Romola in her biography of him: His study and rooms were literally covered with designs; no longer portraits or scenic or decorative subjects, but strange faces, eyes peering from every corner, red and black, like a bloodstained mortuary cover. They made me shudder. "What are those masks?" "Soldiers' faces. It is the war." (source)

    1919 Citizen soldiers: "in the aftermath of the war... ex-servicemen were drawn into recording their embittered experience at the hands of official agencies such as the war pensions authorities"

    1920

    30.6.1920 Edith Morgan born, County Durham. Her husband, William Morgan (Farmer, poet, economist) was born Breconshire in 1916. - Good Practices in Mental Health - "Edith worked for Mind head office and was director for Local Mind Associations. Through this role she was aware of very many good local mental health initiatives and she felt that these were never given the credit they were due. The newspapers, if they covered mental health at all, just had stories about large psychiatric hospitals and how bad they were (from various inquiries in the 1970s). So Edith had the idea for Good Practices in Mental Health, which she raised money for and ran herself when it started. Inevitably GPMH involved service users in its local projects but not in a planned way - more just because they were sometimes involved in the local projects. So, for example, Eastbourne GPMH was coordinated by a man who was an unemployed service user who was keen to do the work" (Thurstine) - 21.7.1982 - Edith died 21.8.2003 aged 83. William died Highgate 1990. Edith died Hampstead.

    1921

    21.4.1921 Sidney Isadore Briskin born in Bethnal Green, London. In 1965 he established Kingsley Hall Asylum. He died 10.2.2010 at Golders Green, London. Obituary by Leon Redler (offline)).

    September quarter 1921 Alfred Charles Barnes married Kate Marshall in Portsmouth. [Her mother called her 'Kit' - p.15]. Their first child, Mary Barnes, was born in 1923. "Mother would tell me how she met father at a church Bible study group. Then he went away to war, came back, asked her to marry him. At first she said no". (p.24)

    21.12.1921 William Sinclair Warwick (Bill Warwick) born, probably in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. His family moved to England before he was six. His maternal grandmother, Susan Williams (born 1880) died in Fife District Asylum on 13.3.1941. Bill served in the RAF pay corps during the war, but was committed to a mental hospital in England whilst on leave from North Africa. He was in a manic state of happiness in relation to a romance. Bill was treated with Electro Convulsive Treatment, without anaesthetic in 1945/1946 - diagnosed Schizophrenic 1959 - wrote "This Mad World" February 1963 - April 1973 MPU - 1975-1976 plans awry - Visited Janet Cresswell 15.8.1976 - Parliamentary Commissioner - Pension tribunal - PROPAR and PROMPT - 1981 list - Matthew O'Hara Committee News 16.6.1981 - moved to Wirral Autumn 1982 - died June 1999

    1922

    about 1922 Edith Haithwaite born. See - See Rampton 1939 - Rampton 1957 - Rampton 1959

    1923

    2.2.1923 Mary Barnes born - (parents) - Peter Barnes 1925 - 5 in 1928 Uxbridge - Ruth Barnes 1930 - Dorothy Barnes 1935 - war and pre-nursing 1939 - 22 in 1945 - Mary and Peter 1945 - 8.12.1949 - 8.12.1951 - 1953 - 1962 - 5.6.1965 Kingsley Hall Asylum - crayons - Christmas 1965 - June 1966 - Autumn 1966 - Christmas 1966 - Spring 1967 - Mary and Peter 1967 - 1968 - 1969 First exhibition - 1971 First book - Psychiatric Oppression 1984/1985 - death of Peter 1984 - 1989 Second book - Died 29.6.2001 - Bow exhibition 2015 MaryBarnes

    1924

    5.3.1924 Jean Oury born

    The Royal Albert Institution for the Feeble-minded of the Northern Counties - Collective action 18.7.1924
    Patient James Ollier

    This statement is written by a patient and signed by patients.

    On July 18th 1924 Patient James Ollier reported to the Chief Attendant the bruise of patient William Dugdale on hip (penus) which Dugdale had said Mr Hully had done it with kicking him.

    The undersigned patients were present when the Chief Attendant replyed saying he did not believe it. Mr Hully would not do such a thing.

    Also informed him to mind his own business.

    J. Ollier
    J. Holmes
    A. Batty
    G. Hilton
    J. Morris
    R. Longmore

    1925 Evidence to the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder

    "The National Society for Lunacy Reform brought forward a number of ex-patients who wished to give evidence. After the first day's hearing in public, the Commission decided that the atmosphere was one of 'recrimination and controversy', and directed that future hearings of this kind should be held in camera. 'We do not find,' they record, 'that the evidence received from this source made any constructive contribution to the main purpose of our Inquiry" - "This evidence was published among the minutes of the Royal Commission" - Again, the Commission received over 360 letters from patients. 'Some of these,' they note, 'were unintelligible.' (Jones, K. 1960 pp 107-108

    13.9.1925 Peter George Barnes born Portsmouth - Mary and Peter 1945 - Mary and Peter 1967 - Kingsley Hall June 1969 - died 1984

    1926

    1926 Anthony O'Donnell (Tony O'Donnell) born. Whilst serving as an engineer in the merchant navy (mid-1940s), had voices in his head of the Chief Engineer telling him he was useless. Furious, he burst into the Chief Engineer's cabin, was put of the ship at Vancouver, sent back to England (Scotland?) and committed to a mental institution where he received ECT without anaesthetic. Mental Patients Union 1974 - Robin Farquharson House - married Nina Ramage late spring 1976 - Hackney Union of Mental Patients 1987 - died 2.12.2007

    1926 Pageant: Eric Irwin's life narrative
    Eric Irwin 1.8.1926 Eric Samuel Irwin born in Belfast - Left school aged 14 (1940?) - Left for Australia 1950 - Back from Australia 1954 - no Leucotomy 1956 - 1959 Mental Health Act - anyone a psychopath 1960 - London hostels: Willesdon from 1962 - Islington 1964 - Bromley 1965 - Cane Hill? - Paddington Day Hospital - 1973: Fish Pamphlet - taped first MPU meeting - May 1975 Mind Conference - Eric's Info 23.1.1976 - Frank Bangay 1980s - Psychiatric Oppression - PROMPT Fund Raising - CAPO March 1985 - What They Teach in Song 1986 - Autumn 1987 - Before Christmas 1987 - Mike Lawson's poem -

    1927

    15.3.1927 Frederick Alexander Jenner (Alec Jenner or Frederick A. Jenner) born, Brentford, Middlesex. Mother's maiden name Young . Nick Crossley's Interviewee 1? - Lived (2004) Manor Farm, Brightholmlee, Wharncliffe Side, Sheffield, S35 0DB. Died 1.7.2014

    1928

    11.3.1928 Thomas Ritchie (known as Tommy), founder of SUMP, born in Lanark, Scotland. [In 1971 he said he was 43. Exact date from death registration]. His brother John Ritchie was born about 1923. By the time Thomas arrived, his father was drinking heavily. This led to the family separating: John with his father and Thomas with his mother and a Roman Catholic aunt. The aunt pressured him to take technical rather than artistic subjects, but he did not last long studying engineering at the Royal Technical College (18 in 1946). Thomas came to London in the early 1950s and "drifted into photography". Arrested for drink driving in Aylesbury, he served three months in prison. In 1953-1954 he went to Ireland, living in Belfast (where he had a photography shop) and Dublin. About this time he became dependent on mood changing drugs. He moved back to England, establishing a photography business in Brighton. In January 1960 he began a three months sentence in Brixton for drink driving, during which his photography equipment and business books were stolen from his flat and dormobile in Brighton. He returned to Lanark and became a voluntary patient in Hartwoodhill Hospital. Court sent him to Crichton, Barlinnie Prison, and then Hartwood in 1963. [See SUMP box] In Hartwood he wrote a life-story Summer 1966, and life in Hartwood and personal grievances in September 1967 (box) - In 1968/1969 he completed a three-months course at a Rehabilitation Unit and passed two A level exams. (box) - From 1969 he shaved other patients, one of whom suggested the idea of a union (box) - His problems seeking work for rehabilitation in 1970/1971 became an important grievance (box) - After an unlicensed trip to Edinburgh, he was confined to "Ward 7" on 14.7.1971. - Tommy compiled collective grievances, dated 26.7.1971, which he posted to GAP on 30.7.1971. As a result, the Scottish Mental Welfare Commissioners visited Hartwood and "several personal grievances have been redressed". The signatories of the grievances were later taken as founding members of SUMP (Scottish Union of Mental Patients - Discharged (summer 1971) he continued to organise. The first public annoucement that he had started a Scottish Union of Mental Patients came in the undergroung newspaper Ink on 16.11.1971. The article reproduced te full text of Tommy's paper "Advantages of patients in mental hospitals having their own fully democratic and autonomous national association or union". Tommy used the Ink article to publicise the union in Hartwood and secured support from the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties and another article in The Glasgow Herald on 23.3.1972. On 7.4.1972 Tommy began a "Journal of SUMP Days" - phoning his MP on 28.4.1972 - visiting Gartnavel 7.5.1972 and Gartnavel and Gartloch 4.6.1972 - In June, Tommy decided he would have to go to London to find paid employment. He talked to th SSCL about continuing the work in Scotland, made a final visit to his colleague Bill Ferguson in Gartnavel and on the way to London decided to see if he could sell his story to the Daily Mirror. (See 20.6.1972). Tommy became a member of the London based Mental Patients Union in 1973, who published an article about SUMP in February 1974. From 1974 to 1976, he was a founder tenant of MPU house in Woodford. - After this he found work cleaning toilets in Hackney and died in Islington on 18.11.1983

    Joan Hughes' drinking
habits 25.2.1928 Joan Martin [Joan Hughes from October 1975] born. See - her autobiography - preservation of archives - Movements in the 1970s - 5.1.1993 - died 13.12.2008 - Joan was a pioneer of women in science - of the mental patients union - and of survivor history. She was joint author of A Directory of the Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs (October 1975)
    About 1989, Joan wrote her own "Obit". So here it is:
    "
    Born in 1928 in a warm working class street where all the children played together. Did well at school. Remained child-like all her life, because that was fun, but had an adult side. She did some original work in chemistry. Had great fun in doing laboratory work. Studied and achieved a chemistry degree. Later on in life, after a break down, became concerned about other people with breakdowns in a house for homeless people from mental hospitals. Worked tirelessly to give people a better life. The policies worked out in these houses later became Government policy, and people who had breakdowns, when better, were able to have community care and live as equal members of the community. She was a catholic who was pro- life and against nuclear weapons. Worked in the peace movement and lived to see the withdrawal of nuclear weaponry by the super powers. Joan had a lot of friends, who were of all different types. Almost everyone came to the funeral, but I wouldn't expect those with more important duties to the living to come. The friends made friends with each other. The cat was also brought to the funeral, and scratched for joy on the grave."

    2.2.1928 Mary Barnes five years old. "When I was five years old we moved to a bigger semi-detached house with a long garden. It was in the country about twenty miles from London, in those days in a rural area" (p.15) [Alfred Charles Barnes and Kate Barnes were at 2 Winter Villas, Money Lane, West Drayton, between 1928 and 1935]

    27.6.1928 Peter Michael Whitehead born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital, Hammersmith - See 1935 - St Joseph's and Besford Court - 7.12.1944 - 14.1.1946 Canning Town - Rampton 1946 - NCCL 1947 - NCCL 1.11.1954 - 1955 - Rampton 1956 - 1958 David Roxan's Sentenced without Cause

    1929

    4.8.1929 Birth, Salford, of Hugh Lionel Freeman. Assistant Editor British Journal of Psychiatry 1978-1983, when he bacame editor. Vice-Chair Mind 1984 to November 1988.

    1930

    15.4.1930 Ivy Buckland born. Died 11.12.2011, aged 81. "A great person, full of gentleness, compassion, dignity and humour". A long-serving officer of Contact at Tontine Road Community Centre, Chesterfield. Very involved with the development of Survivors Speak Out. See January 1986 - Spring 1986 - August 1986 - Summer 1986 - Manchester Mind Newsheet - August 1987 - Edale - Edale attendance - Barker and Peck 1987

    3.10.1930 Robin Farquharson born (died 1973). See - 1958 - 1959 - 1961 - 1964 - Kingsley Hall - 6.11.1967 - 1968 - 1968 - PNP - 1972 - 21.3.1973 - Bitman - 6.4.1973 - 4.7.1973 - See Wikipedia

    Late summer 1930 Michael Barnett born. Father (probably) Bearon Barnett a Jewish "bookmaker" (a binder of books in leather) and mother Joyce E Simmonds. They lived on the western borders of what is now Hackney and Michael went to Dame Alice Owen's school in Islington. After the army (National Service) he studied Maths and Law a Pembroke College Cambridge. He went into business and then travelled with his wife, Pamela. In Australia, in 1965 (35 years old), he was prescribed medication for his mental problems. They returned to London in June 1967 and the birth of their son, Shem, was registred in Hampstead in the spring of 1968. Through Aaron Esterson Michael was led to work at "Q Hospital" [Henderson]. In May 1969 he joined forces with Peter Stumbke in the Campaign Against Psychiatric Atrocities, before Sidney Briskin told him it was "connected with Scientology". Withdrawing from this, he wrote a manifesto for "People for a New Psychiatry" that was published in International Times in July 1969.
    This triggered People Not Psychiatry and he published a book with that name in 1973 which began "all writing is about oneself". He set up a "Growth Centre" that he called "Community". In 1974 he became a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), and ran seminars in Poona (India). In 1982 he set up his own "Energy Field" known as "The Wild Goose Company". He and his commuity wandered from Switzeralnd to Italy, to France, and to Germany. He now operate under the trade name "OneLife". Michael Barnett in 2014

    December 1930 Ruth Barnes born Uxbridge (see p.27) "My sister, Ruth, is still alive with her family in South Africa. My parents died there, my brother died in London and my younger sister Dorothy died in Australia" (Mary's Finale November 2000)

    1931

    About 1931 Kathleen Rutty born. She was detained illegally as a mental defective from from 21.6.1948, to 21.2.1956 - See Rampton 1956. At the time of her discharge on 21.2.1956, she was on licence in the care of her half-brother and in remunerative employment. See Hansard 8.12.1958 re review of people detained under that section.

    29.3.1931 Janet Myra Coleman (later Janet Cresswell) born at Bushey, Hertfordshire. Only child of Myra Coleman, a school teacher. Her father was a research chemist. After Watford Grammar School she became a secretary. She married John W. Cresswell, an architect, in the spring of 1956, in Watford. Their daughter was born in the summer of 1961, by which time they were living in London. Admitted to Horton February 1965 - assault November 1970 - first letter to MPU 17.4.1974 - petition October 1975 - Friern November 1975 - assault March 1976 - Holloway - trial 24.6.1976 - Bill Warwick visited 15.8.1976 - Sylvia Jeffares: Day School and Janet's 1981 petition - Matthew O'Hara Committee News 2 Summer 1981 - Lawletter 1983 - Phoenix 1984 - The One Sided Wall 1989 - Asylum Spring 1993 - Asylum 1994 3 - Asylum Spring 1995 - Asylum 1997 3 - Asylum 1998 2 - death of Bill Warwick June 1999 - Asylum 2001 4 - Transfer from Broadmoor 2003 - November 2006 release - death of Tony O'Donnell 2007 - Janet died 24.11.2015.   Janet's own ideas are outlined in a box.

    1932

    Myra Garrett Community Champion 1932 Myra Garrett born.

    See Friends of St Clements - F.E.E.L.

    Birth of F.E.E.L. article

    2014 Community Champion

    1933

    Peter Thompson born. - Pakenham-Thompson Report 1961 Broadmoor 1965 - Books 1972 and 1974 - Matthew Trust 1976 - UK Federation of Smaller Mental Health Agencies 1996 - died 2003

    About 1933 Noele Arden born. See Rampton 1948 - about 1953 - Moss Side 1954 - Rampton 1955 - Rampton 1957 - Child of a System 1977

    1933 Mary Betteridge born

    1934

    Peter Sedgwick born - on Schizophrenia From Within 1975 - PsychoPolitics 1982 - died 1983 - See also Mental Health and Civil Liberties and external link to memorial website

    1935

    March quarter 1935 Dorothy J Barnes born Uxbridge. Her mother nearly died and had a life after death experience. It was about this time that Mary Barnes "really started to talk to myself, to God, to be always praying" (p.37). Dorothy went to the Far East and Australia, but also lived with her daughter in Welwyn Garden City. Her daugther was a friend of her (aunt) Mary. Dorothy died in Australia: (Mary's Finale November 2000)


    early 1935 Wolfgang Huber born. See Heidelberg 1964 - Patientenkollektivs 1968 SPK February 1970 - 7.11.1972 - Fresnes June 1973

    20.7.1935 Ursel Schaefer, born in Cologne. She became a doctor and married Wolfgang Huber

    In the long letter of 22.10.1993, Wolgang Huber refers to Ursel and himself as "two Frontpatients"


    Under the 1921 Education Act, Special School education had to be provided from the age of seven for children who were defective or epileptic, considered cabable of education, but not considered suitable for normal school education. [See the 1927 description by Monsignor Thomas Newsome of high-grade defectives] Local authorities could provide this education by boarding a child in an area that had a special school. In Peter Whitehead's case he was moved from Southampton to Worcestershire:

    " Peter Whitehead... has been certified as unsuitable for education in an ordinary elementary school, but not incapable by reason of mental defect of receiving benefit from instruction in a special school for mentally defective children." (minutes of Southampton Borough Council 27.6.1935 [Peter's seventh birthday], quoted by David Roxan 1958, p. 23 [See 1921 Education Act].

    Finding a place took 15 months. See St Joseph's 1937

    1937

    1936

    2.2.1936 Marion Beeforth born - See Mindlink 1990 - Sainsbury 1990 - Mental Health Task Force 1993 - 1.3.1994 - died 29.7.2000 - obituary by Jan Walcraft

    1936 Jean-Claude Polack born

    1938

    About 1938 Birth of Peter Richard Jameson, President of the Oxford Union Debating Society. "He suffered from schizophrenia and so was in and out of hospital, but he maintained lifelong friendships". First chair (1986) of the National Voices Forum. "He enjoyed the Edinburgh Festival and performed in theFringe". Died 11.2.2008, aged 70.

    1938 Jill Molyneux born. Testimonies Project Died 2002.

    1938 Judith Holt born Neasden, London. Testimonies Project

    25.1.1938 Victor Finkelstein born. Died 30.11.2011. (Wikipedia)

    SheilaBeskine June 1938 Sheila Anne Beskine born in Croydon. She became a student at the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham, Wiltshire (closed 1986) and an occupational therapist at St Clements Hospital, Bow. She wrote poems working with other Art therapists, including Edward Adamson. Sheila thinks across categories, using pictures, objects, poems and associations. She has inspired may discussions of Art at Survivor History Group meetings.

    4.12.1938 Ken Smith born in Rudston, Yorkshire. He co-edited Beyond Bedlam with Matthew Sweeney - In the poetry archive he reads some of his poems.

    1939 First edition of Alcoholics Anonymous - Also known as the Big Book. 300,000 copies were printed. They took sixteen years to sell out. (external link) - archive

    Some people argue (See external link) that Alcoholics Anonymous and Neurotics Anonymous are the grandparents of the recovery movement.

    about 1939 Mike Llywelyn Cox (Mike Cox) born. See The Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) - PPeyes - Desmond Curley - blogspot - first posting for Survivors History Group - 23.7.2012

    26.4.1939 Matthew Paschal O'Hara born (in Dublin?). See 1956 - MPU November 1974 - March 1976 - June 1980 death

    Sunday 3.9.1939 Britain declared war on Germany.

    Mary Barnes says (p.38) "The day the war started, father was sent away, out on the North Sea on minesweepers, and I was sent away, to school as an evacuee". (16 on 6.2.1939. She was on a pre- nursing course). "This was the beginning of the physical split-up of our family. Mother was left with my brothers and sisters. Sometimes father came home during the school holidays. He was in the Home Guard and used to get us on the kitchen floor, practising unarmed combat. Battered about as I felt, mad an angry and often homesick, it was not me but my brother who then broke down"

    1940

    1940- 1948 Edward and Stephanie [born Allfree] rented Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, to escape the war in a drug induced state using Benzedrine, which they called Starlight. "There they created an aesthetic and erotic paradise based on a fantasy land called 'Thessyros'

    "Edward Fell Scott-Snell and Stephani Mary Allfree met in 1935 and set about cultivating Thessyros, a fantasy land Edward had already sown with overripe imagery and peopled with priapic cupids, ageing debauchees and, Godwin explains, 'assorted gardeners, priests, and organists who gleefully seduce their willing, under-aged charges'" (Chris Fletcher, The Spectator 2.5.2015)

    1941

    About 1941 Lewis Mantus born - 1973 - 1988

    About 1941 Jenny James born. From a very political (communist) family, she was active politically from 1958 (aged 17), "firstly in the Communist Youth movement and then in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament". She also had several personal relationships. Her first child, Rebecca James [Becky], was born in the late summer of 1961 in Exeter, Devon. Being in "very radical left wing movements, with very radical left wing boyfriends" was not enough and she sometimes felt suicidal. She was therapy with David Boadella, a follower of Wilhelm Reich in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Convinced that "radical social change couldn't take place without a deep emotional healing" she "became involved with the People Not Psychiatry (PNP) Movement and for several years ran a free, drop in therapy house in London" (online biography). Speaks of her "community" being "founded in London in 1970" (Green Letters).   People not Psychiatry 1974 - Jenny was based at 12 Villa Road from 1974 to 1978 - At the same time, she established the Atlantis commune in Burtonport, Ireland. Nick named "The Screamers" by the local people. - 1977 - In 1980 the community moved to the island of Inishfree. In 1988 they moved to Colombia in South America. 1997. In 2000 one of Jenny's grandsons and his friend were murdered.

    Peter Blackman Spring 1941 Peter Scott Blackman born, Hammersmith, London. His mother (maiden name Scott) was of Jamaican and English descent. His father was Barbadian. His mother had become the first black nurse in England (?). He was evacuated to Yorkshire and later sent to Glasgow.

    He returned to London aged seven (?), but his parents had temporarily separated and he and his brother were sent to a children's home in Essex.

    After two years the boys rejoined their younger sister and parents, who had rented a flat on Heath Hurst Road in Hampstead. Peter's father was a priest turned communist activist and among his many visitors was Paul Robeson, whom he once accompanied to Russia in the early 1950s. At 30 he suffered a breakdown and was sent to
    Henderson Hospital in Surrey. Formed Steel an Skin in 1975 Chief executive of the Afiya Trust in 1999. Died 1.3.2012 Camden Journal obituary - latest.com - video

    1941 David Brandon born. See North West Mind - Voices of Experience - Consumers as Colleagues - Died November 2001 - biography online

    1941 Ken Lumb born - He "grew up in the Freehold area" of Rochdale, Lancashire, "living his early years in Talbot Street. He developed muscular dystrophy in his late teens and because his brother was also disabled, the family moved into one of Rochdale's first specially adapted homes in Rooley Moor Road". - "confined to a wheelchair from the age of 20" (1961) - November 1964 - Rochdale Sculptures - "He met Anne at the Ronald Gorton Day Centre - Scope - Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation - Rochdale Voluntary Action - 1977 married Anne Plumb "moving to Shelley Avenue, Boarshaw," [Middleton] "where they have remained ever since" - 1981: International Year of Disabled People - 1983 Greater Manchester Disability Action Group - helped found Middleton DIAL (Disablement, Information and Advice Line) Constitution 9.6.1983 - "Their daughter Hazel was born in 1984" - 1985 - 1985 A founder member Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People - 1986 - "a governor at Boarshaw Primary School for several years". - "for 12 years edited local magazine Coalition, which covered the issues affecting people with disabilities." - "admitted to North Manchester General Hospital suffering from bronchial pneumonia". Died 19.2.2009, aged 67. external link to obituary from which quotations are taken. A Tribute was held for Ken at the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People on Tuesday 10.3.2009, followed by a private cremation

    1942

    Spring 1942 Julian H Barnett born Bathavon, Somerset. His mother and father came from Stepney in the East End of London, which his where his siblings were born. Presumably his mother was living in the country to escape the bombing. See PROMPT

    1943

    1944

    about 1944 Patsy Staddon born. See 2003 (Women's Alcohol Dependency) - 2009 (authenticity in a hostile environment) - 2013 (editor research book) - and 2015 (alcohol)

    1944 Gabrielle Cox born. See 1971

    27.1.1944 Kevin Coyne born. Died 2.12.2004. Wikipedia

    29.1.1944 Andrew Roberts (me) born in London during the final air raids of the second world war. How did this little baby gain his identity as a mental patient? He was very young when he started looking at the world upside down. From about eleven years old he sometimes had intense suicidal desires, but at other times was equally intensely over-enthusiastic about life. Runwell Hospital, Wickford measured the waves of his brain about 1955. Before he left the school for failures, he wore academic dress on the back of a lorry. By 1963 he was standing at the door of a psychiatric centre (Ingrebourne), looking on a sunlit lawn, with his mind set on dying, but his heart responding to the grass. When you leave a mental hospital you have to choose to cover up or be open about it. Andrew does not remember ever covering up. In 1964, Valerie Argent was sent to Belmont (mental) hospital to get her away from Andrew. It did not work: On his 21st birthday, they were married. In 1969 he started studying social science at Enfield College of Technology. Another breakdown. He and Valerie helped found the Mental Patient's Union in 1973. Another breakdown and another suicide attempt. Just survived. Still alive. Ambition to die a natural death. See stereotype. More potty biographies

    September 1944 First issue of The Broadmoor Chronicle - Broadmoor patients' magazine

    October 1944 An exhibition at Ryman's in Oxford of the paintings of Edward and Stephani [born Allfree] Scott-Snell [soon Godwin] at which privately printed copies of Stephani's poems Thessyros were on sale. In the fantasy world of Thessyros, Cupid and Cherry are adolescent lovers. "During the autumn... friends and relations loyally flock to the exhibition (page 136). Amongst them may have been uncle and aunt Bernard and Dorothy Allfree of Hercies Road, Uxbridge, who named their youngest, and last, daughter "Cherry" in 1948. See the illustration "Cupid and Cherry in the Ivory Tower", which illustrated Thessyros.

    7.12.1944 Peter Whitehead was "unaware ... that he had been certified... At Besford Court the month's dragged past. The Germans surrendered" [8.5.1945], "and Hiroshima and Nagasaki heralded Japan's downfall. Peter's life was not affected: his world was limited to the bounds of the institution." (Roxan 1958, p.73)

    1945

    8.5.1945 Allied victory in Europe.

    "just after the war", Mary Barnes was wondering about going to Russia to become a doctor and have a baby as a single mother. She considered her ideas "fantastic, must be crazy" and went to Europe as a midwife with the United Nations Relief Organisation, before becoming a District Nurse and then "to be content just to travel, and get married in order to have a baby. I decided to become an Army Nursing Sister". It was at the point when she was "ready to enter the army" that her brother Peter entered her room at night and said he had come to sleep with her. This event led, eventually, to his hospitalisation. (pages 42-43)

    "When I was twenty-two the Army stationed me abroad, first to Egypt and then to Palestine. Peter remained locked up in a mental hospital" (Mary Barnes, p.48)

    28.11.1945 Alistair Cox born. See PNP Manchester 1971 - Tony Riley - 42nd Street 1979

    Peter Beresford 1945 Peter Beresford born - 1967: BA from Oxford College, Oxford University - 1975 to 1977: lecturer in social administration at Lancaster University - 1976 married Suzy (Suzie) Croft - eight years poverty as a Battersea community activist - [Peter calls North Battersea "my own home town"] - 1978 Peter and Suzie's Battersea Community Action report, no. 1. - 1980 to 1992 mental health service user
    5.10.1982 Battersea, Newcastle and Nottingham dissenting voices at
    Community Challenge Conference - Summer 1987 on Steering Group for MIND Consumer Advisory Network - July 1988 article "In Care in North Battersea" published - 1990: Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Brunel University - Survivors Speak Out - "Psychiatric System Survivors and the Disabled People's Movement" - Doing Disability Research - take hold of our past - Literature - Professor in 1998 - chair, Shaping Our Lives 1999 - INVOLVE - History meetings - User Controlled Research - 18.7.2005 - October 2005 - May 2006 - Manchester 2008 - individual or collective? - 20.10.2010 it's the poor what gets the blame - keeping Mad Studies safe .

    1945/1946 In 1978 Bill Warwick wrote that he was "still suffering from the effect of the dose" [of ECT} "meted out to him in 1945/46". In 1979, however, a Pensions tribunal denied he had received ECT and said he was treated the drug Somnifane: "It was used quite a lot in the Military Lunatic Bins"

    1946

    1946 The Association of Parents of Backward Children formed

    Special Educational Treatment
    Post war legislation meant that Besford Court became just a Special School and had to close it Mental Deficiency Institution activities. That meant that residents like Peter Whitehead who were no longer children had to be discharged, either to supervised places in the community or to other institutions. In January 1946 Peter was sent on a trial licence to work amongst the bomb damage of the East End of London. A fight with another boy resulted in his recall after fourteen days.

    14.1.1946 Peter Whitehead left Besford Court "for a trial period of licence in London. He worked in the kitchens at the Dockland Settlement in Canning Town. "It was all a terrible shock to me. I realized how shut-in my life had been, while people were dying when the bombs came down. I had seen photographs in newspapers, but none of them had prepared me for what things were really like. Walking through streets that were only paths through the rubble, all my old fears about my mother being buried after an air raid came back to me". Peter was taken back to Besford Court following a fight with another boy. He was in Canning Town for 14 days - His first period outside an institution since he was a baby. (Roxan 1958, pp 73-74)

    17.9.1946 Anne Plumb born. See Anne Plumb by Anne Plumb - Anne Plumb Collection and books - 1970 moved to Rochdale - 1977 married Ken Lumb - archive start - Letter on racism, Autumn 1986 - Edale September 1987 - DATA Distress Awareness Training Agency. May 1988 - Survivors Speak Out June 1989 - Treasurer Survivors Speak Out 1991-1993 - London 10.4.1992 - Distress or disability? February 1994 - Manchester 2008

    December 1946 First Rampton Board of Visitors' review of Peter Whitehead's case. "The future years were to teach him the bitter truth that a man inside Rampton, fighting for his liberty, can achieve nothing by himself. He is lost without outside help and outside pressure" (Roxan 1958 p. 125)

    1947

    1947 British textbook still says "In my opinion it would be an economical and humane procedure were their existence to be painlessly terminated"

    1947 Birth of Terence McLaughlin, editor of Asylum

    1947 Rodney Wiley born Leytonstone, London. He went to sea during the sixties as a merchant seaman to see the world. On his return, his life revolved around drugs and creative people. Met his wife, had a son and moved to Southend. One day he came back from work and fell ill with mental health problems and have had them ever since. It is only in the last few years that he has had a breakthrough from his breakdown, which includes OCD. (2012) His book Fighting Madness took twenty years to write.

    About 1947 Christine Andrew born - See - picture - experience - meaning - ECT - Voices and Survivors Speak Out

    16.1.1947 Elaine Murphy born. Grew up in Nottingham. Qualified at University of Manchester Medical School in 1971. 1972-1996 Psychiatrist. With three year gap with George Brown. Foundation Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in 1983-1986 and District General Manager for Lewisham and North Southwark Health Authority, and Personal Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer. As District General Manager she was partly responsible for closure of Bexley and Cane Hill - 1987/1988 BMJ articles on Community Care - - mid 1990 three months writing After the Asylums - 1997-2000 PhD.

    David Kessel photographed by Natalie Fonnesu about 2013 2.4.1947 David Kessel born, Hampstead, London.

    1970 Emily Bronte - 1976 - 1980 -

    1981 - Hungering - Hackney Mental Patients Association - 1983 - Hackney Mental Health Action Group - Phoenix 1 - Phoenix 2 - Minstead Lodge 1986 - Hackney Union of Mental Patients - 1987 Vixen

    Phoenix 3 - 1999 Life Against Death - 2000 Summer Rain - Hillside, Llangattock - Friends of East End Loonies

    2010 Pageant - 2013: Ravaged Wonderful Earth

    26.4.1947 Tony Riley born in Manchester. His niece Linda was born 16.9.1951. They grew up together and were very close. From 1958 to 1964 Tony attended St Clares Secondary School, Alworth Road, Higher Blackley, Manchester 9, where he became head boy, but did not tell his family. He left without completing his A level course. In 1966 Tony was diagnosed as being manic-depressive (age about 19). He was admitted to Gaskell House, the (small) psychiatric unit of Manchester Royal Infirmary. Tony was a hospital in-patient on two occasions, the second time in Prestwich. At some time, he developed an intense dislike of (Withington?) hospital because of its treatment of patients. He and Justin Larner of Manchester Mind made a trip to witness demolition at the hospital in celebration. In 1971, when Tony was living in a men's therapeutic community in Plymouth House, he met another ex-patient, Mary Walmesly, at a social in the women's therapeutic community at Forrester House. Tony and Mary Walmesly were members of the PNP network which, in Manchester, stood for "People Need People" as well as "People Not Psychiatry". Tony came into contact with PNP as an indirect result of moving into a group home. Tony finished his A levels part time, financing this by a job as a cook at Daisy Bank Road Day Centre. From 1974 Tony studied sociology at Sussex University, graduating in 1977. In 1979/1980 he studied for a Post Graduate Certificate in Youth and Community Work at Manchester Polytechnic. From 1980 he worked as a volunteer at the new 42nd Street, founded by Alistair Cox, and served on its management committee. Mary and he were married on 3.10.1981. From 1981 Tony was Senior Youth Worker at the Harphurhey Neighbourhood Project in Manchester and from 1983 Senior Youth Worker with Manchester City Council. He moved from youth work to be (part-time) development worker at Rochdale Mind and later fulltime development worker at Manchester Mind, where he remained until 1990. Projects he developed included a drop-in centre and legal support groups that gave access to a solicitor. June 1987 facilitating Harpurhey users group - Whilst working for Manchester Mind, Tony was sent to America for two weeks to study "normalisation" in Atlanta, Georgia. - In May 1988 He founded Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) with Andrew Hughes and Anne Plumb - Manchester Users' Support Group - DATA box - Employed by Having a Voice from 1990 - In 1994 Tony helped Nigel Rose to launch the Schizophrenia Media Agency - 24.7.2004 - 31.3.2006 Retired from Having a Voice, aged 60. A commemorative DVD was made - 2012 died of cancer, aged 65, - Funeral 18.6.2012, 12pm, St Edwards Catholic Church, Thurloe Street, Rusholme, M14 5SG. Alistair Cox spoke about Tony. About 60 people attended.

    November 1947 Alan Hartman born. See Hackney Hospital MPU July 1974 - Manchester 1985 - Springfield Hospital - Manchester Mind 1986 - Manchester Users Support Group - 24 hours support 1987 - The Patients' Case 1988 - Asylum April 1989 - Hackney 1997- 2000 - Hackney Users Support Group - about 2001 Manchester Users Support Group became Manchester Users Network - 24.7.2004 Patient and Public Involvement Forum - 2008 Manchester Users Network website

    1948

    1948 Ann Davis born.

    1948 Brian Taylor born See Rochdale Mind

    1948 Liz Davies born. Married Tim Durkin. See 1972 The Need for a Mental Patients' Union. Now Liz Davies. - website - Liz Davies collection

    1948 Brian Douieb born. See 1972

    2.3.1948 Cherry Virginia J Allfree born, Uxbridge, Middlesex. Her father was a professional artist specialising in paintings of garden flowers in vases to hang in one's sitting room. He died in Folkestone, aged 75, when Cherry was only ten years old. Her older sister (born 1937) was called Myrtle Ellen, so her parents liked beautiful plant names and, hopefully, cherished their new daugter. She also appears to have been named from "Cupid and Cherry", pictured in her cousin's book of poems and plates, published privately in 1944, and publicly in the year she was born, and this has more sinister tones.

    After her father's death, Cherry lived with her mother who was 20 years younger than her father and she had a lot of time off from school because of sickness.

    About 1965 (17?) she was removed from her mother's care by a court on an allegation that her mother had permitted sex between Cherry and a lodger. Cherry said it was rape. Cherry was in a remand home for six months and then placed with a foster lady for six months, who registered as mentally handicapped because she was slow at school. She was then admitted to the first of a group of units in Colchester. She went to a small home, Kingsmead for two years. (1966 - 1967 - 1968?) - Aged 19 Lexden House for a year, Essex Hall for three years (1969 - 1970 1971?) , back to Lexden House for three years (1972 - 1973 - 1974?) and finally back to Kingsmead for two years (1975 - 1976?) , making a total of 12 years (about 1965 to 1976) in some kind of institutional care or foster care. Leaving Kingsmead for hotel work when she was 28 years old, she had a hole in the heart operation following a taxi accident, went to Manchester for work, and came back to London. Living in hostels in Kings Cross, friends took her into a squat in Hornsey (Welby House) - "Cherry met Julian Barnett in the mid 1970s. They formed a partnership whereby Julian would produce the PROMPT books and Cherry would sell them. (Frank Bangay, email 5.4.2010). - 1977 - 1978 - 1979 - 1980 - R.D. Laing - A Day in the Life - 1981 - PROMPT Dulwich - 1982 - Mixed Emotions - 1983 - "Cherry was the PROMPT representive who would go over to Holland to meet the Dutch survivors". (Frank Bangay, email 5.4.2010). - 1984 - 1985 - 1986 - in hospital 2002 - Died, aged 57, around March 2005 in Lambeth area of London.

    Wednesday 21.4.1948 Valerie Pamela Argent born at home. Her father and mother were living at 54 Avenue Road, Bexleyheath, Kent. Her father was a librarian. - See also preservation of archives. Summary of life compiled summer 1985. An account in Time Together December 2008 specifically relates her personal biography to the development of the mental patients' movement. See 1962-1965 medical file - Essex Hall and Ingrebourne - Escape from Belmont - shared house - CHAMH - Community Health Council - discarded poems - Patients Committee - Family History Group - death

    25.5.1948 Mike Lawson born. External link to Testimonies Project archive summary - full text - Born in an internment camp Timatowal [Temirtau?] outside Karaganda, in Kazakhstan. - Berlin - August 1955 Ambler Junior School in Finsbury Park - Haverstock Comprehensive School - 1965 (17) "I'd had four years in and out of Napsbury" - "I'm nineteen. Nineteen for the first ECT". Napsbury - November 1969 (about 20) Napsbury - Paddington Day Hospital - MPU: First meeting, working group and second meeting: lived with Jill at 56 Connaught Road, Craven Park, NW10. Often at Harlesden Community Project. Had a typewriter, tape recorder, and facility to duplicate using stencils. - PROMPT Fund Raising - Mind 1985 - What They Teach in Song - Capital Radio "Breakdown" 1986 - We're not Mad - We're Angry - narrative poem - Vice-Chair Mind 1988 -1994 - Crisis Cards - 23.8.1991 - an archive of his website - See SUN website

    15.8.1948 Sylvia Rachael Jeffares born Islington. See Day School 1981 - friendship with Joan Hughes - Janet Cresswell's 1981 Petition and Sylvia's death.

    1.9.1948 Peter Barham born - See Literature Review - Winterton group (1969-1972) - schizophrenic thinking (thesis 1977) - thesis (1977) - schizophrenia and human value (1984) - Hamlet Trust (1988) - patient to person (1991) - Poland (1990) - closing asylums (1992) - human value new preface (1993) - Open Society Institute - patient to person relocated (1995) - Pathways to Policy 2002 - forgotten lunatics (2004) - 8.10.2004 - Albania (2005) - 27.4.2007 - March 2008 - 9.11.2012 -

    9.10.1948 Hilda Turner born

    7.12.1948 Jan Wallcraft (Janet Wallcraft) born. Jan was chair of Islington Women and Mental Health in the early 1980s. She became a student at Middlesex University in 1983. In 1985-1986 she spent six months at Mind (Harley Street) on a student placement. She took part in We're Not Mad We're Angry in 1986. She graduated from Middlesex University (BSc Hons Science Technology and Society) in (the summer of?) 1987. She was Mindlink Co-ordinator from December 1987 to late in 1992 - In October 1992 she was MINDLink representative in talks about the Mental Health Task Force - a freelance mental health consultant from 1992 to 1997 - In September 1993 she joined the Coordinating Group of Survivors Speak Out, editing the newsletter in December 1994 - She worked with the Mental Health Foundation from 1997 to 2001 - Doing Disability Research - Literature - Senior Researcher, User Focused Research, Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health from 2001 to 2005 (See 2003 History) - Her Ph.D Thesis in 2002 was on Recovery - Fellow for Experts by Experience respecting users and carers (National Institute for Mental Health in England) 2002 to 2006 - Operational Manager for SURGE (Service User Research Group in England), from 2005 to 2007 - See her own account on the SUN website and her online CV - offline copy)

    1949

    About 1949 Peter Lindley born in Yorkshire - archive of profile

    15.1.1949About 1949 Kevin Richard Sutton, known as Richard Suton, born, Tonbridge, Kent. He met Peter Campbell in April 1986 and joined Survivors Speak Out "there and then" and took part in planning the Edale Conference in Derbyshire in September 1987. The first membership of Survivors Speak Out enrolled at a meeting in Ivy Buckland's hotel bedroom at a conference in Newcastle in the Spring of 1986. Richard was Survivors Speak Out's first Information Officer (unpaid) and was known to everyone who went to its AGMs because he provided "lovely food for lunches" ... "at a price people could afford" (Peter Beresford Community Care 18.10.2001). On Saturday 27.1.1996, Richard and Peter hosted a Ten Year Celebration Party at the Survivors Speak Out Office. Money had run out for the Information Service and so they gave a farewell present to Gloria Gifford, the paid information worker. A web site created to replace the Information Service remained online for many years without being updated. In retrospect, the ten year celebration may have been the beginning of the end. When Richard died in Bromley in June 2001 he was still representing mental health service users. - Died, aged 52, 2001 Registered Bexley

    1949 Peter Campbell born in Logierait, Scotland - "a regular recipient of NHS psychiatric services since 1967" (Brackx and Grimshaw 1989). - See September 1970 - Testimonies - June July 1983 first letter in OpenMind - September 1983: activist - Camden Mental Health Consortium - November 1985: Spoke at MIND conference and his life begins a rapid change from obscurity to privilege - an officer of Survivors Speak Out from 1986 to 1996 - See his summary of Survivors Speak Out - Spring 1986: preparing for We're not Mad - We're Angry" - 17.11.1986 We're not Mad - We're Angry - historian of the movement - 27.6.1987 "dance floors of everyday life" - September 1987: holding the Edale Conference together - Brackx and Grimshaw 1989 describe as "actively involved in self-advocacy ... a member of Camden Mental Health Consortium ... Secretary of Survivors Speak Out and a nursery nurse" - November 1991: Survivors Poetry - 18.2.1992 - 10.4.1992 - Summer 1992: (Survivors Speak Out funding) - Speaker at Derby November 1994 - 1996 employed on Open University K257 - 1997: interviewed by Nick Crossley - 28.2.2001: UK Survivor Workers' conference Manchester - Martha Robinson poetry prize 2002 - 2003: On Our Own Terms - 14.1.2005: Survivors History Group - 17.5.2006: Diamond Champion

    7.3.1949 Malcolm Chisholm born. Labour MP for Edinburgh Leith from 1992, (Edinburgh North and Leith from 1997). Member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh North and Leith from 1999. CAPS, Edinburgh Users Forum and Advocard are located in his contituency. From November 2001 to October 2004 he was Minister for Health and Community Care in Scotland.

    8.12.1949 Mary Barnes "received into the church, into the mystical body of Christ, was the most important event in my life... Making confession and receiving communion bound me into the body of Christ. That same body that carried the cross to Calvary had I received into myself. My mother was curious. A year later she became a Catholic" (pp 49-50)

    1950

    Nelsy, author of Standing up to madness - An autobiography, born in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. See 1948 - 1957 - 1966 - 1978 - 1988 - 1998 - 2010 - 2015

    1950 Peter Lehmann born - external link

    1950 David Pilgrim born. See literature - 1991 - 1993 - 1993 - 14.1.2005 - 2005 - (external link)

    1950 Denise Winn, editor of Mind Out, born.

    20.5.1950 Patrick Joseph Kelly (Joe Kelly) born "in St Mary's Hospital Praed Street, Paddington London where Penicillin was invented". "Joe has been a service user/survivor for 48 years and an activist for over 30 years". (NSUN 6.9.2017). A co-founder of Footsteps Art in 1998. Nominated a champion in March 2007 - fundraising to go to Africa - One of two Brits who attended th WNUSP Conference in Kampala Uganda on 2009 - Started his blog - 9.11.2012 a new vision of disability.

    June 1950 Renata [Erica] Edge born. She became a language tutor and a Church of England Minister. Living in Derbyshire before moving to Scotland about 2007 (?). Canal boat enthusiast, photographer and quilt maker: "I am a very busy person". See June 2012.

    29.6.1950 Mr E S Irwin, 24 year old Radio Serviceman from 8 Grove Park, Bangor, Belfast, Northern Ireland, sailed from Tilbury on the Ormonde for Sydney, Australia.

    1950 Philippe Bernardet born. (Died 15.4.2007, aged 57) - See Groupe d'information sur le Asiles

    1951

    Barbara Taylor 2013 1951 Barbara Taylor born in Western Canada. She moved to London in 1971. "Women in the London Feminist History Group heard the story of the Owenites in regular installments over the years". See 1981 - 1983 Eve and the New Jerusalem -

    1988 Friern - "Mary Wollstonecraft and the Wild Wish of Early Feminism"

    24.10.2010 - 6.2.2014 The Last Asylum - 26.6.2015 archive questions

    1951 Matthew Sweeney born in Donegal, Ireland. He co-edited Beyond Bedlam with Ken Smith - In the poetry archive he reads one of his poems.

    14.1.1951   Frank Bangay born Wandsworth. Many of his poems relate back to growing up in a working class area of London. Frank left school at fifteen and in his early twenties started suffering from severe depression and anxiety. Expressing himself through poetry helped to disperse the gloom and he performed at Troubadour coffee house in Earls Court. His poem Spring is Rising was first published in a hospital magazine. At the end of the 1970s, he collaborated with musicians in the Fighting Pigeons band. His work often combines either words and music or words and pictures. In 1979: he first read PROMPT booklets. From the early 1980s he distributed hand made poster-poems such as Solidarity (October 1982). Frank's poetry and music events to raise money for PROMPT began in 1984 and continued, on behalf of CAPO in 1985. By January 1985, Frank believed in "causing a fuss". Following an historic gatecrash in May 1985, Frank organised entertainment at the Mind conferences in the autumn of 1985 and 1986. Frank's obituary of Eric Irwin, who died in December 1987, is an early source of survivor history. Survivor poetry and music convinced Frank that "our poetry and other forms of creativity are our only voice, and the only way we really have of communicating our experiences." (Interview with Xochitl Tuck). The "original inspiration for Survivors Poetry" in 1991 derived from Frank "who organised numerous poetry events and published poetry magazines with great love and dedication throughout the 1980s". Frank was one of the four principle organisers. From 1992 to 1997 he organised workshops in hospitals, day centres, sheltered housing and similar grass-roots places. But as the organisation moved away from such activities, Frank relocated himself to work with Core Arts, in Hackney. In March 1995 Frank drafted an "ongoing statement" in connection of with meetings of CAPO that were taking place. In May 1996, Frank wrote "The old poet rediscovers his youth, he learns from his wisdom". Poems like And We Can Learn, relating to his working class childhood, reflect on its influence and limitations. Frank was interviewed by Nick Crossley in 1997:. Naked Songs and Rhythms of Hope, his collected works in 1999, contains in its annotations a history of the movement. It was launched at the first Mad Pride event. In 2000, Frank surprised the Mad Pride collective by pointing out that their movement had a long history. As a result, the "Fish Pamphlet" was republished in Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture and Frank contributed "An Uphill Struggle, But It's Been Worth It". In 2005 Poetry Express published "The Importance of Being Frank" by Xochitl Tuck. Working with Core Arts, Frank has published several CDs. These include Jewels in the Pound Shop in August 2005. Frank provided harmonica backing for some of Brian (Smiley) Sims songs. Frank's 'Punk Gardener' rambles were first published in August 2007. In Summer 2009 he published Songs, Poems And Prayers, performed with support from gospel singer Sophie Mirrel and other Core Arts artists. Articles in 2011 and 2012 explore the madness history of the musical world of which Frank is part. Frank has contributed many items to the Survivors History archive. See, for example, August 2016.

    1.3.1951 Carol Batton born. Carol came to poetry relatively late, prompted by being prescribed lithium in 1983. This was a pivotal moment in her life: "I went on medication; first it sent me to sleep and then I started jotting down poetry. "The medication is by far the worst thing that ever happened to me but it gave me poetry." See Survivors Speak Out newsletter One - Asylum 2000 and Asylum 2002

    24.4.1951 Terry [Terence Robert] Simpson, born near Garforth, Leeds, to a working- class family. His father worked on the railway, and both sides of his family were heavily involved in the mining industry. He went to Leeds Grammar School and then to University College, Aberystwyth in 1969, gaining a degree in Philosophy in 1972. "I continued postgraduate studies into "the nature of mind" through psychiatric hospitalisation in Leeds several times from 1975 to 1985, (diagnosis "acute paranoid schizophrenic episodes") at which time I discovered re-evaluation counseling (also known as co-counselling), which I think has helped me stay out of the mental health system since then".
    TerrySimspon Terry Simpson survived psychiatry before working as an advocate for Leeds City Council Health Unit from 1989 to 1993, during which time he helped set up the Leeds Mental Health Advocacy Group. He was Co-ordinator, then National Director, of the UK Advocacy Network from 1993 to 2002, rejoining the board in 2004. He has written two plays about the mental health system and is an active member of Survivors Poetry. Martha Robinson poetry prize 2001

    8.12.1951 Mary Barnes entered a convent of Carmellite nuns in Wales. (p.51)

    1952

    1952 Terry Conway born Islington. In-patient Friern Hospital 1972-1973. Lived in Hackney from 1984. City and Hackney Mind (?) volunteer from April 1993. Co-founder of Hackney Patients Council 1994. Chair for three years. Contributor to Mad Pride 2000

    David (John) Hill (Dave Hill) born. See allies - 1983 - The Politics of Schizophrenia - British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry - "Psychiatric Oppression" - Mind 1985 - 12.1.1986 - 17.5.1986 - Director Mind in Camden - London Alliance for Mental Health Action (October 1987) - 19.11.1988 - 20.6.1989 - 13.1.1993

    1952 Anne Beales born - CAPITAL - Together Service User Involvement Directorate - Survivor History Group - Early 2006 - May 2006

    Tony Glynn 3.2.1952 Birth of Tony Glynn. External link to staff profile at Birmingham University - named Suresearch in 2000 - Co-authored Two Decades of Change in 2006 - died 5.3.2008 - Glynn Rooms

    25.4.1952 Howard John Mingham born Norfolk. Moved to Hackney aged ten (about 1962). Patient in F Block 1976. Resident Arbours, Norbury 1977/1979. Hackney Writers Workshop 1980/1981. See 1984 - 2012 - 2014

    11.7.1952 Ray Rowden born. First chair of Mad Pride

    1953

    1953 Edna Conlan born. See 1990 - National Advocacy Network 1991 MBE 12.6.1993 - See Mental Health Task Force 1993 - Have We Got Views for You 1994 - Scottish Users Network AGM 1994 - Advocacy - A Code of Practice 1994 - National Advocacy Network 1998 - Royal College of Psychiatrists 1999 - died 19.8.2010

    About 1953 Jackie Biggs born: See August 1987 - Edale - Edale Letter - 6.2.1988 working party - Crisis Cards

    About 1953 Premila Trivedi born. She has been a medical research biochemist - a primary school teacher - a member of the group who developed the Mental Health National Service Framework, which she describes as a "horrendous experience" - an interviewer on the Testimonies Project (an inspirational experience). She helped set up SIMBA (Share in Maudsley Black Action) - See 18.7.2005 - 15.9.2005 - 2016 Christmas Card - articles

    About 1953 Mark Roberts born

    Child of a System about 1953 Noele Arden told her fellow inmates in Rampton that
    "I'd write a book and let the outside world know what went on behind those high walls and locked doors. Although I meant it, I hardly thought I would ever get the opportunity to do so" Child of a System p.62
    Her book was published in 1977

    1953 Mary Barnes a patient, for a year, in St Bernard's Hospital. (p.52 following)

    16.1.1953: Mary Nettle born in "a small village nestling at the foot of Bredon Hill in the Vale of Evesham... I am very lucky to have secure roots in such a lovely place. I was sent away to a convent boarding school at the age of 10" See SUN website - 1970s market research - 1977 a horrible Victorian asylum - 1987 Edale "I felt myself a survivor of life" - 1992 Mental Health Task Force - December 1992 Mental Health User Consultant - 29.5.1993 DATA - 1994 Building on Experience - 1996 chair of MindLink - 1997: Mental Health Act Commissioner - February 2000 - INVOLVE 2003 - Chair European network 2004 - Mary's story at two decades of change 2006 - Recovery In Sight Centre 2009 - Health Rights 2011

    20.5.1953 Andrew Hughes born - see North West Mind - visited Oldham Schizophrenia Fellowship - Oldham Mind - memories of 1985 - Rochdale Mind - Founder of Distress Awareness Training Agency May 1988 - Survivors United Network 1999-2002 - worked on On Our Own Terms in 2003 -

    1953-1954 Thomas Ritchie went to Ireland. "I was taking the occasional Drinamyl". This needed a prescription, so early in the summer of 1955 he moved to Preludin. "It soon became a daily requirement and that is how regularly I took it until the year 1960", when it was restricted. A conviction for forging prescriptions led to his confinement in 1963, when he learnt about using Benzedrex inhalers, which he was still using in the mid 1970s. In a 22.8.1971 paper he refers to all of these as "Speed" (deleted) "Amphetamine". He says he is addicted and that it is of equal importance as air and food to his life. "Much more than half my waking hours" in hospital "and more than 80%" of his money were consumed in acquiring it.

    1954

    1954 Liz Sayce born. See 1983 - 1988 - 1990 - 2000 - 2012

    28.2.1954 Winston Basil George Rose born in Jamaica. He married Thora H. Paul in St Pancras, London in September 1976. In 1979 he was an electrician living in Leytonstone when he was admitted to Claybury hospital for a short period. In May 1981 he became redundant and depressed and in July 1981 he died being taken to Claybury by the police. - Inquest file

    13.3.1954 Valerie Ann Amos born British Guiana (now Guyana) in South America. She was involved in the Black Health Foundation (Afiya Trust) at the time that she became a member of the United Kingddom House of Lords in August 1997

    Fabian Tompsett Spring 1954 Fabian Tompsett born? Brentwood School about 1964 to 1970. From 1984 to 1994 he worked at Union Place Community Resource Centre, a radical print shop started in 1974 in Vassall Road, Lambeth. "A co-operative serving the various communities of Lambeth". It had offset litho (A3 and A4 and later A2), screen printing and 35mm darkroom facilities. In 1985 he left th politcal group Class War (French Wikipedia).

    22.8.1992 London Psychogeographical Association re-formed (a development of the situationists who influenced the May 1968 Paris events) with an address at Centerprise (Box 15, 138 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2NS). Fabian was a very active member.

    In May 2006 he is listed as an Advisory member of THACMHO

    University of East London 2010-2015, gaining first a BA in Social Enterprise and then an MSc in ICT and Development. Since 2008 Fabian has been involved in exhibitions of Class War Games. See 2016 "Wikipedia" and his website -

    21.5.1954 Chris Barchard born. See 1992 - 21.7.2005 - 13.7.2007 - 14.7.2007 - Perceptions Spring 2008 - November/December 2013

    23.7.1954 Eric Irwin, Radio Mechanic, arrived at Southampton, England, from Sydney, Australia, aboard the ship Fairsea. He was travelling to 13 Sandhill Gardens, Neills Hill, Belfast.

    2.9.1954? Celia Hughes born. See 10.1.2005

    October 1954 Be Morris born. See 8.1.1988 - 26.9.1988 - June 2012

    1.11.1954 Peter Whitehead, having escaped from Farmfield and seeking refuge with his uncle, was taken to the National Council for Civil Liberties offices in Westbourne Grove, Bayswater. Later the same day he was examined by a woman doctor who wrote "I cannot see how he can be deemed certifiably defective" [See Intelligence]

    1955

    about 1955 Carole (later) Murray born. She became a director of Capital Project Trust on 1.3.2012 at 57 years of age.

    April 1955 Roberta Mary Graley (later Wetherell) born. "I have worked as an advocate and helped to establish advocacy servoces in secure hospitals since 1990..." (The Advocate October 2003 page 9) See 1993

    1955 Rachel Perkins born

    19.12.1955 Rick Hennelly born. See allies - Tontine Road - Survivors Speak Out 1985 - Survivors Speak Out 1986 - Asylum Spring 1986 - Asylum Summer 1986 - Edale 1987 - Interview 11 (before 2005).

    Peter Whitehead The struggle inside

    January 1955 Peter Whitehead in solitary confinement at Rampton

    "I decided I was being wrongfully shut away, because I knew I wasn't mentally defective, and in spite of what had happened at Farmfield, I was not violent. I knew that I must go on believing this, and go on hoping that one day I would be set free. No matter how long I was imprisoned in Rampton, I was determined never to give up".
    Peter Whitehead advised other patients to
    "Write letters. Get people outside interested in you. Tell them you've been wrongly shut away. If you stay quiet, nobody will lift a finger to help you, however long you stay here"

    About twenty patients began writing letters and staff complained that Peter's campaign meant they had to spend all their time reading (and censoring) patients letters. Several time, Peter was warned:

    "Carry on like this, and you're heading straight for trouble"

    The struggle outside

    "As soon as he received a written notification that his nephew had been recaptured" Dennis Whitehead called on the National Council for Civil Liberties, determined to get Peter released". He wrote to the Board of Control and was told (3.2.1955) Peter's next review would fall on 25.12.1956. On 2.3.1955 The NCCL wrote to the Board about its independent medical report on Peter, but the Board expressed no interest.

    Roxan describes these letters as the first two shots to be fired in what was to prove a protracted battle in which Dennis Whitehead would have to sign more than a dozen letters of authority "so that the National Council could wring one more piece of information from sources often most reluctant to part with it" (Roxan 1958 p.227).

    1956

    "In 1956, Eric Irwin says he narrowly escaped a leucotomy. At the time he was a voluntary patient, and he claims a doctor told him "I wish you were psychotic so I could do it". Irwin is convinced that under the "liberal" 1959 Act, he would have been put on a section and operated on"

    1956 Ben Watson born. See Mad Pride 2000 - June 2000 - Asylum 2000 issue 2 - 14.11.2002 -

    1956 Lorraine Bell born. See allies - Frank Bangay believes that Lorraine was at the Brighton Congress in July 1985, as was David Hill, but not Peter Campbell. She and Helen Smith may have secured funding for the meetings that established Survivors Speak Out after the July 1985 World Congress, and before the November 1985 Mind Conference. See MIND 1985 Seminar B4. In 2006 it was said of her that "In 1987 she published 'Survivors speak out' as a chapter in Good Practices in Mental Health; from this, she developed the national self-advocacy group for people with mental health problems, adopting her chapter title as their organisational title." See 1987 - 1988 - 2006 -

    12.1.1956 Sixteen year old Matthew Paschal O'Hara arrested on suspicion of killing his 26 year old brother Peter in Ballybough House, Fairview, Dublin. It was one of only four violent deaths in Dublin in six years. (Dublin since 1922 (2016) by Tim Carey, page 168). Matthew was convicted by the Central Criminal Court, Dublin on 19.4.1956.

    December 1956 Peter Whitehead released from Rampton. "... after ten years at Rampton, had to go to a Ministry of Labour Training Centre to learn a practical trade following his release."
    In 1957 he took part in a NCCL "investigation into Rampton Hospital and insanity laws" with another ex-patient, James Stanton. Picture shows James Stanton and Peter Whitehead at the National Council for Civil Liberties Conference. Copyright Pathe News (not used).

    "A crowded meeting in the Conway Hall with some 400 People present, many of them parents of Rampton patients; others ex-patients-two of them, embittered, on the platform; both, though previously labelled 'feeble-minded; as able platform contenders as I have seen at many an election meeting". Donald Johnson MP Spectator 27.9.1957

    Frank Haskell, Elizabeth Allan and Dr Donald Johnson

    1957

    1957: United Kingdom Consumers' Association (publisher of "Which?") founded. In 1961 Kathleen Jones expained why it was not possible to do consumer resarch in mental hospitals. In 1971 the Consumers Association published Treatment and Care in Mental Illness

    1957: Recovery groups, now known as Grow began in Hurstville, Sydney, Australia. Started by former mental patients who met through Alcoholics Anonymous. Described now (2008) as a "community of persons working towards mental health through mutual help and a 12 step program of recovery. Small groups of people who have experienced depression, anxiety or other mental or emotional distress, come together on a weekly basis to help each other deal with the challenges of life. Some people come to GROW while struggling with the loss of a job, a loved one or a relationship". The organisation started in Ireland in 1969

    Veronica Dewan born 1957 - See Capital and 14.1.2005

    1957 Altaf Ramtoola born.

    About 1957 Alan Leader born. See Hackney WEA - December 1980 - Survivor activist 1986 - Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee - 9.5.1986 - 21.11.1986 - 5.9.1989 - Survivors Speak Out 1989 AGM - 1992 - 13.4.1994 - Direct Power 1995

    January 1957 "Put Away", was the first programme of The Hurt Mind, the first British television series about mental illness. Much of it came from inside Warlingham Park Hospital, where the presenter, Christopher Mayhew, spent a few days "to get the feel of the place". No faces of patients were shown - Some individuals were pictured from the neck down, a group of patients were interviewed around a table without showing faces, one or more individuals were interviewed back to camera.

  • Gerald describes how the war drove him to alcoholism

  • Sidney describes how he became "persecuted by a wizard and became possessed by a familiar"

  • Mary, a teacher, tells of her "irrational fears" and how her parents found it "difficult to understand"

  • Mary also speaks for Marcia, a silent young woman; Mary says that Marcia "can't do anything without being told"

  • A woman explains that peculiar thoughts were put into her head by someone other than herself, how she had hallucinations of red devils and religious figures.

  • A young male patient speaks of his aversion to close proximity to other people, inordinate concerns about cleanliness, and a phobia about dirt and infections

  • A female patient talks about how she suffered deep depression after childbirth, her indecisiveness, her mistreatment of husband and child and unhappy childhood
  • John Zammit - Outsider poet

    About the Author

    He was placed on earth in 1957,
    on the 16th of August.
    The town he was selected to breath in
    was Bethnal Green, this place is a small
    town, in a massive city called London, or
    help me, I can't see the fucking sky!

    4.11.1957 Alison Faulkner born. See Rogers and Faulkner 1987 - Faulkner, A. and Field, V. 1993 - 1994 - user led research - February 1997 - Strategies for Living - A. Faulkner, 2000 - September 2002 - INVOLVE - 24.7.2004 - 16.11.2004 - 1.6.2009

    1958

    1958 Mary O'Hagan born Winton, Southland, New Zealand. See 1987 - 1991 World Federation chair - 1993 - 2001 Comissioner - box

    1958 Helen Smith born. See allies - July 1985 - Minstead Lodge - Collaboration for Change -

    1958 Ron Coleman born - See 1991 - 13.4.1994 - May 1994 - Handsell Publishing - Hearing Voices 1996 Conference - 1999: Recovery: an alien concept - 2001-2002 Victim to Victor workshops - 29.5.2002 Bristol Hearing Voices Network Self-Help group - 2006? Working to Recovery Ltd - Essex April 2008

    1958 Clare Ockwell born. See Society for the Advancement of Research into Anorexia - Eating Disorders Association 1992 - CAPITAL

    1958 Paul Ripley born. See Having a Voice coordinator and then Media Project worker - Manchester Social Media Director ID : 912430416 in 2008.

    28.1.1958 Joseph Lodrick Watts born. "My brother was Joseph Watts and he died in Broadmoor, he was always told that he would never walk free and that he would die in Broadmoor,and this is exactly what happened. R.I.P. Joseph Watts" (Yvonne Fitzgerald 17.1.2013). In June 1989 "Following the death of black Londoner Joseph Watts" on 23.8.1988 Inquest was "one of several groups which have been helping Mr Watt's parents to find how he died".

    July 1958 Colin Hambrook born. 16 in 1975. Established Disability Arts Online. - 2012 - 2013

    About 1958: Mark Greenwood born. After completing a degree in history at Cambridge University, he then (1982- 1985) trained as a psychiatric nurse at North Manchester General Hospital. Towards end of training, carried out oral history as part of the Getting To Know You project. Staffed on Springfield's long-stay wards before being appointed as one of the first community support workers in the Harpurhey Resettlement Team (1987 -1992). "During his 5 years on the team he was also heavily involved in mental health politics, including visits to Trieste and other European centres of radical psychiatry, involvement in Asylum magazine and helping set up the Hearing Voices Network." See Asylum July 1989 - "I was involved in producing Asylum with Paul Baker and Nigel Rose between 1989 and 1994" In 1992 he moved back into Springfield Hospital as a senior nurse manager, overseeing the closure of the remaining long-stay wards. - Asylum Summer 1993 Defence of Italy (See March 1993) - He left Springfield in 1994 to become development manager at Creative Support (Registered 18.1.1991 as Manchester Housing Consortium. Name changed to Creative Support Ltd on 24.2.1994) Mark has has been involved in the Kwan Wai (Mental Health) Team of Wai Yin Chinese Women Society since its beginning in 1999 and has worked at Wai Yin as Health and Social Care/Well being manager since 2002. Interview 5.

    1958 Robin Farquharson's Doctor of Philosophy thesis An approach to a pure theory of voting procedure Nuffield College, Oxford

    In the neurosis unit at "Northtown" a psychiatrist tried to organise group therapy by meetings which included "a patients' committee, and a patients' general meeting"

    "The patients' committee was stopped because it apparently ran a great deal too well. It developed a group entity of its own which became set in opposition against the staff - as one doctor said, 'It was at us the whole time, agitating'"

    "The patients' general meeting collapsed because the doctors felt the verbalisation level was too low for it to have any real value. A few patients from the patients' committee dominated it. The rest could not take any active part in it, and tended to sit passively."

    One reason the psychiatrist thought the groups failed was "the lack of any real delegation of responsibility - 'we just expected them to sit and talk'" (Jones and Sidebotham 1962 p.76)

    1959

    1959 Edward Peck born. See Nottingham Summer 1985

    1959 Robin Farquharson wrote the chapter "South Africa 1958" in David Butler's Elections Abroad (Macmillan; St. Martin's Press, 1959).

    1959 Bill Warwick "received the distinguished label Schizophrenic. My mistake was going to my doctors in search of an explanation of an experience that produced a somewhat bold statement in writing: 'Fear is at the root of all illness both Mental and Physical'."

    February 1959 Adrienne Sinclair Chalmers born. See Awareness (1989) and June 2012

    29.7.1959 Royal Assent to the 1959 Mental Health Act. Eric Irwin argued, from his experienced of being a patient, that this Act removed patient's rights. It follows that he had experience of English mental hospitals before, as well as after, the Act.


    2001 website Zyra gazes at the stars from his 2001 website 11.11.1959 James "Jim" Graves, also known as Jim Felix and Zyra born. He went to Boston Grammar School between 1971 and 1978 (where he was known as the "professor". Graduated in Computer Science from the University of Manchester in 1982. About 1983 he established Felix Computers in Boston. This included open access to his Free Association Machine. Eventually he opted for the internet and made his fortune (from 2000) with zyra.org

    See National Voices Forum - 30.9.1999 - 2001 - Summer 2005 - 2008 DVD - December 2010 - Went to Panama as a tax exile on 22.1.2012. He died in Panama in October 2012 (aged 52). See archive of website


    1960s Breakdown in the taboo of silence - people with conditions usually regarded as taboo talking about their own experiences

    1960

    "In 1960, [Eric Irwin says a] psychiatrist told him he was a psychopath and that psychopathy was inborn and incurable. 'I was shattered by that. But when I came out I looked it up in every textbook I could find, and found it meant so many different things that anyone could be one'"

    From 1960 to 1962, Shulamit [Shula] Ramon was a student at the School of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. See 1983 - MIND 1985 B2 - Interview 3 - Literature - December 1988

    5.2.1960 David Roy Bennett was born in Jamaica. He came to England in 1968 to join his family who were already living in Peterborough. His father worked as an engineer with the London Brick Company. David became known as Rocky Bennett. He died 31.10.1998

    Spring 1960 Thomas Ritchie discharged from Brixton Prison found his Brighton photography business had been destroyed by a burglary. He returned t Lanark, Scotland to live with his aunt. "I went to Hartwoodhill Hospital as a voluntary patient", but discharged himself within a month. Unable to find work in Lanark, he went to friends in Coventry [*], but still could not find work. "My chronic depression deepened and I was admitted to Leigh House, an offshoot of the Central Hospital, Warwick (again voluntarily)" for six weeks of treatment including ECT. On discharge, he had three months work selling ice-cream, and when this finished, with the winter, returned to his aunt in Lanark.

    "to my best friend of all, Kate in Coventry, who maintained faith in me through the bleakest of those bleak years" [1971]

    1.5.1960 Someone had suggested to Moyna Peters' parents that psychiatric treatment might help her keep a job.

    19.6.1960 Orville Blackwood born Jamaica. Mother Clara [Buckley]. Orville moved to London "at an early age" and "in trouble with the police at an early age". His psychiatric history began when he was 22. See 28.8.1991
    The picture shows Clara holding a framed photograph of Orville. It may be from the Caribbean and African Times in December 1992.

    October 1960 Carol (Susan) Jenkin born. Started BUDDIES in 1994 - A Director of The UK Federation of Smaller Mental Health Agencies from 1.9.1998 to 7.4.2005. Correspondence address: 45 Wood Lane, Swain House, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD2 1JU. Occupation: Trainer and Voluntary Mental Health Worker - 7.10.2000 an article about her life and Buddies - UKAN Chair - User Survey Steering Group 2003 - On Our Own Terms Research Team - Advocate June 2004

    "It is not possible to do 'consumer research' in mental hospitals, for although patients often have very decided views, these are frequently conditioned by their illness and their own subjective experiences. Nevertheless, it is very important that the patients' own viewpoint should not be lost among the welter of administrative and statistical considerations, and we were fortunate in that a number of patients, meeting us in the ward and in the corridors, took a considerable interest in the project. They contributed observations and anecdotes from their own experience, and these were carefully checked by reference to medical or nursing staff, or to records. We are grateful to these patients - many of whom are now back in their own homes, and living normal lives at the time of writing - for a constant reminder of the human values which underlie this or any other piece of research into mental illness." Kathleen Jones and Roy Sidebotham. Dated 1961, referring to research between June 1958 and June 1959. (Jones and Sidebotham 1962, p.x)

    About 1961 Daniel Iga Mwesigwa born in Uganda. "Mentally ill since he was thirteen" (Basic Needs 2004) - Mental Health Uganda - The photograph was taken at the Disability Rights Promotion International Africa regional training workshop in Kigali, Rwanda (28.1.2011 to 2.2.2011).
    1961

    Problems of the Ex-Prisoner. Report of the Pakenham/Thompson Committee published London, 1961 by the National Council of Social Service (Great Britain). 91 pages. Frank Pakenham Longford (1905-2001) (chairing) and Peter Thompson (1933-2003).

    January 1961 Michael Dummett and Robin Farquharson "Stability in Voting" Econometrica 29, pages 289-286. Stability in Voting'. Pp. 33-43 in: Econometrica, Vol. 29, No. 1, January 1961.

    In 1961, Robin Farquharson's thesis was awarded the Monograph prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the field of the social sciences.

    Richard 'Cartoon' Campbell 11.3.1961 Richard Campbell born to Paulette Campbell in Stockwell, South London. As a young man (19 when he died) "he was a popular guy in South London helping to run the Mafia Sound System. He was a witty and good-natured youth - the reason for his nickname 'Cartoon'". See arrest and death 1980 - Inquest file - 29.4.1981

    13.3.1961 Colin Sylvester Roach born Stepney to Pamella C. V. Roach (Ireland before their marriage in Poplar in December 1958) and James Martin Roach (born 1.4.1928, died November 1997 in Tower Hamlets. In 1983, James was described as "a 54 labourer from Exmouth House, Bow". Christmas 1982 in Pentonville - Died 12.1.1983 - Inquest file.

    24.9.1961 Birth of Michael Dean Martin who died in Norfolk House, Broadmoor, aged only 23, in July 1984.. "Consideration had been given to the possibility of a planned transfer of him back to Bexley hospital".

    December 1961 Incentive contained an account by Bertram A. Miller of the orgin (1960) of the Sheltered Workers Group. This was rewritten for the June 1963 edition. See Ingrebourne box

    1962

    By 1962 Eric Irwin had returned to London. 1962/1963 Living in a Church Army hostel, Livingstone House, in Willesdon. 1964/1965 living in a Richmond Fellowship hostel in Islington. In 1965 also shown in a communal house at 2 Wells Road, Bromley.

    1962 Patrick Wood born.

    About 1962 Peter Bullimore born. See: 2003 Paranoia Network - 19.10.2007 - Asylum 2010 - 2012 Pumpkin

    About 1962 Simon Barnett born. See 2003

    1962 Mary Barnes visited her parents in South Africa, where they had been for three years. (p.60) She returned to England after six months and went to stay at the convent in Wales. Peter came to stay. Dorothy was travelling to the Far East and Australia. "Soon after this Peter wrote saying he was in a mental hospital". (p.62) Corespondence with Anna Freud and James Robertson .

    February 1962 Birth of Abena [Ade Dansu] Simba-Tola. See September 1980 and March 1981

    14.9.1962 Birth of Peter [Anthony] Shaughnessy [mother's maiden name Bell] in Lambeth, London - His parents were "Irish working class" and Peter's childhood ambition was to become a bus driver. Instead, he studied drama at the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup from 1983 to 1986. His first child was born at about the time he left the college. He worked in a children's home and as a carer for people with disabilities, before becoming a bus driver in 1990 on route 36 from New Cross to Queens Park. In 1992 he went on a silent hunger strike outside his bus garage in protest at the privatisation of the service. By the end of the year he was hospitalised with "manic depression". On 2.10.1995, one of Peter's sisters, Evelyn (born 2.1.1970) was killed by her "psychotic boyfriend", who stabbed her fifteen times whilst her sister tried to save her. Peter says "when Brixton police let me back in the flat, they let me find the bloody duvet that she was attacked on". Peter punched a policeman and was admitted to Robert Gillespie Ward, in Guys Hospital. He joined Southwark Mind in 1997, helping to consolidate it as a user group, and came to prominence with the street drama of Reclaim Bedlam in the autumn of 1997. From early 1998, Peter was groomed as Mental Health Media's lead performer: See National Headlines 12.2.1998 - 8.10.1998. In 2000, Peter told his own story in the Mad Pride book. He married married Penny L. Mount, Worthing, Sussex, December 2000 - Suicide 14.12.2002 (age 40). Death registered Wandsworth - Inquest 10.4.2003 - Asylum tribute issue - Advocate. Mental Magazine records. Frank Bangay recorded (Survivors History Group Meeting 30.9.2015) that Peter's death took a lot out of the momentum of Mad Pride. Peter, he said, was "a one-off who turned campaign into theatre". He "moved mental health demos forward".

    Autumn 1962 Valerie Argent confined in Essex Hall. She was later moved to the Ingrebourne Centre (a therapeutic community). Her Ingrebourne medical notes say:

    "She has been an in-patient of the Royal Eastern Counties Hospital, Essex Hall, Colchester, which is a hospital for mental defectives. She was sent there as other suitable accommodation was not available, following an attempt at suicide by holding her head in a basin of water. She is an intelligent girl with an IQ of 120 and has been attending Hornchurch Grammar School" - "We really took her because it seemed so terrible to leave her in this environment"

    1963

    About 1963 Graham Morgan born - He became a mental health activist in the 1980s in Sheffield after witnessing the harsh and often undignified treatment of people with a mental illness. He initially became a volunteer with an organization helping young people live in the community. After this he helped set up a a user run drop in centre (McMurphys) for young people in Sheffield. He was a Director of McMurphys. Moved to Edinburgh about 1988 where he quickly became involved in a campaigning group. Graham Morgan
    Graham was active in
    Awareness a collective advocacy group in Edinburgh and then worked in Lothian with CAPS where he helped establish the Lothian Users Forum and a network of other advocacy groups. He moved to the Highlands in 1997. MBE 2004 when he had had "over 20 years experience in the field of mental health". See 2012 and 2015.

    February 1963 In about 20 minutes, Bill Warwick was "instrumental" in writing This Mad World, a six page spiritualist cosmology that included "look to the mental hospitals to see the havoc some are creating to what could be some good and desirable instruments to us" [spirits] "if they but know how to help themselves and us ... Some of you already know from experience that the treatment meted out to those unfortunates only frightens the life out of them and is completely unnecessary. Raise you voices. Ask for permission to cooperate with the mental authorities to rescue those poor souls from the ignorance of mankind".

    Monday 11.2.1963: Suicide of Sylvia Plath. 6am. Yeats' House. Freda Hughes, daughter of Sylvia and Ted, was two years old. She grew up in Devon.

    April 1963 Lanark Court sent Thomas Ritchie to Crichton Royal Hospital at Dumfries "on a year's probation". He was there for five months. "... it was discovererd that I was again taking drugs (brought by a friend from Dublin)". "I quite enjoyed my stay there, being able to get some drugs most of the time". This was seen as "a breach of probation, for which offence I did 30 days in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow" On release, Tommy went almost directly to Hartwood.

    18.5.1963 Edward Christopher Clunis [known as Christopher Clunis, who sometimes called himself Allajah] born Muswell Hill, London, N10. His father, Lester Oswald Clunis (born Jamaica 20.4.1924 /39 years old) and mother, Daisey M. McClarey (also born Jamaica. Died Jamaica 1985), lived with several other people at 54 Rathcoole Gardens, Hornsey N8 in 1964. Christopher was their only child, but had 4 half brothers and sisters on his father's side and a half brother on his mother's side. "He came from a supportive and loving family". Lester and Daisey were "able to marry" in the spring of 1968, just before they moved to Luton, where his father worked at the Vauxhall car plant. He went to school in Luton. His ambition was to be a jazz guitarist and he toured the Aqua Vita Showband. His parents returned to Jamaica, where his mother died in 1985. Christopher joined his father in Jamaica in 1986 and was admitted to Bellevue Hospital, Kingston, Jamaica, with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Returning to England, he stayed with (half) sisters in Birmingham and then north London.
    During 1987, Christopher had several admissions to Chase Farm Hospital in Enfied. This was close to his family, but in 1988 he was admitted to Dulwich North Hospital (South London). In 1989 St Charles' Hospital, Kensington and Chelsea. He then lived largely in hostels. August/September 1992 Guys. Murdered Jonathan Zito 17.12.1992

    28.5.1963 4pm: Inauguration Committee of The Ingrebourne Society by patients of the Ingrebourne Centre. Its first aim was to "help maintain contact after discharge, and to allow useful relationships to continue". A future aim was to "organise and run a Hostel for the rehabilitation of persons after mental illness".

    June 1963 Incentive edited by Jenny - Rosemary Glendenning having left for the Richmond Fellowship - [Described as "the Centre's magazine". The centre was Ingrebourne. The two copies owned by Andrew Roberts (June 1963 and November 1963) were produced entirely by patients, with very occasional, and minor, written contributions from two of the doctors]

    3.7.1963 Andrew Roberts admitted to the Ingrebourne Centre following a suicide attempt. He had (foolishly) taken an overdose in the catchment area of Warley Hospital. Fortunately, the ambulance took him to Romford.

    "I had three books that I was using to try to understand what was happening: Thomas Szasz, 1961 The Myth of Mental Illness (A library book) - James Drever, 1952 (Revised edition 1964) A Penguin Dictionary of Psychology and David Stafford-Clark, 1952 (second edition 1963) Psychiatry Today (Both bought in a Brentwood bookshop). Ingrebourne staff discouraged an academic approach. My habit of carrying the book I was reading around with me, and putting it by my chair in group, drew unfavourable attention - especially to Szasz."

    28.7.1963 Start of a camping holiday in France that had been planned in the Ingrebourne Centre by patients. In the event, three patients/expatients went. At one time it was thought half the centre's patients would go.

    September 1963 Thomas Ritchie detained in Hartwood Hospital, Shotts Lanarkshire under Part 5 of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act, "with a restriction on my discharge which could only be lifted by the Secretary of State for Scotland". "On the very night of my release from Barlinnie I was arrested and charged with Breach of the Peace, once again at Lanark Court. The Sheriff sent me to this hospital, Hartwood, nearly three years ago, and here I still am. Ward 22, Hartwoodhill Hospital. Summer 1966"

    November 1963 Incentive edited by Jenny

    17.11.1963 Katherine Sirockin (Kathy Sirockin) born Edmonton, London. She died in August 1991: Kathy taught us to hear with our eyes.

    2.12.1963 The Beatles live on the Morecombe and Wise show. It meant a lot to Valerie. Nothing to me.

    1964

    1964 Dr Wolfgang Huber began work at the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Heidelberg.

    1964 GIHP: Groupement pour l'Insertion des personnes Handicapées Physiques (Group for Integration of Physically Handicapped persons) established by Gerard Crombez a quadriplegic student at the University of Sciences in Nancy. (See France)

    Ireland index 1964 Brian Hartnett born Limerick - 1991 - 1996 - Phrenz - 2003 - Phrenz of the Media - Hearing Voices Ireland (2006) - (external link to personal recovery story)

    1964: Robin Farquharson's Research Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge. "the wrench I felt resigning my Churchill College fellowship after one year and three nervous breakdowns. Marvellous folk, they gave me £3,000 journey money... under the control of two trustees... [who] let me take it out of the trust account to present to the Home Office, a little disturbed already by my two certification orders, with proof of my means". (Drop Out pages 10-11) [Robin had his South African passport withdrawn in 1965 and became a British Citizen in 1968]

    In 1964 (and 1965) Eric Irwin was registered as living at [St George's House] 263 Camden Road, Islington - A Richmond Fellowship residence. But in 1965 he is also registered as living in Bromley.

    31.1.1964 Sarah Wheeler born, Leicester. Declared a girl by the doctor. However "until the age of five, Sarah Wheeler identified fully and unquestioningly with the role of being a boy. She liked cap guns, cowboy hats, bows and arrows, bicycles, climbing trees, wearing shorts, all that kind of thing. She was happy. Between the age of five and fifteen, environmental pressures being what they are Sarah Wheeler gradually morphed into the feminine identity... she became during this time strangely unhappy, with the first depersonalised symptoms emerging in her mind, inexplicably, when she was about ten. During her childhood, Sarah Wheeler always knew that if she had been born a boy she would have been called Thomas Tobias. Sarah was admitted to Springfield Hospital in 1990. Late on Christmas Day in 2002 she was released from the six month grip of psychotic depression. To calm and focus her mind she read a poem called Mental Fight by Ben Okri. She started the Mental Fight Club in Southwark on 1.2.2003 and this led to starting the Dragon Cafe on 21.3.2011 in the Crypt of St George the Martyr Church, Borough Hill.

    Tuesday 31.3.1964 to Wednesday 27.5.1964 Valerie Argent (aged 15/16) was a patient in Belmont Hospital. "... she was treated with Electro Convulsive Therapy and drugs, and it was suggested to her that the only way she would escape from her depressions would be a brain operation (Leucotomy). She was very tempted to accept this suggestion, but eventually decided to escape from the hospital instead" (source). Valerie's medical records show that Valerie was sent to Belmont to separate her and Andrew Roberts.

    Summer 1964 Harry Cumberbatch arrived at Bow Bus Garage from Barbados to start work as a conductor, later driver. Through the Territorial Army he made contacts that "helped in getting my next job as a chauffeur for the Director of the Royal Mint". He qualified as a mechanical engineer, but in the 1970s became a Newham Youth Worker. In 1994 he began retraining in person-centred therapy and began work as a counsellor with Mind in Tower Hamlets. See THACMHO and MBE

    2.7.1964 Jasna Russo born.

    12.7.1964 Esther Leslie born - Archives of her CV - Archives of the whole militantesthetix website - Mad Pride on militantesthetix - Current University web page

    end November 1964 Norman was admitted to Clyde Ward, St Bernards, Southall. "Very good treatment and nursing. Discharged after 13 weeks". The next November he went in for four and a half weeks and then, after a week, was readmitted for thirteen weeks. He was readmitted after four weeks and discharged after six weeks. He was admitted to another hospital in 1971:

    "My only complaint about hospitals is that some stroppy night nurses bully one back to bed when one cannot sleep. Instead they should be allowed to brew up and sit in the day room. I believe females get a rougher deal in this and many other respects than males... I have had some hairy episodes, but find the system works."

    16.12.1964 Robert Dellar born Watford. - 1987 onwards working for local Mind associations - 1983: City and Hackney Mind Advocacy Service - May 1994: Hackney Patients Council - April 1996: Spare Change Books and An Anthology of Punk - 1998? Development worker for Southwark Mind - June 1998: Seaton Point - June 2000: Mad Pride (the book) - 14.11.2002 exhausted - 2014 Splitting in Two: Mad Pride and Punk Rock Oblivion - died 17.12.2016

    1965

    1965 Disablement Income Group (DIG) formed

    1965 Following a knife attack on three au pair girls, Peter Thompson was sent to Broadmoor under Section 60 of the 1959 Health Act. He was released by a Mental Health Review Tribunal in 1969.

    1965 Patricia Chambers born. See Odessa Chambers - Patricia entered the mental health system in 1990 - In 1996 Patricia conducted her own research into "different ways, pathways or reasons that young black men were coming into the mental health system". [See Bugs and 2007] Through her local user group, she took part in "a study of the current provision for housing for mental health patients in the borough". - In 2006 Patricia reported from a group of black mental health service users in London on the importance of Service User Networking. - 2009 seminars - Patricia was appointed the Catch-a-Fiya Manager in 2009. Patricia led work on the Dancing To Our Own Tunes recommendations to develop the TOOTS charter - died 2016 - Friends and colleagues gathered at the Rose Pub in Vauxhall on 25.2.2017 to remember and celebrate her life. "For some of us, the endless discussions and strategizing we've had with each other and with other friends around the dining table at the Afiya Trust have been transformative. But the Afiya Trust, too, has passed away, and so has Catch-a-fiya", (Jayasree Kalathil) - legacy

    13.1.1965 Philip Lee Morgan born in the London Borough of Lambeth. After an insecure childhood in foster homes and institutions he became homeless. With counselling and social work help he was rehoused and became a pioneer of "health through history", which explores recovering yourself through knowing who you are and who you relate to. See Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation - 14.5.2008 interview - met Sam Shakes - 30.10.2009 F.E.E.L. presentation - Pageant - Birmingham 2010 - messages - died 6.5.2017 - funeral - spirit - legacy

    15.3.1965 Letter about Eric Irwin's French translation to 38 Masons Hill. 38 Masons Hill was the address of Stepping Stones House, a Psychiatric Day Hospital in the same area (Bromley) as Cane Hill. In 1965, Eric Irwin is shown in a communal house at 2 Wells Road, Bromley, after being in a Richmond Fellowship House in Islington - .

    2.3.1965 Cherry Allfree seventeen. "There has been a lot written about ... institutions for the so-called subnormal. But little has been written about the reasons why people end up in these places. I want to tell you what happened to me when I was 16 years old. It all began in the year 1965" (Cherry explains why she wants her story published) - After 1975: "I am one of the homeless people of Welby Squat. I Demand Rehousing. I have been shoved around in different homes and hostels since I was 16.. I had a heart operation a year or more ago.." (Published Peace News. Date not known)

    May 1965 "9 p.m. on a Friday night was definitely the wrong time to be admitted". Judith Watson

    Saturday 5.6.1965 Mary Barnes first saw Kingsley Hall

    early summer 1965 "Unfortunately, the doctor decided to send me to Horton Hospital for a rest" - August 1965 "the doctor... informed me that he had already called an ambulance to take me to Rubery Hill Hospital". (Joan Martin - See also winter 1967)

    1.1.1965 All Saints Day. "In the Games Room it suddenly piereced through me about the convent" Mary Barnes p.164

    Toward the end of November 1965 "one Saturday.. Joe gave me a round toffee tin of grease crayons whih he had found in the house" (Mary Barnes p.142)

    "I took to my bed for four months until Joe (Dr Berke) got me out. He would sit me in a chair and I would stay there for hours until he moved me again. One day Joe gave me a set of 'grease crayons and told me to scribble something. I did, on and on. Suddenly a picture emerged, a woman kneeling with a baby at her breast. I found some tins of paint, left over from decorating, and I painted picture stories about mermaids, tramps and children on the back of old wallpaper." (Sunday Times 13.4.1969)

    Mary Barnes "this time over Christmas '65 through the spring of '66 was a time of being up and out, of doing, of exploding, of running and screaming. The house was a minefield..." (p.224)

    1965 The Sir John Cass School of Art, formed through a merger, moved into newly built premises at Central House, opposite the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Mary Barnes started classes in January 1966.

    1966

    1966 Paul Hunt's book Stigma; The Experience of Disability is published. See UPIAS

    1966 Fortnightly International Times (IT), alternative newspaper, founded in London.

    "I begged my GP to get me into hospital so as I could get some care and help" Daniel Morgan

    "the spring of '66 saw Mary enter a 'down' from which she did not emerge for almost a year... her 'down' began in February, accelerated in March, held steady in April, and plunged forward in May. By june she had taken to her bed and was refusing to eat. Her body had begun to look like a bunch of bones loosely covered with skin" (Joseph Berke, p.274)

    March 1966 Mary Barnes encouraged by Felix Topolski. The works he saw were oils on wallpaper backing paper. He showed her hardboard he was painting on.

     

    Feeding the five thousand (1966) by Mary Barnes is the earliest in the Glasgow collection of her work.

    "The Feeding the Five Thousand was the first one I did on canvas. Stretched on the wall above my bed, a mattress on the floor, it was about seven feet across and six feet high" (Mary Barnes, p.152)

    2.3.1966 Cherry Allfree eighteen. About 1966 that Cherry was admitted to Kingsmead in Colchester.

    Sunday 10.4.1966 Easter Sunday

    "On Easter Monday, in the dining-room, I painted a big canvas of the Mother of God. Her breasts were revealed, the succour of men... My paintings had emerged from black lines and breasts on the walls and paintings in shit, to moving figures and scribble on paper: from undercoat paint and wall brushes, to pencils, crayons, charcoal, poster paint, water colour, and oils." (Mary Barnes, pp 157-158)

    Thursday 21.4.1966 Andrew and Valerie Roberts (and daughter) and another Ingrebourne patient (Valentine) moved to Swanage in Dorset

    Summer 1966? Frank Bangay left school, aged 15.

    Mary Barnes "June '66 down, in bed, going inside myself..." (p.224)

    Scotland index Summer 1966 On Ward 22 of Hartwood Hospital, Thomas Ritchie wrote an account of his life up to his admission to Hartwood.

    Ireland index In Cork, Ireland, Tessa Redmond started "Friends Anonymous", a self-help therapy group in September 1966. It was run on the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous - whose open meetings Tessa attended, "to give me the right ideas". The group was the first of its kind in Cork. At least one doctor and a dentist used to send their nervous patients to the group.

    "I mentioned it when I appeared on a television program about 'phobias'. Sadly, it was an entertainment program, and not at all respectful towards us. Participants were asked about their specific phobias, and then unexpectedly presented with the object of their fear, which of course terrified them - I found this disgraceful" (Tessa Redmond)

    Recovery Groups (now Grow) in Ireland started in 1969.

    Mary Barnes Chapter 12: "Autumn 1966 - coming insight - how I used my paintings to seduce people - bonfire night" (p.194) - "Up a bit as if to breathe. Writing and pastelling in the autumn of '66' Then down again, the third time, less body now, more mind, understanding coming. Moving away out of the web, getting separate. (p.224)

    "I feel it's just possible, so great was my state of self- deception, so clever was I at deceiving others, that if God had not resuced me through mental breakdown I might have worn a habit, been a 'nun' outwardly, without ever really encountering all my anger, jealousy, sexual feelings and guilt." (Barnes and Berke 1971/1973 p.225)

    7.10.1966 Ronald Laing's 49th birthday. Mary Barnes wrote her story The Hollow Tree as her birthday present.

    October 1966 Trace Methods for Sulphate and Nitrate by J.M. Martin, Graduate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, a candidate for the degree of Master of Science. University of Birmingham. Joan's autobiography describes how her degree was preceded by a period in a mental hospital.

    November 1966 Mary Barnes' Baby Bear

    Mary Barnes Chapter 13: "Christmas 1966 - Further experiences with Noel and Paul"

    December 1966 Birth in Poplar of Sarah Jane Yiannoullou who became manager of the National Survivor User Network (NSUN) in March 2009. See 14.11.2017

    1967 Declaration of a summer of love

    2.3.1967 Cherry Allfree nineteen. After her nineteenth and before her twentieth birthday, Cherry was admitted to Lexden House in Colchester.


    Mary Barnes "This last, fourth time of going down was in the spring of '67. It was short and drastic, six days without food and water" (p.226) "since the spring of '67, I have grown up" (p.227)

    "May 1967 saw the start of my finger painting with Peter before Christ. Using more and more colour I raced on, through the Red Sea with the Children of Israel, to the Nativity, the Resurrection, the Ascension and across the dining room wall came Christ Triumphant, done with my fingers as all my work since then."


    Stephen Ticktin graduated B.A. Philosophy June 1967 - M.A. Philosophy December 1969 - M.D. June 1973 (University of Toronto, Canada). See May 1982 - 1983 - Psychiatric Oppression - MIND 1985 - Asylum Spring 1987 - Autumn 1987 - literature - Asylum Summer 1991 - Asylum Autumn 1991 - Asylum Spring 1992 -

    June/July 1967 Release national drug helpline established in London "by Caroline Coon and Rufus Harris, who established it as a direct response to the growing number of young people being arrested and/or imprisoned under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965". [Archives description] The ideas about mental distress and its relief that were expressed in COPE were often related to the images of drug experiences. People "freaked out" and needed a "crisis centre" to come through their experience in the friendly company of people who knew what was happening to them. Release groups also formed in Germany and the Netherlands where they have been credited with playing a part in the mental patients' movement and/or the anti-psychiatry movement.

    15.7.1967 to 30.7.1967 Roundhouse Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation. Some of Mary Barnes' paintings were exhibited at this. In the spring of 1968, Mary was given the old posters "to cover the floor and benches of the Games Room so I could paint without spoiling the room, which had then been newly decorated" (p.297)

    September 1967 In "The Sick Room, Ward Seven" of Hartwood Hospital, Thomas Ritchie wrote an account of his life in Hartwood, concluding with his "grievances for redress". His case for a union (later) included that such individual grievances got him nowhere, but the collective complaints of patients were attended to.

    autumn 1967 Mary Barnes took Joseph Berke to visit Peter Barnes in hospital. (p.338)

    6.11.1967 Robin Farquharson dismissed from his job in computer programming for "taking liberties" - decision to "drop out" (leaving his money in the bank and his furniture with friends). The first entry in his book about this is Monday 20.11.1967 - Which may have been the day he walked into Anthony Blond's office and secured a £2 a week advance on a book about his experiences.

    Joan Martin: "I spent the winter of 1967 at Rubery Hill Hospital but did not get on too badly, because during this period I was not given heavy tranquillisers" - See November 1969

    1968

    1960 USA: We Shall Overcome the freedom song. In 1965/1966 a group of mental patients living in Abbs Cross Lane, Hornchurch, regarded this as their "national anthem".

    1968 "We Shall Overcome" started in Norway by mental patients and ex- patients in 1968 continues to represent users and survivors of psychiatry in the 21st century. website - facebook ["Landsforeningen We Shall Overcome (WSO) - Bruker- og interesseorganisasjon for menneskerettigheter, selvbestemmelse og verdighet innen psykisk hels" means in English "The National Association We Shall Overcome (WSO)-user and interest group for human rights, self-determination and dignity within mental health"]

      The first edition of Drop Out by Robin Farquharson was published in 1968. Its cover had this cartoon of Robin. In the preface (dated 30.1.1968), he wrote
    "I am a manic-depressive. When I'm up, I have no judgement, but fantastic drive; when I'm down, I have judgement, but no drive at all. In between I pass for normal well enough." (See Chaos Invocation)

    At Heidelberg, Wolfgang Huber developed a Patientenkollektivs (Patient Collective) in 1968. Later development: Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv (Socialist Patient Collective). This published SPK - Aus der Kranheit eine Waffe Machen [Make Your Illness a Weapon] in April 1972.

    External link to web page
    Wikipedia: Original 14.6.2006 entry by Milla from Ireland - current entry

    January 1968 Meeting of Mary Barnes with her parents (chapter 19). After this meeting, Mary "discovered her hands" and began to use hands and fingers instead of brushes and palette knife. (Joe Berke, p.368). Mary says her finger painting began in May 1967

    February 1968: Start of the democratic "anti-university". The mental health meetings, in which R.D. Laing and David Cooper were active, were called "anti-psychiatry". After the collapse of the anti-university (by 1969) the anti-psychiatry group continued to meet in a flat in Belsize Park. The term anti-psychiatry has also been used generally for the movement critical of the orthodox psychiatry of the 1960"s. (See Mental Health and Civil Liberties Article) In this very lose sense, COPE and even the Mental Patients Union have been described as part of the anti- psychiatry movement. However, some MPU members would warmly reject the title on the grounds that MPU groups were open to all patients and ex- patients, irrespective of their views on psychiatry and psychiatric treatment. The use of the term in the sense of holding society and psychiatry responsible for what is called mental illness was developed by PROMPT - which was not, initially, a patients' organisation.

    2.3.1968 Cherry Allfree twenty. Before her twentieth birthday, Cherry was admitted to Lexden House in Colchester.

    Spring 1968 Mary Barnes painted Christ Triumphant, depicting three stages of sacrifice, on the dining room wall at Kingsley Hall.

    May 1968 Paris student rising

    16.5.1968 Article by Richard Boston in New Society about the Anti-University.

    June 1968 BIT 24-Hour Free Information and Help Service (London) started. Its name indicated that it evolved out of International Times (IT) and also related to BIT=Binary Information Transfer 'the smallest unit of information that can be processed by a computer'. COPE evolved out of BIT. They had similar styles of publication, with similar names (Bitman and Copeman for their magazines) and, at times, shared offices.

    Summer 1968 Grace Conner's friendship with Mary Barnes. They went to the cinema and to the Matisse exhibition [Hayward Gallery to 8.9.1968]. "I painted He Shall Come as the Sun and a huge sun on hardboard for the Hampstead Open Air exhibition" (p.297).   August 1968 Hampstead Open Air Exhibition was amongst the listings in the first edition of Time Out.
    9.8.1968 to 1.9.1968 "Art and Mental Health" at the Commonwealth Institute.

    The squatting movement began to develop in London from 1968. Initially it was housing families. Eventually, a diversity of people and groups were living in squats or short life properties "licensed" from councils. The death of Robin Farquharson, which overshadowed the start of the Mental Patients Union, was against the background of squatting. The first headquarters of the MPU at Prince of Wales Road, Camden, was in a squat. Robin Farquharson House was on a short life licence agreement.

    " Robin Farquharson in full cry was able to wreck havoc in a commune of freaks as well as in a straight organisation and when this happened to us and we could not get through to him or calm him down we also ended calling for men in white coats. It must have been a terrible blow for Robin to be rejected by his own tribe and although he did not bear a permanent grudge, I understand now he would rather anything than fall into the hands of the men in white coats. I heard he put up a good fight when they cornered him and about ten men were needed to subdue him on this occasion, tho' on the grapevine the story may have growed a bit I dunnow. Three years later in 1971 Robin came to Bath..." George Firsoff archive (1944-10.11.2004) in Bitman 8, September 1973

    1968: Nick Crossley born. BA and PhD in Sociology, University of Sheffield. Lecturer in the sociology and philosophy of psychiatry, in the Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies (part of the Deptartment of Psychiatry) at Sheffield from 1993 to 1998. Helen Spandler his student from Autumn 1992. Had begun research into mental health movements by 1997. Joined Manchester Sociology in September 1998. Professor 2005. Head of sociology summer 2007 to summer 2010. Co-founded Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis. Also involved with Social Movements Research Group. Involved in a project on complexity theory with colleagues in the Institute for Social Change, and on the advisory board of the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research. (2010) See January 1998 - 19.6.1998 - Literature - 1999 - Contesting Psychiatry (2005) - information box

    1968 Clare Allan born. See Lost decade - East Anglia - Poppy Shakespeare - Guardian column - Disability Living Allowance 2010

    1969

    Ireland index Recovery Groups were started in Ireland in 1969 by Father Seán O'Hanlon who had come in contact with the organisation whilst working as a missionary in Papua, New Guinea. He held the first meeting in Athea, Co. Limerick with the help of another Sacred Heart priest, Father Brian Dunleavy. From there, groups formed throughout the country, especially in the areas of Limerick, Cork and Dublin.

    Seán O'Hanlon was curate in the parish of Athea from 1971 to 1977. He died 8.2.1978. (parish website)

    Eamer O'Keeffe worked as an artist and film-maker in Ireland. She came to London in 1969 and "decided to stay after discovering feminism" - See 9.3.1999 - 25.10.2008

    1969 to 1972 - Peter Barham interviews and group discussions with patients diagnosed as schizophrenic in Winterton Hospital, Sedgefield, County Durham. Peter was researching "schizophrenic thinking"

    1969 Jacobus Gerrit (Koos) Postema (born Rotterdam, 17.8.1932) made Dutch television programsfrom 1969: "A small hours You" and "You A large hour" in which taboo-breaking issues were discussed such as abortion, sexuality pedophila, assisted suicide and transsexuality. (See Netherlands) - Wikipedia

    1969 Birth of Joseph Atukunda, whose father, Mzee James Kahigiriza, was the last prime minister of Ankole until 1967.
    "I studied at
    Kings College Buddo secondary school and in my final year in 1989, I had my first episode of mental illness". 1990-1991 - 2003 - A founder of Heartsounds in 2008. - 2009 - 16.5.2011 facebook started - 26.5.2011 interview - visiting - in Britain - 14.5.2013 - 16.9.2013 interview - 20.9.2013 video - 15.12.2014 interview - 21.2.2015 interview

    January 1969 The first "claimants union" met in Birmingham. This rapidly developed a participatory democracy style of organisation. A National Federation of Claimants Unions was formed in March 1970 by Birmingham, Brighton, East London, North London, West London and North Staffordshire claimants unions. Some members of the Mental Patients Union (1973) had experience in claimants unions.

    By 1969, the Anti-University had collapsed - the "Anti-Psychiatry" group was meeting at Ken Smith's flat in Belsize Park, and David Cooper rarely came, because he found members wanted therapy, not political action. Andrew Roberts went once.

    end of February 1969 Mary Barnes returned from a trip to Paris and began to prepare for her exhibition at the Camden Arts Centre.

    February 1969 Tower Hamlets Art Group, Members Exhibition, included some work by Mary Barnes.

    2.3.1969 Cherry Allfree twenty-one. After a year in Lexden House Cherry was admitted to Essex Hall in Colchester. "Why were you at Essex Hall? I ran away from Lexden House" (more than once) "Because I didn't like it there" I asked about going somewhere different, and they said there wasn't anywhere else at the moment". "Speaking up for our rights" was "playing up". I used to insist that I was quite capable of going out by myself; so I used to go out by myself without their permission". Cherry was in Essex Hall for three years before moving back to Lexden House for two years and then to Kingsmead for two years.

    11.4.1969 to 25.4.1969. Exhibition of the work of Mary Barnes at Camden Arts Centre, London.

    The works on display (listed in the catalogue) were

    1. Birth - 2. Back of the Cross - 3. Disintegration *. 4. Angel on the Verge of Hell. 5. Crucifixion. 6. Moon. 7. Moon Surface. 8. Sun. 9. Wheat. 10. Spring. The Resurrection. 11. The Vine. 12. Fatima 1917. 13. Fire. 14. Gathering Manna. 15. Resurrection *. 16. Mountains and Clouds. 17 He shall come as the Sun [With Healing in his Wings]. 18. Time of the Tomb *. 19. Our Lady of Africa *. 20 Break Through *. 21. Triptych.

    * Illustrated in Something Sacred 1989

    13.4.1969 The Sunday Times "Making the Break" review of the Mary Barnes exhibition by Atticus

    end of June 1969 Peter Barnes moved into Kingsley Hall

    July 1969 People Not Psychiatry - See 24.12.1971 - PNP Manchester 1971 -

    Robin Farquharson wrote to Michael Barnett from a mental hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, where he had read Michael's article in the International Times. In his letter he spoke of the Situationist Housing Association which he had set up in the hope of providing a "house like Kingsley Hall", but with support, which would be a "sanctuary" for him. Eventually (in London), Rhaune Laslett found a "small mews house" for him (18 Russell Gardens Mews), apparently a short life tenancy for about three years. This was the "PNP House". The first tenants were Jenny James and Becky (about nine years old?), Robin Farquharson, Chris Cade and Graham Spowatt. Robin's tenancy seems to have lasted no more than a few weeks before he was admitted to an Epsom Hospital and the other tenants moved someone else in.

    David Crepaz-Keay had his first psychiatric diagnosis in 1969.
    He worked at the Treasury and in the water industry from
    1982 to 1991.
    He was Consultant on service user involvement, various health and social services departments from 1990 to 1998
    A Coordinating Group member of Survivors Speak Out from September 1990 to September 1995 (Chair 1992, Secretary 1993, Chair 1994)
    At Mental Health Media from 1997 to 2005 (A consultant, then deputy director for 3.5 years (1999?). Became Chief Executive at the beginning of March 2003)
    Speaker for Survivors Speak Out in 12.12.1998 media blitz
    thepsychotic.org.uk 27.6.2002
    Commissioner, Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (January 2003 - August 2007).
    Head of Patient and Public involvement for the Mental Health Foundation from June 2005.

    6.8.1969 Helen Spandler born. See 1974 - July 1990 analysis of anti-psychiatry and mental patients movements - BA (East London) by Independent Study 1992 - Asylum Autumn 1992 (Socialist Patient Collective) - Sheffield University from 1992 - Helen became involved with Asylum and has remained so since - - MA (Sheffield) Psychiatry, Philosophy and Society (1994) - 42nd Street 1994-1996 (based there as a research worker from August 1994 to August 1995) - worked for Having a Voice from 1995-1998 - July 1995 - 1996 - advised Nick Crossley - Manchester Course in Group Psychotherapy (Institute of Group Analysis) 1997 - PhD Manchester Metropolitan University Discourse Unit, Department of Psychology and Speech Pathology 2002 - Asylum to Action - Spring 2006 - Post Graduate Certificate (UCLAN) Research Student Supervision 2007 - 2008 - 29.5.2008 - Literature Review Notes - Helen Spandler Literature

    Late 1969 "My second admission, nearly five years later, was a quite different and much more positive experience." Judith Watson

    "Nothing that has happened to me since has ever been as bad as those two years between November 1969, and November 29th 1971." (Joan Hughes)

    1970

    In the United Kingdom, the 1970s saw the birth of several independent democratic organisations of mental patients, organised locally, but attempting to link together. These unions formed inside and outside of mental hospitals. There were similar developments in several other countries, including Camada and the United States. In European countries other than Scotland and England, the patients movement appears to have been generated by psychiatrists (sometimes called anti-psychiatrists). In Scotland it was started by patients. In England, some professionals (not psychiatrists) were involved in a pilot group. But much research is needed in all countries because the names of psychiatrists and anti-psychiatrists often attract an attention that those of patients do not.

    Anne Plumb moved to Rochdale in 1970, following eighteen months of emotional and mental crisis while at university that placed her in hospital on several occasions.

    About 1970 Lesley Mitchell (later Lougher) qualified as an Occupational Therapist. See 1972

    Hans Wiegant, in 1985, traced Dutch organisation back to 1970. A web history says that in 1970 "the first official patiëntenraad" (patient council) was formed in the (large) psychiatric hospital at Coudewater (western Netherlands) and says that "creating opportunities to participate in the psychiatric hospitals is a first important step towards recognition of the empowerment of patients". (See Netherlands) Organisations include the Clientenbond - "de Cliëntenbond in de geestelijke gezondheidszorg" (Customer/client association/union in the mental health care system), formed 11.1.1971 [11.9.1971?] , and De Gekkenkrant - [See external link to history: Geschiedenis van de Cliëntenbond - an archive - complete list ]

    Recovery began to change to GROW about 1970 when the name G.R.O.W. (Group Recovery Organisations of the World) was adopted by an international federation of Recovery groups which included Australia, New Zealand and Ireland.

    1970 Anthony Kendell and Glen Thompson founded Centerprise. Glen was working for the Hoxton Cafe Youth Project. The project was an ILEA one for "detached youth", that is young people who did not join orthodox clubs and classes. Glen and Anthony founded Centerprise as a project where one had to walk through a bookshop to get to the cafe. This was the plan of the building in Dalston Lane, where I first knew it in 1973. One of the functions of grassroots community centres like this was to make community publishing possible. Groups and individuals could use the centre's typewriters and duplicator and more advanced facilities, like the Silk Screen Workshop (in Dalston) were linked to the project. Mental Patients Union publications from early in 1974 tended to use Centerprise.
    Centerprise and the Mental Patients Union

    February 1970 At Heidelberg, patients held several "assemblies", some with the press present. This may have been the origin of the Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv (Socialist Patient Collective)

    2.3.1970 Cherry Allfree twenty-two.

    April 1970 (France) First issue of Cahiers pour la Folie, decribed by Jacques Lagrange as "a journal of the extreme left... which sought to struggle against 'class psychiatry'". (Foucault 1973/1974c p.365) Notebooks anti-psychiatriques and Marxist. 15 numbers from 1970 to 1974. No. 5 was April-May 1971. Editor Jean Claude Polack psychiatrist [Sometimes given as Jean-Yves Pouilloux]. Each number 12 or 14 pages illustrated. See Fresnes Conference June 1973

    Bit Information Service (London) published Bitman. numbers 1 to 6 from May 1970 to May 1973. COPAC lists in British Library. No 6 (May 1973) was the "special Robin issue) following the death of Robin Farquharson. The British Library does not have numbers 7 and 8 (Late September 1973) - AandV Archive includes some extracts

    May 1970 The Phobics Society established

    September 1970 to November 1970 Peter Campbell a patient in Murray Royal Hospital, Perth, Scotland

    October 1970 The Gay Liberation Front held its first meeting (At the London School of Economics). Seventeen people attended. (external source archive) - See 1971 and 1997

    18.10.1970 Alastair Kemp born. See Asylum Summer 2012 - Newhaven Journeyman

    19.11.1970 Janet Cresswell appeared before Hampstead Magistrates charged with assault on Dr Henry Stoll (1913-2006), her G.P. She had hit him over the head with a milk bottle, causing lacerations to his scalp. Janet was committed to Friern Barnet under section 60 (1) of the 1959 Mental Health Act. [Date from 1976 Court transcript, but Janet dates 1972]. She was released in May 1971 (Bill Warwick 16.6.1981, Janet did not question the 1970/1971 dates on her annotated draft).

    1971

    Campaign for the Mentally Handicapped started in 1971. Its name changed in turn to Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People, CMH) - CMH (Campaigning for Valued Futures with People who have Learning Difficulties) - Values into Action (VIA) - (External link to present website) - Almost from the beginning, CMH ran small scale "participation events" for people with a mental handicap.

    Early 1971 GAP (Glasgow Advisory People) information and advice shop started at 190 New City Road, Glasgow, by Felicity Harris, a Glasgow graduate. (See SUMP 1971) A legal clinic, Claimants Union, Black Box news agency, White Panther group, Seed Centre and Drug Care unit, all found a base there. The base collapsed under financial and other pressures in October 1971, reforming briefly as "Forever People", after which groups that had been part of it reformed as separate entities in different parts of Glasgow. [See International Times, January 1972]. Paul Ramsay and "all the young people of GAP" played an important role in the formation of the Scottish Union of Mental Patients.

    SUMP Stamp January 1971 Raza Griffiths of Kindred Minds born. BA English and German, University of London 1993. In the second year of a post-graduate thesis he was forced to give up his studies by a "life threatening breakdown" (See survivors CV 7.6.2005). He has worked as a freelance journalist since 1997. Trent Radio sponsored him to study Investigative Journalism (MA distinction) at Nottingham Trent University from 1998 to 1999. From January 2001 to October 2003 he worked for Mental Health Media.
    See
    7.6.2005. Worked for the National Survivor User Network from July 2012. See See 14.11.2017

    9.1.1971 In London, a very gay [meaning cheerful] contingent from the Gay [meaning homosexual] Liberation Front joined a march against the Industrial Relations Bill calling the slogan "Poof to the Bill". This proud, self-confident, public appearance was one of the inspirations for some MPU members who saw themselves as "coming out" publicly as mental patients rather than hiding it.

    8.2.1971 (France) Manifesto of the Le Groupe d'information sur les prisons (Groupe Information Prisons or GIP) (Group for information on the prisons) signed by Jean-Marie Domenach, Michel Foucault et Pierre Vidal-Naquet. (French Wikipedia)

    2.3.1971 Cherry Allfree twenty-three.

    16.7.1971 Informationezentrum Rote Volksuniversitat [Information Centre of the Red People's University] formed in place of Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv. See Fresnes 1973

    SUMP Stamp 26.7.1971 "Petition for the Redress of Grievances put forward by the patients in Hartwood Hospital, Shotts Lanarkshire". - "The signatories to the petition are the Foundation and Permanent Members of SUMP" [Scottish Union of Mental Patients - see mental patients unions]

    SUMP archive - SUMP box

    Undated: "Tabulated grievances and some suggested remedies - These are for the attention of the Mental Welfare Commissioners" [inside "These list are for presentation to the commissioners in Edinburgh who came to Hartwood to redress the complaints of the petitioners of July, 1971.] See Thomas Ritchie

    11.9.1971 (See Netherlands)

    Tuesday 27.9.1971 Politics of Psychology Conference. London School of Economics

    29.9.1971 Feast of St Michael the Archangel. Mary Barnes wrote "The Miracle of Mary. A Baby Bear Story for Michael" for Michael Dempsey who edited Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness.

    "Baby Bear, safely in her lair, was making pictures, with paint and papers, wood and canvas. Big Bear got them hung in an exhibition, so she got recognition. - Michael from the land of green bears, wondered what this rainbow was. He thought, maybe she can paint in words. Big Bear told her, you can growl, you lick and sniff, and paint with shit. You can put the world in words. - Big Bear was very pleased, because without catching Baby Bear he had saved her from extinction. She was so free, she danced with glee. - Together, they wrote all about it. Michael, moving to another cave, took with him all that they had made. There he cooked it to a book, and when all was set and served, Baby Bear leapt with delight for the 'colour' was just right"

    Monday 18.10.1971 The Times "Going down to come up again straight" "Victoria Brittain reviews a new book on madness". (Mary Barnes. Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness. Mary Barnes and Joseph Berke. Mac Gibbon and Kee, £2.95,) - "Mary Barnes lives alone in an attic in Hampstead painting with furious energy picture after picture, often of Christ crucified or The Resurrection."
    SUMP Stamp
    This is one of a series of pictures taken in Mary Barnes' flat in Hampstead in connection, I think, with the Sunday Times review.

    November 1971 In discussion with Noam Chomsky, on Dutch television, Michel Foucault said

    "I admit to not being able to define, nor for stronger reasons to propose, an ideal social model for the functioning of our scientific and technological society. On the other hand, one of the most urgent tasks, before everything else, is that we are used to consider, at least in our European society, that power is in the hands of the government and is exerted by some particular institutions such as local government, the police and the army, These institutions transmit the orders, apply them and punish people who do not obey.

    But I think that political power is also exerted by a few other institutions which seem to have nothing in common with the political power, which seem to be independent, but which actually are not. We all know that universities and the whole education system that is supposed to distribute knowledge, we know that university and the whole educational system maintain the power of a certain social class and exclude the other social class from this power. Psychiatry, for instance, is also apparently meant to improve mankind, and the knowledge of the psychiatrists. Psychiatry is also a way to implement a political power to a particular social group. Justice also.

    It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the working of institutions, that appear to be both neutral and independent. To criticise and attack them in such a manner that political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so one can fight against them. If we want right away to define the profile and the formula of our future society, without criticising all the forms of political power that are exerted in our society, there is a risk that they reconstitute themselves, even though such an apparently noble form as anarchist unionism." (Transcribed from You Tube)

    The first public annoucement that Thomas Ritchie had started a Scottish Union of Mental Patients came in the undergrounD newspaper Ink on 16.11.1971

    30.11.1971 "THREAT TO A COMMUNITY SERVICE" - Statement by Pam Elliot-Lord - Jane Pimlott - Jill Rynveld and Howard Taylor "Patients in the joint staff/patient protest group - Paddington Clinic and Day Hospital"

    10.12.1971 "Staff and patients at the Paddington Clinic and Day Hospital have formed a protest group"

    Friday 24.12.1971 "Christmas Day in the Nuthouse" edition of Time Out - [The film Family Life opened 13.1.1972] End piece said that 500 people a month go to Release, BIT, and Street Aid because they "feel themselves to be in kinds of mental trouble". An alternative to the NHS was being sought with "People not Psychiatry as the possible basis to the existing out-patient system... housing associations like the Philadelphia Association as alternative to the existing in-patient system."

    PNP Manchester: In 2006 Gabrielle Cox (Gay Cox) had lived in Moss Side for 34 years. Alistair and Gay (226 3258) were contacts for PNP (People Need People - People Not Psychiatry) in Manchester about 1971/1972. "PNP is a loose network of friends with a number of focal points. The current focal points are the Basement of Gaddum House," [Closed 1973] "Queen Street (off Albert Square), Manchester, next door to the Rising Sun, where we gather every Tuesday evening from 7.30 onwards; and a number of homes of individual members where we gather as the spirit moves us."

    " Tony, Mary and myself encountered the radical mental health group People Not Psychiatry and we attended its weekly meetings between approx 1971 - 1983. These offered support and debate to a wide range of mental health users and activists. Jack Housden was another influential member and I still have some of his writings about PNP somewhere. (It was written up from a London perspective in 'People not Psychiatry' (Barnett, 1973)). I think it did help to forge at that time some of Tony's later thinking about the role of the user movement in both support and campaigning activities". (Alistair Cox 14.8.2012)

    Alistair Cox met Tony Riley while Tony was living in a "(then called) Group Home for people with mental health issues around 1971", run by a small voluntary charity called Community Action Projects. Tony became involved with Alistair in the organisation of its work. Community Actions Projects expanded into providing housing for homeless young people and Paul Baker, Alistair and others wrote up its approach in a small book called Beyond the Hostel (1982). Tony met Mary in 1971.

    24.11.1971 Incorporation of Community Action Projects Ltd as a company limited by guarantee. Registered address 47 Upper Lloyd Street, Moss Side, Manchester, M14 4HY (Alistair Cox's adress). Registered as a charity 16.3.1972: To provide ... living accommodation and associated amenities ... persons in necessitous circumstances, including persons in receipt of or in need of psychiatric or medical treatment and persons who for any reason are unable to maintain themselves without supportive care, and to promote, aid and further rehabilitation of such persons in the community and their welfare generally." See Bowker Street and Egerton Road

    1971 (First edition?) Treatment and Care in Mental Illness edited by Edith Rudinger. Consumers' Association, London. 168 pages including index. A revised edition, with 176 pages, was published in 1973.

    Frank Bangay: "In my early twenties, through looking for work I took on employment in the Health Service as a Hospital Porter, then as a Hospital Orderly. Here I worked alongside people from the Caribbean and got to understand how hard these people worked, thereby getting away from the myth I grew up with, that these people were lazy and scrounging of the Welfare State. During this period I also experienced depression and started taking tranquillisers, which later led on to a dependence on anti-depressants and seeing psychiatrists on a regular basis. This later led to a breakdown and hospitalisation. Through this I learnt what it was like to be prejudiced against and stigmatised. (1997 footnote to "And We Can Learn" (August 1996), Naked Songs and Rhythms of Hope p.129)

    1972

    (France) Groupe d'information sur le Asiles (Groupe Information Asiles or GIA) (Group for Information on Asylums) formed in 1972. Jacques Lagrange says that this was formed, on the model of Groupe Information Prisons, by "young psychiatrists whose less pronounced corporatist concerns allowed them to take a more political position". He says it was "soon taken over by the 'psychiatrised' themselves to denounce the scandals of arbitrary confinement" (Foucault 1973/1974c p.353). At Fresnes in 1973, Lesley Mitchell said that the French Groupe Information Asiles and the English Mental Patients Union were the only groups "organised solely by patients and ex-patients".

    External link to the history website of the Groupe Information Asiles. It was founded by Dr Dimitri Crouchez (intern in psychiatry), with some colleagues of the CHS Perray-Vaucluse, in the Essonne (south of Paris), who disagreed with the traditional practices of psychiatry. They referred frequently to Roger Gentis (psychiatrist with the CHS Perray-Vaucluse), and his pamphlet: Les murs de l'Asile (The walls of the asylum) (Maspéro, 1970). They were joined by Philippe Bernardet, who joined as a student in 1973, was a long- time actvist. The first indication that it might be a group of the psychiatrised (psychiatrisés) comes in 1975: First [constitution?] under the official name of "APLP (Association pour la liaison des psychiatrisés). From 1975 to 1979, publication of journal of the GIA: Psychiatrisés en lutte - (See France)

    Peter Thompson's Bound for Broadmoor published. It was followed, in 1974, by Back from Broadmoor

    1972 Women and Madness by Phyllis Chesler published by Doubleday and company, Garden City, New York. A copy given to the Mental Patients Union by Pam Edwards in September 1974.

    Ellen Malos, Garden Flat, 1 Apsley Road, Bristol, BS8 2SH given as the contact for a Bristol woman's group that had been "going for some time" in The Body Politic - Women's Liberation in Britain 1960-1972. No details of group given. "Ellen became the hub of the thriving Bristol Women's Movement in the early 1970s. The basement of her house in Waverley Road became the Women's Centre" [See ] "where meetings of all sorts took place. It also became a refuge for women who were victims of domestic violence, the first of its kind in Bristol. On Saturdays the same space functioned as a pregnancy testing centre (in the days before home testing kits). After two years of campaigning the group acquired and managed three houses. So Bristol Women's Aid was born." (source). See also 1972 - Bristol University profile and Bristol Women's Studies Group

    SamShakes 25.1.1972 Sam Shakes born in the maternity unit of Hackney Hospital, London. Her parents had come to London from Montserrat and Jamaica. She was the first of their four children. She started her education at London Fields Primary School and then went to Kingsland Secondary School in Shaklewell Lane (now demolished), re-sitting GCSEs at the Sir George Monoux Sixth Form College in Walthamstow. She began her career as a sales clerk in 1989, first selling bathrooms in the City of London and then with Dudley Stationers (now defunct) in Bow.
    An Access course in Humanities, at Waltham Forest College led to her begining an English Literature degree on the Enfield Campus of Middlesex University in September 1997. In her second year she was "hit with raging Ulcerative Colitis... Struggled to be well and study on medication, but ended up having her colon cut out in November 1998. It was the start of a new life. See
    1999 - 2000 (madness) - 2002 (graduated) - 2008 (paintings) - 30.10.2009 at Philip Morgan's F.E.E.L. presentation - 2010 (first book) - 14.7.2010 Birmingham Seminar - 2011 wrote first fairy story - roaming India - 2.1.2013 Philip on fairy story - 2014 first fairy story published - Rev. Lucy Winkett - 2016 Fish in Head fairy story - 6.5.2077 death of Philip - Christmas greetings 2017 - Spirit of Philip Morgan

    February 1973 [1972? CHECK Community Action Projects took on three short life properties in Bowker Street, Salford. [To August 1975]

    Friday 3.3.1972 Paddington Day Hospital meeting

    12.3.1972 Politics of Psychology News Letter Number 3.

    SPK - Aus der Kranheit eine Waffe Machen [Make Your Illness a Weapon] written by the Socialist Patient Collective of Heidelberg University and published by Trikont Verlag, Munich, 1972. - April 1972. In a letter published with the Socialist Patient Collective book (above), Jean Paul Sartre described it as "the sole possible radicalisation of anti-psychiatry" and "also a coherent praxis which aimed at abolishing the alleged 'therapeutic methods' for mental illness". - Being translated into English Spring 1973

    1972 Diana Rose (born 1950), a psychology student at Aberdeen University, had her first experience of treatment under the mental health services. She took the exams in a psychiatric hospital and obtained her first degree in psychology. In her academic posts, from 1972- 1986, she kept quiet about her experience of distress and hid her ongoing distress. See Grunwick picket line 1976 - Eventually (1986) "she was medically retired from a research and teaching post at the age of 35 "due to being mad" (email from Diana). She then spent five years 'living in the community', an experience which was very distressing. In 1985 she became part of the fledgling service user /survivor movement in the UK." (source) - In 1996 she went to the Sainsbury Centre and developed User Focused Monitoring, a user-led model of research. 1998 - 1998 Workbook - 2.11.2000: Proposed research (completed by others) on the user movement - In 2001 she went to be project coordinator at Service User Research Enterprise (SURE), Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London - SRN 2001 - 23.1.2001 - January 2005 "patients' perspectives on electroconvulsive therapy" in British Journal of Psychiatry - In 2005 Diana was promoted to Senior Lecturer in User-Led Research and co-director of SURE. 21.11.2006 - 19.10.2007 - 12.1.2009 - In 2011 she was promoted to Reader in User-led Research. "I don't think anyone else in the world has this title". (email from Diana 21.12.2011). Professor March 2014

    2.3.1972 Cherry Allfree twenty-four.


    By March 1972, Thomas Ritchie had secured the support of the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties for the concept of a union of mental patients. The Journal of SUMP days (April below) begins "SUMP is associated with S.C.C.L" and list the names of its secretary, Robert Thompson; Chairman, Peter Wallington; and Vice Chairmen: Edgar Prais and James J. Wilson (Solicitor).

    The Journal was started two weeks after The Herald published an article on 27.3.1972 (page 2) "Special Union to be formed for mental patients".


    SUMP Journal

    SUMP (Scottish Union of Mental Patients).
    Tommy Ritchie's "Journal of SUMP Days" begins Friday 7.4.1972, but the prefatory note says "We are late in the starting of recording SUMP's activities - But the Manifesto is only half finished and not yet recorded. Moreover we have had no General meeting yet." - See also 26.7.1971

    Friday 28.4.1972 Tommy Ritchie rang his Member of Parliament. "I told him I was speaking for Sump not Self". "Was he in favour of Sump being autonomously in the hands of patients?". He was not sure on this till he consulted experts. (Journal page eight)

    SUMP membership records (page one below) were kept at the back of the journal

    SUMP membership

    00001 Thomas Ritchie * wards 7 and 15 (Hartwood). Following to 00025: Ward 7: 00002 James Corrigan - 00003 Robert Forrest - 00004 George Henderson - 00005 Hugh Crosbie - 00006 James Lee * - 00007 Charles Brunton [not on typed list] - 00008 David McCaughtree [not on typed list] - 00009 James Mailey - 00010 Thomas Bell - 00011 Roderick U. Reid - 00012 William Murray - 00013 J. Hannah - 00014 Andrew Daisley * - 00015 Fred McLaughlin - 00016 Hugh Murphy [not on typed list] - 00017 Hugh McMullen [not on typed list] - 00018 R. Mannering [spelling on typed list] - 00019 Hugh Reilly - 00020 John Maxwell - 00021 George Patterson * - 00022 Richerd. R. [Dickie] Dobie - 00023 Robert Waddell - 00024 William McCourtney - 00025 Robert Cameron * - 00026 A. Stewart. [Also on Ward 7 is M. Malroony, on the typed list but not in the journal] - Next page: 00027 "Gemmel"? [James Taylor on typed list] Ward 8 - 00028 James Mcguiness Ward 10 - 00029 John McCahon * Ward 8 - a red line - 00030 Bruce McKenzie Ward 15 [Typed list "In addition to the Petitiners, Bruce McKenzie is also a Permanent Member"}

    * Thomas Ritchie - James Lee - Andrew Daisley - George Patterson - Robert Cameron - and John McCahon made individual grievances, along with James Urquhart [00053]

    Typed list said following membership numbers "will be reserved for all the generous people and organisations on the outside who donate one guinea or more" [In practice, I do not think this was followed, but Tommy did use membership as a means of raising money. The last member is 00100]

    Robin Farquharson is member number 00034 in the SUMP membership list. He is the first not from Hartwood. Under "hospital" it says " Gartloch (7) transferred to Epsom". The story I remember being told is that Robin was confined (on this occasion) after successfully ordering a (military?) aeroplane - or aeroplanes.

    Bill Ferguson is member number 00034: ex-patient Hartwood, 12 Rutheren Street.


    11.5.1972 Press conference launching PROP (Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners) in the Prince Arthur pub on the Caledonian Road opposite Pentonville Prison. Platform: Dick Pooley, Ted Ward (London organiser), Douglas Curtis (anonymous - Mike Fitzgerald fronted for him), and Pauline (no second name given). The language of PROP was adopted in an adapted form by the Mental Patients Union in March 1973 and and April 1973: "Statement of Intent" and "Charter of Rights" with "demands". Ted Ward the London organiser of PROP was a founder member of the MPU and he was the person who spoke most effectively on the control of the MPU by patients only.

    May 1972 Alternatives to Holloway published by the group Radical Alternatives to Prison, which had been estblished in 1971. (See alternative projects)

    7.5.1972 Thomas Ritchie first visited Gartnavel

    after 20.6.1972 Thomas Ritchie came to London

    4.8.1972 PROP (Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners) called the first national prison strike [The Prison Strikes were called by the dates being given in reply to questions in television and radio interviews. It took the Home Office a long time to realise the simplicity of this - They were looking for a complex communication organisation. In the formation of the Mental Patients Union, Radio Four's Today Programme played an important role.]

    September 1972 Spare Rib "Agoraphobia" "At sixteen Carolyn Maniford became a patient in a psychiatric hospital because she was too frightened to leave home"... "At seventeen Carolyn Maniford is a patient in Goodmayes... and has been in hospital for three months"... "I don't think I'll ever get better. Sometimes I think I'm in here to get worse"...

    September 1972 Nathalie Fonnesu born in Italy. (Now resident London). See Nat 2001 - F.E.E.L. - 2001 - Ravaged - 2017 walk

    20.9.1972 Letter in The Guardian from Paul Hunt, calling on disabled people to form their own organisation. " UPIAS functioned mainly through confidential correspondence and circulars circulated amongst its members, many of whom were living in residential institutions (Campbell and Oliver 1996). These exchanges led to the production of a Policy Statement and constitution in 1974. Two years later, it expanded on its thinking in the Fundamental Principles of Disability (UPIAS 1976)" (source)

    7.11.1972 to 19.12.1972 trial (and imprisonment) in Germany of doctors Wolfgang and Ursel Huber of the SPK. Each was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on 19.12.1972.

    Before Christmas 1972 The group that produced The Need for a Mental Patients Union were meeting in Liz Durkin's flat.

    America Madness Network News first published - See Anne Swan - 1981

    Fresnes Prison: J. D'Escrivain "Peut-on ne pas dénoncer l'inacceptable?" Revue Esprit :Pourquoi le travail social 4 - 5 1972 (See France)

    1973

    "it is patients themselves who are the most likely people to influence future developments. Who better to advise how to make the struggle for sanity easier than the people who have been through the experience of modern madness and survived it?"

    1973 De Gekkenkrant (Variously translated Crazy Person's Newspaper - The Fool's Paper and Mad Magazine) started in Holland. It closed itself down on 21.2.1981. See Flip Schrameijer 2002 who was co-founder and editor from January 1973 to January 1979 (6 years 1 month): "One wintery Sunday morning in 1972 my girlfriend and a friend got together to discuss the founding of a paper by and for people in mental institutions. I made them coffee and listened until I realized this was the answer to the feeling I'd had since my two years in a psychiatric asylum where I worked as a conscientious objector. The feeling was I should do something about the injustice and suffering, hidden behind the fences and shrubbery mostly in remote places. I joined the conversation; the next Summer the first issue appeared." (source) - (See Netherlands)

    Before Sunday 1.1.1973 First and last Inside Out produced by a group of mental health patients and workers from 10 Whately Road, off Whiteladies Road, Clifton. Bristol. "We fully support the hospital workers in their fight against the state". Included two pages "Woman's Realm" put together by Bristol Women's Liberation Group (Contact Betty Underwood or the Women's Information Centre at 11 Waverley Road)
    For 11 Waverley Road, see Ellen Malos - Womens Books Bristol and Mental Health in Bristol

    At Bristol Polytechnic, Mary Nettle achieved one of the first Higher National Diplomas in Business Studies (1973) and a Diploma in Advanced Marketing (1974). After college she worked in marketing research with Audits of Great Britain and Quaker Oats in Eastcote, Middlesex. She married in 1977 and became a user of mental health services in 1978.

    January-May 1973 First draft, in duplicated form, of SPK: Make your Illness a Weapon (English translation from the original German) circulated by a collective in North London. A copy was sent to the Mental Patients Union by Petra Michaels in April 1974.

    2.3.1973 Cherry Allfree twenty-five.

    March 1973 Mental Patients' Union MPU   -   Wednesday 21.3.1973 Union formed (See minutes)   -   MPU questionnaire   -   Thursday 29.3.1973 Union meeting at 97 Prince of Wales Road   -   Saturday 7.4.1973 General Meeting agrees full Declaration of Intent.

    Some names: Ralph Walley (Napsbury) - Andrew Dewar - Mike Lawson - Eric Irwin - David Bell (a Philadelphia house) - Robin Farquharson - Michael Cardew - Andrew Roberts - Valerie Roberts - Ted Ward [PROP] - Pam Edwards - Frank Wilkins - Pam Eliott Lord - Nathan Morris - Janet Forge - Vera Krishek - Richie - Brendan Maher - Geoff Thomas - Loretta Land (Marlborough Day) [All patients/ex-patients who took part in the first or second meeting and/or in the working party between meetings]

    March 1973 Martindale - The Extra Pharmacopoeia reprint (with amendments) of 26th edition (July 1972) - 2320 pages The Pharmaceutical Press, London. A copy purchased in 1974 by Joan Martin. See Directory of Side Effects

    1.4.1973 Bill Warwick, 12 Hartill Street, Stoke on Trent, first wrote to the MPU for information. He publicised it his local PNP Group. In October Stoke on Trent social services held meeting addressed by an ex-mental patient (Miss M. Rowe) on "Problems of Patients returning to the Community" at which Bill and friends distributed MPU literature.

    Spring [April] 1973 Mind Out, a quarterly Mind magazine started with Denise Winn as editor. Denise was sympathetic to the aim of forming a mental patients union and was allowed to attend one or more of the union's meetings to report on it.

    Spring 1973 A group including Petra Michaels translating Socialist Patient Collective book into English. Circulated to MPU in Spring 1974

    Summer 1973 "The squat at Villa Road, Brixton, emerged in the summer of 1973." It occupied a whole street and involved about 200 people at its peak (peak ending 1977). (Europe's 1968: Voices of Revolt 2017). BBC video 2011?. Jenny James at 12 Villa Road from 1974 to 1978. "In the hot summer of 1976, the Villa Roaders barricaded the street to fend off eviction and demolition".

    Summer 1973 Mind Out report on the Mental Patients Union

    June COPE: Community Organisation for Psychiatric Emergencies

    Fresnes Conference Friday 29.6.1973 - Saturday 30.6.1973: Organised by three French groups: Cahiers pour la Folie - Groupe d'information sur le Asiles - Association contre la repression medico-policiere - Included: Kommittee gegen die Isolationsfolten - Des prisonniere de droit commun, 12 - Mental Patients Union

    Wednesday 4.7.1973 Robin Farquharson House (37 Mayola Road). Intended only as housing at first. Meetings began to be held here from January 1974. 37 Mayola Road was named Robin Farquharson House in accordance with an earlier decision to name the union's housing after Robin Farquharson

    Monday 27.8.1973 Manchester Mental Patients Union founded. The December 1974 list of Mental Patients Unions records it as meeting weekly at 3pm at 178 Oxford Road, Manchester. See Manchester index

    Autumn 1973 Mind Out - "A Leeds and area branch of the Mental Patients Union is being formed. Any patients or ex-patients who are interested in becoming members or any interested parties who would like to take out associate membership should get in touch with: I.S. Everton, 16 Quarry Mount, Leeds, LS6 1DN. The Mental Patients Union is concerned with fighting for patients' rights."

    September 1973 Spare Rib "With a Little Help from Ourselves" by Carol Morrell. "Re-evaluation counselling - more often called co- counselling - is perhaps the most radical of the radical therapies: it is peer group therapy". Michael Barnett (1973, pages 114-15) mentions, in passing, attending a meeting at which Thomas Scheff "presented for the first time in this country the method of Re-evaluation Counselling - a lay form of therapy between peers". Initially sceptical, he came to "have far fewer doubts about this mode of reciprocal therapy, or self-disclosure. It can be extremely powerful, if limited... It has the advantage of costing nothing, and being open to all". Barnett met and liked Harvey Jackins, who originated re-evaluation counselling. See Terry Simpson

    Peer support is one of the fields into which Peter Beresford divides the history of the user movements.

    Tuesday 4.9.1973 Camden Council in court to evict squatters from 97 Prince of Wales Road.

    The Mental Patients Union met in a City office for some time, retreating to a pub across the road when that became too cold. It was during the period in the pub that I recall David Cooper (a full member by reason of his experiences in Argentina) attending meetings. In September 1973 he was a speaker at a meeting organised in Portugal to see if a European network of alternatives to psychiatry could be formed. He met Franco Basaglia and Robert Castel. Two other contacts persuaded him to move to Paris, where he remained.

    October 1973 Dundee Mental Patients Union founded with contacts inside and outside of the Royal Dundee Liff Hospital. It became the Westfield Association

    October 1973 "Women's Books, 11 Waverley Road, Bristol" Revised Literature List (MPU File Copy - 3 pages) lists Laing and Esterson Sanity, Madness and the Family (40 pence) - David Cooper Dialectic of Liberation (30 pence) and The Death of the Family (35p) and "Our Bodies Our Selves" by Boston Women's Health Collective (£1.50). There is a short list of "Journals" which includes "A Woman's Place (Brighton W.L.) 3p" - "Enough (Bristol) numbers 4 and 5 12p" - "Pent Up (Southampton W.L. 15p" - "Shrew (London W.L. Workshop) 10p" - (See Compendium 1975)

    Thursday 6.12.1973 Portsmouth Mental Patients Union founded. The December 1974 list of Mental Patients Unions records it as meeting monthly at Portsmouth Community Advice Centre, 157 Lake Road, Portsmouth, PO1 4OY.

    Wednesday 7.11.1973 to Wednesday 6.2.1974 Michel Foucault gave weekly lectures in Paris on le pouvoir psychiatrique (psychiatric power). In these he used the term anti-psychiatry to describe a movement critical of psychiatry that arose within psychiatry. Hysteria was argued to be an element in the movement. In this, patients were said to be mimicking diseases in a counterattack on the truth of psychiatry.

    Winter 1973 Mind Out - The Mental Patients Union no longer has an address in Prince of Wales Road. For any information on MPU please write c/o 37 Mayola Road, Clapton, London E.5. or (if absolutely necessary) phone 01-986-5251.

    Thursday 6.12.1973 BBC1 Play for Today: Baby Blues Seventy minutes from 9.25 (after the news) to 10.40. This dealt with post-natal depression. Response included the formation of Depressives Anonymous - This became Depressives Associated and is now Depression Alliance - (external link to history)

    1974

    Joseph Deacon's Tongue Tied published. It had been written, a few lines a day, over a long period of time.

    1974 Community Health Councils (CHCs) established. See 23.3.1981 - 9.4.1982 - July 1982 - 1.8.1984 - 20.11.1985 - 1986 - Spring 1986 - 9.5.1986 - 20.10.1986 - Spring 1988 - 5.4.1989 - June 1990 - new millennium -

    1974 News from Nowhere, radical bookshop, Liverpool, established. (website - 2004 archive). Other radical bookshops established in the 1970s include Grassroots Bookshop in Manchester and Centerprise Bookshop in Dalston, London. See PROMPT booklet 6 (1979?)

    1974 Richard Shrubb born, Portsmouth. "I lived across the UK, Europe and the US until I went to university in Southampton in 1994. In 1997 I graduated with a 3rd Class in Maritime Business and a 1st in paranoid schizophrenia. I was diagnosed with mental illness in March 1999 and had a positive experience of the mental health system. In 2004 I started a Masters degree in broadcast journalism. Graduating in 2006, I have struggled with the stigma of mental illness." (source) - See DIO Media and 24.6.2007

    Early 1974 Community Levy for Alternative Projects CLAP established. Based at BIT. For the first year of its existence, the CLAP Handbook (listing projects that needed money) was published every two months by Peace News. Mayola Road Mental Patients Union was first listed in CLAP 3 in June 1974. The biggest donor through CLAP was David Waterfield, owner of the blue-movie Exxon cinema club in Danbury Street, Islington. At about the time he was jailed (for importing the film Deep Throat) envelopes of cash were posted (without explanation) to alternative projects. [Most of this information from CLAP Handbook 4: September 1974 - cash in envelopes from my memory]

    March 1974 Women and Psychiatry group formed by Vicky Randall, 115 Cannon Street Road, London, E1.

    March 1974 Community Action Projects and Family Housing Association (Manchester) opened a "newly-converted house of bedsitters which had been planned over the past two years" in Egerton Road, South Manchester.

    Spring 1974 Mind Out - "News has been reaching the Mental Patients Union of prisons and psychiatric hospitals operating a 'censorship' policy with regard to incoming papers and magazines. If readers of Mind Out know of any hospitals where this is happening perhaps they could contact the Mental Patients Union, 37 Mayola Road, Clapton, London, E5.   NB: MPU General Meeting is to be held in Manchester on April 20, from 2.0-5.30 pm at The Music College, Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester 13"

    1.3.1974 South West London Mental Patients Union founded. The December 1974 list of Mental Patients Unions records that its meetings were usually held fortnightly at People Aid and Action Centre, 8 Falcon Road, SW11. - Croydon Mental Patients Union also founded - Meetings held monthly on the 18th - Horton Hospital MPU was founded earlier.

    2.3.1974 Cherry Allfree twenty-six.

    17.4.1974 First letter to MPU from Janet Cresswell, 2 Oakford Court, Nassington Road, London, NW3 who had seen it amongst groups listed in the Sunday Times none of which "could possibly be termed pro-psychiatry". Bucked her spirits because she had felt she was the only one. She had "ultimately hit the GP who was responsible" for her "unethical" medical treatment. "this action did not produce an investigation into my medical records but it did cure me of the depression I had as a result of psychiatric treatment". She was refusing to pay rates or taxes into the medical or social services until an enquiry is held: "the treatment ... made me too ill to look after my child and I lost custody of her, so it did cause a lot of trouble."

    Saturday 20.4.1974 Manchester General Meeting of the Mental Patients Union formed the Federation of Mental Patients Unions with Mayola Road MPU (Hackney) as the coordination centre.

    April/May 1974 Draft translation into English of part of the Socialist Patient Collective book sent to Mayola Road Mental Patients Union by Petra Michaels. Petra had been part of the group preparing the draft in the spring of 1973. This was used by Helen Spandler as the main source for her (1992) analysis of the theories and history of the Socialist Patient Collective.

    April 1974 Spare Rib "Liz: Alcoholics Anonymous". "They put a government health warning on cigarettes, but they don't on alcohol."

    Friday 6.5.1974 4.30pm First meeting of Hackney Hospital MPU "Alan Hartman explained what kind of things the mental patients union does. Refusing treatment, cruelty to patients, clothes grants, fighting against being discriminated against in jobs... Alice ill treated by nurses... "Resolved that a branch of the Mayola Road M.P.U. be formed in Hackney Hospital. proposed Alan Hartman, seconded Alice. 15 for - none against. Alan Hartman elected chairman.." The meeting was adjourned after the senior nursing officer attempted (unsuccessfully) to break it up.

    July 1974: Hackney Hospital Mental Patients Union won the right to meet in the hospital

    Hackney Gazette 6.8.1974

    MENTAL PATIENTS UNION IS NOW RECOGNISED

    The Hackney hospitals branch of the Mental Patients Union is the first in the country to achieve recognition. Psychiatric wings in both the German and Hackney Hospital are affected.

    The MPU aims to bring about a better deal for patients in mental hospitals, and improved status.

    Mr Andrew Roberts, of the Hackney branch, claims that several patients in Hackney Hospital psychiatric wing had spoken of better treatment by staff since the branch was recognised on July 18.

    After Hackney MPU ceased being active, Alan Hartman attempted to form a group with a slightly different name: [Not Hackney Mental Patients Association] - He went to Manchester in 1985

    Succesors within the hospital include: Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee formed in the winter of 1984/1985 and Hackney Patients Council (1994 to the present)

    People's News Service 1.6.1974 "MENTAL PATIENTS' UNION MEMBER ESCAPES COMPULSORY DRUG TREATMENT. Last week Tony O'Donnell moved into the house of the Mayola Road Mental Patients Union in East London after a long struggle to find a place where he could live without having to undergo injections of modicate, an extremely strong drug used on people diagnosed as schizophrenic...". See also Hackney Union of Mental Patients

    5.7.1974 to 7.7.1974 A meeting held at Castle Priory College, which was reported by Paul Williams and Tim Gauntlett in Participation with mentally handicapped people, published by Campaign for the Mentally Handicapped - See 1975

    Saturday 6.7.1974 Present at Mayola Road for MPU meeting: Andrew and Valerie Roberts - Tony O'Donnell, Lillian Jordan, Joan Martin, Austin Johnson, Janet Cresswell, Tom Ritchie. Arranged that Tony would be chair at meeting and Joan take minutes regularly and prepare a partial agenda just before the meeting - First business was to discuss a meeting on 18.7.1974 with "Hackney Hospital Authorities". Second item "House at Woodford. Two large houses available - 6 or 7 rooms per house. "Agreed that Tom Ritchie and Lillian Jordan to move in as tenants" [They took the two downstairs rooms of the first house occupied. Thomas Ritchie remained there until the houses closed in 1976]

    Late August 1974: "Fear" by Frank Bangay published in Troubadour 2, edited by Patrick Hayes.

    "you tell me that I frighten you, Well I never intended to... I'm not a tough man... there are many times when I am afraid... afraid of isolation ... afraid of my superiors... afraid of love... And sometimes I'm frightened of you my friend."

    Troubadour Poets held Monday night poetry evenings at the Troubadour coffee bar, 265 Old Brompton Road, Earls Court, London, SW5. Frank also organised gigs there in the 1980s. See Wikipedia

    October 1974 Mind Out "Consumer issue". Based on a flood of letters in response to publicity that such an issue was planned. Most of the letters were negative and the editor said "We do not think psychiatrists will like being criticised by their patients". The issue also re-produced the MPU drug side effects list, but without the introduction explaining that the effects listed were possible (not necessary) effects. Ruptions in Mind.

    October 1974 First People First convention. Oregon, USA

    4.10.1974 to 6.10.1974 "First Women and Health Conference" held in Sheffield (following "Women and medicine workshop in Edinburgh"). About 250 women came. The 28 page report covers physical health (including VD - Childbirth - Breast Self-Examination - Alternative medicine - The Pill - Menopause - Nutrition). Mental health not mentioned, but a cartoon caption says "I was a well-adjusted woman 'till I discovered health conferences" (page 1).

    Friday 15.11.1974 "Paschal" (Matthew O'Hara) first stayed at 37 Mayola Road.

    The December 1974 list of Mental Patients Unions includes the following unions inside hospitals: Roundway Hospital Mental Patients Union, Wiltshire - Horton Hospital Mental Patients Union, Surrey - Broadmoor Hospital (individual members unable to meet) - Hackney Hospital Branch - Shenley Hospital (contacts) - Dundee Mental Patients Union

    3.12.1974 Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) first policy statement. external link - external link "adopted 3.12.1974, amended 9.8.1976" - See Fundamental Principles of Disability 1975.

    Christmas at Mayola Road: Joan Hughes wrote "I went home to Christmas at Mayola Road and a new visitor called Janet Cresswell called and said she wanted to cook our Christmas dinner. But Valerie had her own plans and made a pudding containing chestnuts, mushrooms and onions for Christmas and also mince pies and jellies. Rebe, another MPU member who was friendly with Valerie's daughter Lily, called and Valerie gave her some mince pies. Christmas in 1974 was quite tiring at Mayola Road". #1975 Brian Redhead pres

    1974-1978 Gardes-Fous: French organisation and journal that attempted to unite low paid mental-hospital workers with patients in radical action. (Sedgwick, P. 1982, p.235). Gardes-fous (fools guards) are parapets or railings that prevent people falling into a hole or running of the road. Published Paris: Solin ISSN: 0339-6673. Nø 1 (févr./mars 1974)-nø 11/12 (1978)

    1975

    Andrew Voyce Andrew Voyce "Paranoid schizophrenia since 1975 - freed from asylum life by Mrs Thatcher's community care - MA in social and public policy - cartoon slide show artist". "I spent my years from age 23 to 40 as a 'revolving door' patient in the old National Health Service asylums in the UK". See 6.6.1977 and Andrew's Asylum Life.

    1975 Schizophrenia From Within (an anthology of autobiographical accounts by patients) edited by J. K. (John Kenneth) Wing (1923- ) for the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, Surbiton. 65 pages. ISBN: 090485406X. Peter Sedgwick (1982, pages 242-243 and 288) comments that

    "Far more psychotic patients... must have participated in the work of the British NSF (with its 90 local groups) alongside relatives and other sympathisers, than have ever been seen in the 'patients' union' networks of more politicised repute".

    In 1975 Thurstine Basset, a student social worker at the London School of Economics, invited a mental patients union speaker. - His interest in the patients' movement continued: See May 1983 - July 1985 - November 2004 - May 2006 - 2007

    1975 Jason Pegler born. See Chipmunkapublishing

    1975 First "Dag van de Psychiatrie" (Day of Psychiatry) in Holland. Later becomes "de Week van de Psychiatrie" (the week of Psychiatry) website

    A meeting in Brussels in January 1975 launched The International Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry (Resseau Alternatif A La Psychiatrie). - See 1982

    Steel an' Skin: London-based Afro-Caribbean drum and dance ensemble active from 1975 to 1992. Founded by
    Peter Scott Blackman. This was a band formed of eleven members ranging from Trinidad to Nigeria. They toured the prisons and inner city slums of 1970s Britain with the intention of presenting a positive image of African culture at a time when popular opinion and media representations left a lot to be desired.

    early 1975 Your Rights in Camden "aimed squarely at potential claimants rather than professionals" (Foreword by Tessa Jowell, chair of social services) The addresses included at the end of the mental health section are Friern Hospital, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Emergencies as Whittington Hospital, National Council for Civil Liberties, Mind, Camden Association for Mental Health, The Mental After-Care Association, Mental Patients' Union c/o 37 Mayola Road (A group organised by mental patients to represent the interests of their members) and COPE "Monday to Saturday 11am-8pm. Concerned with alleviating mental distress in modern society"

    Also in 1975: The Sunday Times Self-Help Directory edited by Judith Chisholm and Oliver Gillie, with a foreword by Jack Ashley, MP. Amongst the organisations listed are Al_Anon Familiy Groups, Alcoholics Anonymous, Anorexics Anonymous, Be Not Anxious, B.I.T. (information service), Depressives Anonymous, Disablement Income Group, Federation of Mental Patients' Unions, Friend (homosexual men and women), Gamblers Anonymous, National Federation of the Blind of the United Kingdom, National Federation of Claimant's Unions, National League for the Blind and Disabled, Neurotics Nominé, Patient's Association, Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP), Simon Community (homeless people), The Open Door (agrophobia), The Partially Sighted Society, The Phobics Society.

    March 1975 Spare Rib "Stretched to Breaking Point" feature recounts (first name only) women's experiences of psychiatric hospitals. "The staff objected when Susan built up a group of friends: 'They didn't like it. You see, we were supporting one another. We'd go on strike; wouldn't go to Occupational Therapy, wouldn't go to bed when lights went out and wouldn't eat shitty food".

    2.3.1975 Cherry Allfree twenty-seven.

    April 1975 Gardes-Fous (page 39-41), special international edition, re-published the (British) Mental Patient's Union's Declaration of Intent in translation, with some background briefing. (Sedgwick, P. 1982, p.286, note 83)

    April 1975 First issue of Psychiatrisés en lutte. (See France)

    April 1975 Mind Out "Discrimination - Andrew Roberts of the Hackney Mental Patients Union takes a look at job discrimination against mental patients"

    May 1975 - Mind Annual Conference "Psychiatry and Alternative Support Systems". Cope was invited to run a seminar. It prepared a leaflet, with West London Mental Patients Union, criticising Mind. The section by West London MPU was signed by Mary Hutchinson and Eric Irwin. (Heavy Daze no.6. pages 6-7 "Mind Games and More")

    7.5.1975 Planned Manchester Mental Patients Union Conference.

    June 1975 " Compendium Sexual Politics Stock Catalogue" contains under "Health, Childbirth etc" mainly works on childbirth. Exceptions include "Women and Health Conference Proceedings, Sheffield [October] 1974 (15 pence) - "Women Against E.C.T." (10 pence) - "Migraine; Evolution of a common disorder" by O. Sacks (£1.60) - "Our Bodies Our Selves" by Boston Women's Health Collective - "Put her down on drugs: prescribed drug usage in women" by L. Fiddell. - The Psychology section included - "Open Letter to Psychiatrists" by Nicole Anthony (3 pence) - "Women an Madness" (£1.15) - Psychoanalysis and Feminism - R. Seidenberg "Drug advertising and perception of mental illness" (25 pence) - M.Weaver "Bill of Rights for Insane, Abnormals and other deviants (so called) (3 pence)

    June 1975 Campaign for the Mentally Handicapped's "participation weekend" at Castle Priory College. This was reported by Alan Tyne, Paul Williams and Tim Gauntlett in Working out: an account of CMH's participation weekend at Castle Priory College in June, 1975, with some comments published London by CMH, 96 Portland Place, W1N 4EX in 1975.

    June 1975 (Covering letter from Charles Hannam. University of Bristol School of Education)
    Mental Health in
    Bristol. Where to get help produced by Pearl Cook, Peter Durrant and Charles Hannam for the Bristol Association for Mental Health. Gives address for national Mental Patients Union. Entry for Bristol Womens Liberation Group ( The Women's Centre, 11 Waverley Road, Bristol 6) says "The Women's Centre is only tenuously involved in this field".

    5.9.1975 There is part of Colin Hambrook that has never quite come to terms with the fact that the world did not end in 1975. (BBC Ouch 25.10.2013)

    October 1975 A Directory of the Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs

    24.10.1975 (United Nations Day). Janet Cresswell presented a petition to 10 Downing Street on behalf of her Campaign for the Abolition of Forced Psychiatric Treatment. The reply was dated 18.3.1976.


    Bill Warwick explained to "Doc" (Matthew O'Hara) on 2.10.1979 the way psychiatry uprooted any efforts to plan: "In 1975 I had just started on a bit of a plan when Janet made contact about her petition which fitted nicely into my prevailing plan, which got its first set back when I got the news from Janet that she had just managed to escape from Friern Barnett where for no known reason she had been placed - KIDNAPPED - into very shortly after having handed her petition into No. 10. I was just getting my breath back, patient;y waiting requested explanation from D.H.S.S. about this un-warranted intervention in Janet's life, when I got to know, without being told why, that Janet was in Holloway, she was already in Broadmoor before I began to get the whys and wherefores".

    31.10.1975 and 1.11.1975 Mind conference at Church House, Westminster in connection with the publication of volume one of Larry Gostin's A Human Condition. The Mental Health Act from 1959 to 1975. Observations, analysis and proposals for reform.

    Heavy Daze number 6: "Mental Patients Union - A federation of Mental Patients group[s] around the country, based on the ideas that mental patients organise and support each other and fight for the rights of each other. The National Info. Centre has recently moved out of London (a good sign?) to Hull MPU, 16 Clifton Gardens, St Georges Road, Hull, HU3 3QB. Write to them for their list of contacts across the country. East London MPU, 37 Mayola Road, E5 (page 31). The same issue includes (page 28) "Society, Psychiatry and the MPU - Personal responsibility? My View", by "Mike Smith, Hull MPU" and a notice about the Directory of the Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs.

    14.11.1975 Janet Cresswell visited in her flat by Hampstead C.I.D. who called a social worker, who called two psychiatrists. She was taken to Ward 3 at Barnet on a section 25. Within three weeks she managed to escape. Her psychiatrist in Friern was Christie Brown, [Janet much later heard that the trigger for this was that a neighbour reported to the police that Janet was planning to kill a psychiatrist.]

    22.11.1975 Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation and the Disability Alliance discussion of the "Fundamental Principles of Disability". (external link)

    December 1975 Mind Out "Voluntary patient - involuntary treatment" (A personal account by Andrew Roberts)

    20.12.1975 Angela Sweeney born. See 2001 - 2.6.2003 - Recovery In Sight Centre 2009 - This is Survivor Research 2009

    1976

    1976 Peter Thompson founded The Matthew Trust

    1976 A young teacher, Shelley Harper, was on a sailing exhibition when she noticed the first signs of brain damage. The Neurological Unit at Southampton later commented "This poor girl will never achieve an independent life". (Neuropsychiatry News, January 2015). She became a campaigner for disability rights and later for mental health rights. - See 1995

    1976 David Kessel first met Howard Mingham (briefly). Howard "was an inpatient in Hackney Hospital's F Block.

    1.1.1976 Which? Books Understanding Mental Health

    11.1.1976 About half the patients at Paddington Day Hospital signed a letter of complaint, leading to an inquiry and (eventually, in 1979) the closure of the unit.

    30.1.1976 150 squatters evicted by 100s of police from Hornsey Rise, GLC Estate, Hazelville Road: (Welby House, Goldie House, Ritchie House). (Jeremy Worman 2009). Cherry Allfree was, at one time, a squatter in Welby House.

    13.2.1976 The telephone number used by the Mental Patients Union moved with Andrew and Valerie (Argent) Roberts to a house they later shared with Joan Hughes.

    2.3.1976 Cherry Allfree twenty-eight. In her 28th year she obtained a room in the hotel she worked in, and was able to leave Kingsmead. At some stage, a taxi she was ravelling in crashed into a lamppost. Subsequent pains in the chest were considered "all in my head" by a doctor who prescribed valium. She was later referred to the National Heart Hospital in London and had a hole in the heart [atrial septal defect] operation a year later. (1977/ 1978?) "After the operation, I went back to work for a while and then my heart started playing up again. Then I had a rest -- and went up to Manchester to get another job. From there I came to London. A "year or more" after her operation, Cherry was a squatter in Welby House, Hornsey Rise. (1978/ 1979?) She obtained a flat of her own in Dulwich and by 1981, this was PROMPT's address.

    29.3.1976/30.3.1976? Janet Cresswell stayed overnight with Joan Hughes at 37 Mayola Road. The following day, Janet stabbed Desmond McNeil, her former doctor, in the buttocks. Joan wrote (about 1993):

    "This news devastated me, but I had no time to dwell on it as I had to continue to occupy Mayola Road until a house had been obtained for Matthew O'Hara and others. I had to stay until the official eviction took place. In the meantime Matthew O'Hara, an amateur expert in legal matters, tried to help Janet, but she refused his offer of help. To this day Janet has remained a patient in Broadmoor Hospital."

    Janet Cresswell was released in 2006. See Independent report.

    30.3.1976 to 20.7.1976 Janet Cresswell in Holloway Prison. She first saw the visiting psychiatrist, Colin Campbell Sherry, on 3.4.1976.

    Sunday 25.4.1976. Joan Hughes' diary entry that Mayola Road closed:

    "All the troubles with Mayola Road appear to be over. The place is empty now and bath and toilet have been smashed up by demolition men, awaiting the destruction of the entire building."

    Wednesday 28.4.1976 - 7.30pm Question put to the leader of Hackney Council by Councillor Lois Jacques "Will the Leader please state what policy decision has been taken regarding the request from the Mental Patients' Union for property to be provided by the Council for their use?" - Minutes in Joan Hughes' collection)

    Spring 1976 "Spring is Rising" by Frank Bangay. This was published in Springfield Words, a magazine produced by Springfield Hospital in 1978. Frank's 1985 poem "Food and Shelter" (Naked Songs and Rhythms of Hope pages 104-106) relates to experiences in 1976 to 1978 and "the revolving door system that we can get caught up in once we enter the psychiatric system".

    June 1976: PROMPT: Protection of the Rights of Mental Patients in Therapy - Became CAPO (Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression) in March 1985.

    24.6.1976 Old Bailey trial of Janet Myra Cresswell before Mr Justice Davies. Mr Fitch prosecuting and Mr O'Rourke defending. Janet pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and guilty of wounding. Verdict of not guilty of attempted murder entered agreed. Janet pleaded "guilty of wounding", which was accepted, although the actual charge included "with intent to do him grievous bodily harm". [The trial, therefore, appears to have been about the kind of sentence that would be imposed] Order made for her admission to Broadmoor within 28 days, without restriction of time. She was admitted to York 2 at Broadmoor on 20.7.1976. [There was an appeal on Janet's case. It was handled by the NCCL who charged her £75. (Letter from Janet 3.10.1981)]

    15.8.1976 Bill Warwick visited Janet Cresswell in Broadmoor. This was they first time they met, and may have been Janet's first visit .

    1977

    1977? Dunffermline Seniors, the first of the Express Groups (Fife) started. external link - See Beyond Diagnosis 6

    Peter Barham's thesis, Thinking about schizophrenia, thinking about schizophrenic thinking and schizophrenic thinking was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Durham in 1977. It drew on his Winterton interviews and led to schizophrenia and human value in 1984.

    1977 National "Women and Mental Health Conference", London. "as far back as the late 1970s, whilst working as a trainee social worker, I helped to plan the first and only National Women and Mental Health Conference, in the hope that crisis provision and better support services could begin to be set up for women who feature more heavily in the psychiatric system" (Helen Shoenberg, 12.4.1994 Conference speech) - chronology - archive. The conference was disrupted by conflicts between radical and other feminists. Helen Shoenberg was the only patient participating.

    Mary Nettle married in 1977. "Six months later [in 1978] I had a 'nervous breakdown', I was under pressure at work and one day had 'hysterics' in the office. I ended up in St Bernard's, a horrible Victorian asylum for three months. I had become a user of the mental health system and been given the label of manic depression. This had, as you can imagine, a profound effect on my life and of those close to me."... "There was no discussion about medication or someone's problems. Treatment was totally drug oriented".

    Ken Lumb and Anne Plumb married in 1977. Anne describes 1970 to 1985 as "Ken Lumb's early years of activism" marked by long drawn out campaigns that did not achieve the main objectives, or only on a small scale, but which "engendered a solidarity and an agenda that did not go away". These included campaigns against the withdrawl of the invalid tricycle, ill thought out pedestriastion schemes, buiding of Young Disabled Units, action for adapted housing and integrated care support, accessible environments and public transport "and so on".

    February 1977 Larry Gostin's A Human Condition. The Law Relating to Mentally Abnormal Offenders: Observations, analysis and proposals for reform, the second volume of A Human Condition, published by Mind.

    The technology of political control by Carol Ackroyd and others, (Pelican 1977) listed p.41 of Manchester MPU's Your Rights in Mental Hospital. A Human Condition is also listed, but without reference to two volmes.

    January/February 1977 Mind Out "World leader meets his match - John Hooper says that sometimes, the compulsory powers of the Mental Health Act can be a blessing in disguise" (A patient's personal account)


    2.3.1977 Cherry Allfree twenty-nine. Possibly in 1977/1978 that she had a hole in the heart operation in London and later went to Manchester.

    29.4.1977 Letter to Dave Hinchcliffe about the history of mental patients unions: "the campaign against E.C.T. and Brain surgery which is now a parliamentary issue thanks to PROMPT" - See Christopher Price MP. - Julian Barnett and Alan Saint first petitioned the House of Commons via Joyce Butler MP.


    "Here we go then. It's Jubilee Bank Holiday Monday, 6.6.1977, and you're down for 2/52 fortnightly". Andrew Voyce's Get Well Soon 2 akathisia depicts life in Hellingly asylum on that day.

    June 1977 John Rowan's interview with Jenny James published in Self and Society, The Primal Issue. "In London, in a 'leftwing' street of squats, we are frowned upon ... In Ireland who we are and what we are doing shows up in far starker contrast".

    October 1977 Joan Hughes re-isued A Directory of the Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs. Duplicated at Centerprise.

    Autumn 1977/Spring 1978 Hackney Worker's Educational Association course on "Mental Health and the Community" at Centerprise, in Dalston. It grew out of discussions at Centerprise about how to cope with customers with mental health problems. For the ex-Hackney MPU members who ran it, it grew out of a desire to create a dialogue between people of divergent views. The principle was that people could talk without agreeing and without compromising the purity of their respective principles. Psychiatrists, for example, could debate with anti-psychiatrists, and mental patients talk to mental health workers, on equal terms.

    Between the autumn of 1977 and the autumn of 1984, Hackney Workers Educational Association was involved in meetings on psychiatry and prisons - alternatives to prisons (with Alan Leader) - the local psychiatric unit - mental handicap (and the formation of Hamhp) - alternatives in mental health - mental distress in old age and a series of meetings with speakers who had physical or communication disabilities (Everybody's Hackney). Ex Mental Patients Union members were active in all of these.

    6.12.1977 Meeting arranged for this date when Manchester Mental Patients Union would show a Panorama programme about mental illness to patients.

    1978

    1978 On Our Own. Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System by Judi Chamberlin (born New York 1944 - see American index). [See Alternative Projects] Judi visited London, Holland and Iceland in 1982 - See 1981/1982 - Summer1982 - July 1985 - Barker and Peck 1987 - Her book inspired Mary O'Hagan in New Zealand - 1997: Anny Brackx prepares to publish a British edition 1988 - Summer 1990 (history) - Elsinore 1994 - Hearing Voices 1996 - National Empowerment Center (1997?) - Coercice Treatment Conference 2007 - 2009

    Start of the Anne Plumb archive

    Anne Plumb to Andrew Roberts 30.7.2007:

    "I was most interested to learn of your involvement with the MPU. Did you know any of the people involved in the Manchester MPU? I came across their phone number at the Grassroots Bookshop in Manchester in the 1970s - along with such publications as State and Mind (I have a copy which reviewed Judi's Chamberlin's On Our Own when it came out in the US). Unfortunately, by the time I got the confidence to contact them the groups was folding."

    1978 Brian Davey (Nottingham) first experienced psychosis or non- ordinary state of mind. See Nottingham Advocacy Group - 10.9.1988 - Asylum April 1989 - Asylum Winter 1990/1991 - Asylum Spring 1991 - Asylum Autumn 1991 - Asylum Winter 1991/1992 - Asylum Autumn 1993 - Ecoworks

    1978 Joyce Leeson and Judith Gray Women and Medicine Tavistock women's series. London : Tavistock Publications,

    Spring? 1978 National Women's Liberation Movement Conference Birmingham. The last UK National WLM Conference. "Despite economic resources, no group offers to organise a conference the following year. Following this, all conferences are regional, identity based, and/or topical." chronology

    2.3.1978 Cherry Allfree thirty.

    2.6.1978 Report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration on a complaint made by Mind on behalf of Janet Cresswell and Bill Warwick that Bill Warwick had been prevented from visiting, and also a complaint from Mind that a letter they sent to Janet had been opened. [The commissioner found against the complainants, but hoped better relations would be established between Mind and Broadmoor]. A point by point reply was made by Bill Warwick and attached to copies of the report he distributed.

    September 1978 Leasehold agreement between Seymour Buildings Co- operative and Westminster Council completed and signed. What had been a squat became a long term tenancy. Eric Irwin became a tenant of Seymour Buildings at some time.

    19.10.1978: Leonard Roy Frank signed a copy of his The History of Shock Treatment and sent it to to Joan Martin

    October 1978 North West Mind established with the appointment of David Brandon as North West Campaigns Officer with offices in Blackburn and Liverpool. [Later combined at Preston]. Mind already had regional bases in Cardiff, Leeds, Gateshead and Sheffield. Mentions sixteen "active local associations for mental health in the area". David to mobilise concerns of "mental health volunteers and professional workers". (Mind Information Bulletin No.36. October 1978) See Manchester Mind - North West Schizophrenia Fellowship - October 1981 - early 1980s? - 1985 - Lindsey Dyer - 1987. The North West Mind regional council brought together individuals from local associations across the region. About 1986, Irene Harris and Andrew Hughes, "two of the more active recipients of mental health services" became chairperson and vice-chairperson. (email Andrew Hughes 17.4.2010) - 1988; North West Mind Consumer Network

    1979 Nigel Rose graduated from St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, in Social and Political Science. [OR "After finishing in 1982 he moved to Manchester, and started working as a researcher for Judith Gray, initially in a voluntary capacity and then on a Manpower Services Commission grant. He was heavily involved in the Getting to Know You Project, and also identified and developed links with the local community in preparation for the opening of Powell Street CMHC." Left North Manchester" Hospital " in [1985] and spent several years working with MIND in Manchester and a number of other mental health projects. Connected to Mind in Manchester from January 1985 to January 1999, as a development worker [1985-1988], chair, and volunteer. 1988 Hearing Voices - 1991/1992 and 1992 Dutch experience - Hearing Voices Newsletter editor: Late 1993 - February 1994 - Ceased May 1994 - At Mind he developed the Schizophrenia Media Agency from December 1994 and Inroads into employment. From January 1989 to January 2000 he worked for Manchester City Council, first as of the Manager Mental Health Team ... [From " 1988, employed by Social Services to manage their community support workers on the Harpurhey Resettlement Team. In 1994 he moved to the East Manchester CMHT, where he stayed until it was disbanded in 1998."] then as Asylum Team Assessment officer. From May 2000 to November 2009 he was Area Manager for Refugee Action in Manchester. [Interview 4 See also note under Interview 5]

    1979 re-structuring society

    About here that Manchester Mental Patients Union published Your Rights in Mental Hospital - A Mental Patients' Union (MPU) Pamphlet.

    The contacts list includes "Crisis Centre" 437-4594" - "Anorexic Aid: Mrs P. Hartley, 1 Pool End Cl. Macclesfield, SK10 2LD"- "MIND 226-2623" - "Phobic Society 881-1937" - " PNP (people not psychiatry) 226-8089" "MPU Address: We are trying to set up a houses, but until then contact c/o Grass Roots Bookshop, 109 Oxford Rd., Manchester MI. Telephone 236-3112"

    1979 Frank Bangay wrote the lyrics "Pretty Girl" to a song performed by the Fighting Pigeons

    Half The Sky: An Introduction to Women's Studies edited by the Bristol Women's Studies Group. London: Virago, 1979. Chapter on "Bodies and Minds" has excerpts on "Women and Mental Health" with a review (pages 95- 96) of Phyllis Chesler's Women and Madness (1972) and excerpts from Anne Karpf (1978) on 'depression' and Cathy Haw and Rosie Parker (1977) on feminist psychotherapy from Spare Rib.

    2.3.1979 Cherry Allfree thirty-one. 1978/1979 may have been when Cherry obtained her flat in Dulwich that became the centre of operations for PROMPT. The flat is situated very close to Chris Price's constituency.

    3.5.1979 Conservatives won the General Election in the United Kingdom - Market choice and consumerism became positive themes and state welfare was suspicious - The Conservative manifesto said

    "We must do more to help people to help themselves, and families to look after their own. We must also encourage the voluntary movement and self-help groups working in partnership with the statutory services."
    From May 1979, the mental patients' movement in the United Kingdom developed in a radically different political climate. This was not only due to the change of government, but also to new attitudes to mental patients amongst local authorities, voluntary groups and others attempting to defend alternative political views or threatened services. The patient as consumer who should be listened to took a decade to enter government policy (Griffiths Report 1989). In the meantime, our language had changed. We were no longer mental patients uniting, but survivors or users engaged in a diversity of speaking out - advocacy and user involvement. Half way through the decade, mental health users began to think about being empowered. People First, the movement of people with a learning difficulty, developed a strong autonomous existence in the United Kingdom (see 1982 and 1990) and the survivors' movement, unlike mental patients union (see MPU Declaration and Mind Out 2), developed separately. Attention to mental distress in old age involved an alliance of patients, carers and professionals.

    13.9.1979 Bill Warwick's pension tribunal. "I was talked out of application to the High Court and a no no garantee, re-application for loss of memory and concentration due to treatments".

    November 1979 - 42nd Street founded in Manchester. A community mental health project for young people aged between 15-25 years, living in Manchester. [An old website said it was founded in 1980]. Alistair Cox established 42nd Street and directed it for over 20 years. In 1983, 42nd Street published Reflected images Self portraits of distress: "eleven people describe their experiences of stress and their search for understanding and support - 42nd Street, a Youth Development Trust project", Manchester: Youth Development Trust. 96 pages. By 1986 it was funded by the Urban Aid Programme. Published Principles into Practice. A developmental study of a community health service. (Aileen McDermott 1986). Tried, with limited success, to make its management structure accessible to young people in the belief that consumers of a service, should, if they wish to, participate in the decision making process.

    2.3.1990 "42nd Street - Community based resource for young people under stress" (Company 02476342) incorporated.

    Helen Spandler was based there as a research worker from August 1994 to August 1995. The report on her research Who's Hurting Who? Young people, self-harm and suicide was published in 1996. 2000: Bernard Davies StreetCred?: Values and dilemmas of mental health work with young people. Leicester: Youth Work Press. Published in association with 42nd Street. 2006 In and Out of Harm's Way by "Alex". Manchester: 42nd Street. 15 pages. Its website says: provides support service to young people experiencing stress and mental health problems.

    November 1979 Lawletter Quarterly magazine published by John Bagge, then at 90 Fawcett Estate, Clapton Common, London E5 9AX, from 1979 to 1983 (17 issues - 15 in archives).

    21.11.1979 Nottingham Post "Plea to Ministers" - "Members of PROPAR (Protection of Rights of Patients at Rampton) take letter to Health Minister in London" (Nottinghamshire Archives)

    "My first introduction to PROMPT came in 1979 when I found some PROMPT booklets in a bookshop either in Brixton or in Stratford. I might have found booklets in both places. My first PROMPT meeting in 1980 was a conference at the Conway Hall." (Frank Bangay)

    Early 1980s: Frank Bangay , a poet, became active in PROMPT alongside Julian Barnett and Eric Irwin. (The Importance of Being Frank)

    1980

    1980 Irren-Offensive (Lunatics' or Insane Offensive) established in West Berlin, by survivors.

    1980/1981 David Kessel first got to know Howard Mingham well.

    February 1980 The National Schizophrenia Fellowship appointed a group development officer (David Lynes?) for the North West based in Warrington

    The North West Schizophrenia Fellowship split from the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (NSF) in 1982, although the NSF also continued to operate in some parts of North West England too. I seem to recall that David Lynes was the 'boss' at North West Fellowship and was a very energetic figure. I think there was considerable competition between the Fellowship, based in Warrington, and North West Mind, based in Preston. I went to a meeting of the Oldham group of the NSF. It was difficult to sit through, as it was a carer support group. People present spent the evening comparing notes on the difficulties caused them by their relatives with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I do not think they considered that the new member might have a diagnosis of his own. Ouch! Eventually Mind and the Fellowship did find a way to collaborate and then formed a quite considerable alliance." (email Andrew Hughes 1.8.2009)

    1.3.1980 Richard 'Cartoon' Campbell, aged 19, arrested in Brixton. He died at Ashford remand centre on 31.3.1980. A preliminary inquest attributed his death to dehydration resulting from schizophrenia (he had been on hunger strike). Doctors talked about his "ramblings about Jah, about going to Africa, and helping the poor". He was given Largactil and Depixol. (Hackney People's Press March 1981). House of Commons adjournment debate 8.8.1980

    12.3.1980 Bill Warwick planned to "swell the ranks" of PROPAR (Protection of Rights of Patients at Rampton) handing in their Petition to the DHSS, and then attend the PROMPT meeting at 8pm: "They are taking an interest in Janet's case". However, the PROPAR presentation was moved to 21.5.1980. "PROMPT having changed its meetings to Tuesdays" he "slipped down" on 11.3.1980. PROMPT planned a write up on Janet in its magazine and "may launch a campaign for her release".

    12.3.1980 Matthew O'Hara sent to prison for seven days for failing to pay arrears of rates.

    2.3.1980 Cherry Allfree thirty-two.

    Thursday 26.6.1980: Matthew O'Hara found dead in an "MPU" house - house closed. This was really the end of the Hackney Mental Patients Union housing. Surviving members of Hackney MPU negotiated re-housing for the remaining tenants. The Matthew O'Hara Committee: for Civil Liberties and Community Care was founded in August 1981. Much of its educational work was carried on through the Hackney Workers Educational Association, continuing activities that Matthew had been involved in.

    Wednesday 16.7.1980 Matthew O'Hara's funeral. Left 177 Glenarm Road at 3.20. Burial Manor Park Cemetery 4.00pm.

    Saturday 19.7.1980 First meeting of the State Brutality Group called by Friends of Blair Peach. Members: Groups respecting Blair Peach, Matthew O'Hara, Jimmy Kelly and Richard Campbell. Next meeting not until 7.2.1981. The State Brutality Group became Inquest.

    Saturday 23.8.1980 PROMPT Conference on Anti-Psychiatry at Conway Hall

    23.8.1980 Death of Barry Prosser (white, aged 32) a remand prisoner in the hospital wing of Winson Green prison, Birmingham "because he was suffering from a mental disorder". When found dead in his cell, "he was bruised from head to foot and died from a ruptured stomach" (Press Report 4.9.1981). - House of Commons adjournment debate 1.7.1982 - Inquest file

    September 1980 "Abena Simba Tola, a young Black Rastafarian women" released from Holloway Prison. She had "spent months in solitary confinement and on the psychiatric wing" because of her "demands for Black reading material and for respect and recognition of her Blcak culture and religion" (Hackney Peoples Press March 1981)

    The picture is by Abena. The article reviews three "recent cases" that "provide distressing evidence" that Rastafarian religious beliefs were being dianosed as schizophrenia. The other two being Steven Thompson and Richard Campbell.

    December 1980 End of Newham Alternatives to Prison (August 1974- Decenber 1980) when Home Office funds were withdrawn. Second Chance and Breakout: The Paper for Insiders (magazine) were established in its place. Ruth Wajsblum (of East London Women Against Prison) and Alan Leader ("ex-prisoner") were members of the unpaid working collective.

    1981

    International Year for Disabled People

    "The United Nations International Year of Disabled People in 1981 gave the opportunity for disabled people to find the funding to set up groups and organisations of disabled people. The decade saw the rise of the campaign for Anti-Discrimination legislation, the call for buildings and the environment to be made more accessible to disabled people, and also disabled people supporting other campaigns against oppression." (GMCDP 2010 p.12)

    "In 1980 Dorothy Whitaker who was employed by Greater Manchester Council for Voluntary Service, was given the brief of looking at what should happen in the International Year of Disabled people (1981) in Greater Manchester. She met with key disabled people across Greater Manchester and was able to introduce them to each other, so that they could share their ideas." (source) - See Ken Lumb

    1981 British Council of Disabled People established.

    "At the end of the International Year of Disabled People, a core group continued to meet together in the evenings at the St Thomas Centre, Manchester, and a decision was made to form an organisation that would work across Greater Manchester and tackle any of the issues that affect disabled peoples lives". (source)

    The Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) was formed in 1981 during the International Year of the Disabled Persons and was incorporated in 1982 (website)

    Wouter van de Graaf, Jet Ibiza and Jet Vesseur met at the end of the 1970s, when they were active in the crazies movement.

    January 1981 Last number of Gekkenkrant.

    Gek'ooit was the successor to Gekkenkrant. Gek'ooit appears to be a play on words: Gek ooit is crazy ever. Gek kooi is a crazy cage, and the magazine was also known as caged. (See Netherlands)

    Also see interview with Wouter van de Graaf, who illustrated it.

    Wouter van de Graaf: See World Congress 16.7.1985 - 16.7.1985 Colin Gell - Nottingham Patients Council Support Group - November 1986 - Asylum Winter 1987 - Asylum 1994 2

    7.2.1981 Second meeting of the State Brutality Group. This time plus Group for George Wilkinson.

    2.3.1981 Cherry Allfree thirty-three.

    Friday 6.3.1981 Adjournment debate in the House of Commons on Matthew O'Hara.

    Saturday 7.3.1981 Hackney WEA Day School "Psychiatry and Prisons" jointly organised with the Matthew O'Hara Committee. Centerprise 10am to 4.30pm. 10.30am Black Prisoners. Are the members of religious groups such as the Rastafarians treated as mentally ill? If so, is this a form of persecution? The cases of Richard 'Cartoon' Campbell, who died in prison, and Abena Simba Tola, who survived, will be presented by Richard's friends and Abena herself. 2pm Workshops: Prisons and Mental Hospitals led by Chris Wallace of RAP. On the evolution of prisons and special hospitals. Which offenders go to which? Does psychiatry do more harm than good? - Joan Hughes wrote a report from the Women and Broadmoor workshop introduced by Sylvia Jeffares on the case of Janet Cresswell, now in Broadmoor.

    23.3.1981 Official launch of CHAMH (City and Hackney Association for Mental Health) - Later City and Hackney Mind. The association had been formed in 1980 with administrative help from the Community Psychiatric Research Unit and under the chairmanship of Dennis Timms, chair of City and Hackney Community Health Council. User involvement was slow to be established. "Dr David Kessel" (a mental patient) was elected to the executive on 12.7.1982. Meetings were open to members, and Valerie Argent, Joan Hughes and Andrew Roberts were amongst those who attended.

    Thursday 26.2.1981 New Society article on Matthew O'Hara by Denise Winn.

    16.3.1981 Steven Thompson (black, aged 26) from Newtown, Birmingham, released from Rampton after transfer in December 1980 from Gartree Prison, four days before his six year prison sentence for armed robbery was due to end. It had been alleged that his transfer to Rampton was "associated with his Rastafarian religion and his reputation as a militant black". (Guardian 31.12.1980) - Inquest file

    Janet Cresswell's 1981 Petition - 29.3.1981 Letter from Sylvia Jeffares to Joan Hughes - "What do you think was the success of the day school? I saw Janet yesterday and Dave". [Both in Broadmoor]. Here is a proposal from Janet "This petition calls for the repeal of the Mental Health Act and the discontinuance of psychiatry as part of the National Health Service on the grounds that this Act was declared inhuman and illegal by Strasbourg, and psychiatrists, in the full knowledge of the misuse to which they and the Act have been employed, have acted in a charlatan manner. This petition asks for: [1] The reinstatement to full citisenship without mental stigma of those committed under the Act. [2] The conviction through the legal system of those who have broken the law, those suffering from nervous breakdowns without breaking the law to be treated by neurologists without stigma. [3] Monies saved by the cessation of official psychiatry and it auxiliaries (social workers, psychiatric staff, drug industry etc) to be deployed into providing homes of good standard and amenities for the community."

    11.4.1981 Third meeting of "State Brutality Group" changes its name to Inquest (United Campaigns for Justice) The members of the group at this time were groups respecting Blair Peach (white), Matthew O'Hara (Irish), Jimmy Kelly (white?) and Richard Campbell (black). - [External link to Inquest website] - My Inquest file contains separate envelopes for Colin Roach (black), Barry Prosser (white), Steven Thompson (black), Richard Campbell (black), Newton Rose (black) and Winston Rose (black) - See Inquest workers

    29.4.1981 Start of "Mental Hospitals - Prisons - and Community Alternatives - A Hackney WEA and Matthew O'Hara Committee Class" at Centerprise. Case study one: The Death of Richard 'Cartoon' Campbell

    Matthew O'Hara's death was the first death of a mental patient following custody in prison that directly affected me (Andrew Roberts) and other Mental Patients Union members in Hackney. Richard Campbell's death was the first death of a black mental patient. Both were in 1980. Increasingly violent and/or custodial deaths of black people became a focus of Inquest's work. In July 2012 Black Mental Health UK published a list of "fatalities of mental health service users from UK's african caribbean communities" begining in 1981: Winston Rose (1981) - Michael Martin (1984) - Joseph Watts (1988) - Jonathan Weeks - Orville Blackwood (1991) - Jerome Scott - Munir Yusef Mojothi - Mark Fletcher - Rupert Marshall - Newton White - Ibrahim Sey - Veron Cowan - David Bennett (1998) - Roger Sylvester - Eugene Edigin - Ertal Hussein - Mikey Powell - Tema Kombe - Sean Rigg - Godfrey Moyo - Olaseni Lewis (2010) - Colin Holt (2010) - Fitz Hick [?? possibly Fitz Albert Francis (2009)] - Kingsley Burrell- Brown (2011).

    Saturday 16.5.1981 Centerprise 10th Birthday Party

    20.5.1981 "The Social Worker's Dilemma"

    28.5.1981 "Community Aternatives to Mental Hospitals"

    17.6.1981 "Community Aternatives to Prisons"

    America

    Madness Network News Vol.6 No.2 Winter 1981 Page one: The European Movement from an ex-inmate perspective, by Swan, an American activist travelling in Europe.

    Madness Network News Vol.6 No.3 Summer 1981 Starting page 12: European Convention on Human Rights and An Evening with Frits Winterwerp, by Swan.

    Madness Network News Vol.6 No.4 Winter 1981-1982 Page 8: NAPA Pickets Shock Shop, Berkeley, California, by Anne Boldt and Disabled Hold Law Conference, Toronto, Canada, by Judi Chamberlin. Starting page 10: The European Movement, by Swan includes PROMPT, Inquest, Matthew O'Hara Committee and Hackney Mental Patients' Association Page 16: "Democratic" Psychiatry in Italy by Swan

    May 1981 Mind Out "Consumers' issue"

    about June 1981: The Advocacy Alliance set up.

    July 1981 World Federation for Mental Health congress held in Manila, Philippines. Eugene Brody took office as President.

    July 1981 Riots. Atmosphere of fear and tension in Hackney.

    13.7.1981 Death of Winston Rose, a black electrician and amateur boxer, in Leytonstone after a struggle with police taking him to Claybury hospital. The Winston Rose Action Campaign was formed after his death. An eight day inquest found on 21.10.1981 that Winston Rose had been unlawfully killed. The Times report (13.10.1981) notes that, at the inquest, "the public gallery was full of black people".

    Summer 1981 Matthew O'Hara Committee News

    October 1981 David Brandon Voices of Experience. Consumer Perspectives of Psychiatric Treatment. North West Mind, Miller House, Miller Arcade, Preston, Lancashire. 36 page pamphlet. Thurstine Basset's collection

    25.10.1981 to 31.10.1981 Scottish Mental Health Week. LINK announced the opening and successful development in Glasgow of the Mental Health Resource Centre, LINK social clubs and the new LINK Social and Activity Centre (to open in December)

    25.10.1981 Sylvia Jeffares died in a road accident. She was knocked off her bicycle by a car. Sylvia had corresponded with and visited Janet Cresswell throughout 1981 and wanted to campaign in some way around her situation. Joan Hughes inserted the following notice in the Morning Star for 1.12.1981:

    "JEFFARES, Sylvia. Died suddenly in October 1981, aged 32. Courageous fighter for women's liberation and for human rights for all prisoners. Remembered as dear friend and comrade - Joan."

    Saturday 7.11.1981. Inaugoration of Hackney Mental Patient's Association in the basement of Centerprise. Dave Kessel in the chair. Everybody sat in a large circle and said what they thought - in turn. See below 9.4.1982 - July 1982. See also Hackney Union of Mental Patients, which was, in some ways, a continuation, and Hackney Mental Health Action Group (which included a radical social worker).

    November 1981 Tony Smythe resigned as Director of Mind. Lindsay Knight, editor of Mind Out, left to prepare programmes for Channel 4 in January 1982. Mind Out closed down in February 1982. Chris Heginbotham became National Director of Mind sometime in 1982, and remained until 1988. During that time he "was an active member of the World Federation for Mental Health" and secured its congress for Brighton in 1985. Barbara Poole was conference administrator from 1983. Larry Gostin (Legal Director) remained until 1983, when he left to run the National Council for Civil Liberties. - Apart from the May 1981 consumer issue, it is difficult to find any indication of patients voices in Mind Out at this period. The periods that Mind publications gave mental patients a platform are the mid 1970s (under Denise Winn) and after 1982.

    Barbara Taylor 2013 Sometime in 1981, a triumphant Barbara Taylor collapsed in exhaustion after attending the oral examination for her thesis The feminist theory and practice of the Owenite socialist movement in Britain, 1820-45. She entered a course of psychoanalysis that lasted twent-two years.

    1981 "My friend Cora gave me a hardback notebook. I had been in analysis for a couple of months, talking about it incessantly. 'I thought you might like to write some of this down.' That evening I made my first entry"

    "When I came to the end of the notebook I bought another. By the time I left analysis, in 2003, I had thirteen notebooks, plus various unbound scribblings. 'An archive,' Cora said when she saw the stack of notebooks." (Taylor, B. 2014, p.11)

    About here:

    London Women and Mental Health c/o AWP, Hungerford House, Victoria Embankment, WC2

    Islington Women and Mental Health, Caxton House, 129 St John Way, N19 (281 2345) [Chair: Jan Wallcraft] - "grew out of a group of local women who found existing services inadequate... Eventually the group applied for funding and in 1983 received a grant for one worker and running costs of an office." [By 1986] "We hold a weekly drop-in every Tuesday"... "We organise courses with the help of the Adult Education Institute" "We operate a women's help line" (28 trained volunteers) ... Jan Wallcraft 1986)

    Irish Women's Mental Health Group c/o Islington and Mental Health

    1982:

    1982 saw the publication of the first major UK history of the mental patients' movement, by Peter Sedgwick , and of Dale Peterson's collection of historic accounts of madness by those who experienced it from the inside. The movement also gained a new name as the USA concept of "self-advocacy" and the older concept of "citizen advocacy" were popularised in the United Kingdom by CMH The Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People. Judi Chamberlin visited patient activists in Hackney and elsewhere and The British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry was conceived in Brussels. Patients prepared criticism of the parts of new Mental Health Bill that seemed to undermine voluntary treatment and Mind's financial crisis saw the closure of Mind Out and the end of MIND Information Bulletin in the form we knew it.

    Peter Sedgwick's Psychopolitics (1982) has two parts: Part One is a critical review of anti-psychiatry. Part Two, "Psychiatry and Liberation" is a thoughtful review of "Mental Health Movements and Issues: A Survey and Prospect" including a positive review of "movements among the mentally ill" in the United States, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Scotland and England. Sedgwick comments that "The continental patient-groups have found particular inspirations in the work of the Mental Patients' Union in Britain"

    1982 A Mad People's History of Madness compiled by Dale Peterson includes writing by Margery Kempe - Christoph Haizmann - George Tross - Alexander Cruden - Samuel Bruchshaw - William Cowper - Urbane Metcalf - John Perceval - annonymous of New York - Elizabeth Packard - Ebenezer Haskell - Daniel Paul Schreber - Clifford Beers - E. Thelmar - Marcia Hamilcar - Vaslav Nijinsky - Thomas Henneall - Carlton Brown - Anonymous of Tennessee - Mary Jane Ward - John Custance - Lisa Wiley - Joanne Greenberg - Morag Coate - Mark Vonegut - Kenneth Donaldson.

    1982 Commonplace established by Manchester Mind. See Manchester index

    1982 Missing Link collective formed by women housing workers in Bristol to provide woman-only "intermediate second stage accommodation for single homeless women of all ages". Awarded Urban Aid for five years in April 1983 and appointed four full time workers in June 1983. By 1986 it had five communal houses in different parts of Bristol. "Most of the women we house come from a background of institutional care, Some have left home or a broken relationship; others are going through a crisis in their lives". (Finding Our Own Solutions 1986 pages 15-16). See present website.

    Thursday 7.1.1982 Hackney Action on Mental Handicap (HAMHP) formed. It included articulate local people with a mental handicap and organised its meetings so that they participated in discussions.

    About 1982? "Society for the Advancement of Research into Anorexia, (SARA)" founded by Clare Ockwell and her mother. Clare had herself been anorexic and used mental health services on and off since the age of nine. She ran the society for ten years before seeing through its merger with the Eating Disorders Association in 1992. Clare helped to found CAPITAL in 1997. On 1.9.2007 she came fourth, with 28 points, in the last edition of MasterMind. Her specialist subjects were anorexia nervosa, the Duncton novels and the rock group Genesis.

    14.1.1982 The New English Mental Health Bill A Lawletter Special Leaflet

    16.1.1982: A report of a PROMPT meeting

    February 1982 Final issue of Mind Out. Mind stopped it on financial grounds, after " run of nine years and 58 magazines". It was replaced by OpenMind in the spring of 1983.

    March 1982: Hackney Workers Educational Association "Alternatives in Mental Health" meeting in a series of "Alternatives" meetings organised by Sheila Rowbotham. Doug Tilbury, Andrew and Valerie Roberts led this one. After the meeting someone spoke about the idea of a course on psycho-geriatrics - This led to the Mental Distress in Old Age course.

    2.3.1982 Cherry Allfree thirty-four.

    Tuesday 9.4.1982 Brent Community Health Council Public Meeting on Mental Health

    "Under Pressure - racism - no money - loneliness - inadequate housing and transport - unemployment - fuel bill - too few nursery places - stress - If you can't cope with the pressures in your life should you be labelled mentally ill?""
    . Andrew Roberts prepared a talk on
    " Community Approaches to Mental Distress and Insanity"
    which concluded with "some of the things that groups have done to help themselves" - Including relatives groups
    (National Schizophrenia Fellowship mentioned), the Mental Patients Union, Hackney Mental Patients Association, "a self-help group that runs a regular weekly social in a local day hospital and is campaigning for a patients controlled social centre" and classes run through the Workers Educational Association.

    May 1982 A meeting in Brussels of The International Network Of Alternatives To Psychiatry (Resseau Alternatif A La Psychiatrie) which led to the formation of the The British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry (external link - archive). The British Network was started by Stephen Ticktin. - See Mind November 1985

    July 1982 Valerie Argent (Roberts) elected to the City and Hackney Community Health Council on the nomination of Hackney Mental Patients Association - Hackney Workers Educational Association - the Matthew O'Hara Committee

    21.7.1982 to 23.7.1982 Cosponsored Mind and World Federation for Mental Health conference in London, attended by Judi Chamberlin as a consequence of Eugene Brody's intervention

    Monday 16.8.1982 Postcard from Judi Chamberlin to Andrew and Valerie Roberts to say she had finally made it to Iceland after illness in Holland.

    July-August 1982 Judi Chamberlin visited London (staying with MPU members), before travelling to Holland to meet Dutch activists. She was following in the footsteps of her friend Ann Boldt (Swan), who had frequently reported on the United Kingdom and European movement in Madness Network News. Judi then went on to Iceland. She returned to the United Kingdom in 1985 as a speaker at the World Congress of Mental Health

    "Darby Penney: How did you get involved in doing international work?
    Judi Chamberlin: Oh, it was just something that kind of grew. I got invited to... well, we had met this woman from Holland who came to one of the human rights conferences, so I had a contact there. And I got invited to a professional meeting in England. So I got to meet some of the ex- patients from there. And somebody else invited me to Australia. It just kind of happened. And I never thought I'd be the kind of person who got to travel abroad and stuff, and it was just real exciting and I loved it." (Interview 7.11.2002)

    "Consequent to the 1982 London conference and the 1983 Congress, Judi Chamberlin (already in Australia at the invitation of an ex-patient group), was invited to visit WFMH member the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand and then to become a member of the planning committee for the 1985 WFMH World Congress in Brighton, England where, following the example of the 1983 Congress, a section was devoted to self-help and ex-patient groups." (Brody 1998 p.130)

    Summer 1982 Mixed Emotions: A Collection of Angry and Peaceful Poetry

    August 1982 Frank Bangay's Seeing and Knowing, a poem that was pubished in What They Teach in Song

    Autumn 1982 Bill Warwick moved from 12 Harthill Street, Stoke on Trent to 13 Broxton Avenue, West Kirby, Wirral, Merseyside. He moved to help his mother, Margaret Sinclair Williams (born 1902, who was becoming housebound with arthritis. She died November 1985 in Birkenhead.

    6.9.1982 (Successful) Application of Dave Leadbetter and Tony Ward to be joint workers for Inquest. Both were working for Radical Alternatives to Prison and both were members of the Matthew O'Hara Committee. They thought Inquest should "relate ... what happens in prisons and psychiatric institutions to what happens in the police station and the street" and called for "good communications" with the "black community". In a special report in 1989, they wrote "Afro-Carribean people are markedly over represented among those people who die in custody following violent incidents (other than shooting) involving the police". Of eight such deaths in London since 1980 six were Afro-Carribean, one Turkish and one white.

    Saturday 11.9.1982 The Annual General Meeting of CMH The Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People, in London, was devoted almost entirely to "Discussion of Self-Advocacy and the role for CMH in this movement" (Invitation letter from Morag Plank July 1982). We Can Speak for Ourselves. Self-Advocacy by Mentally Handicapped People, by Paul Williams and Bonnie Shoultz, published in The USA earlier in the year, was available at this meeting. [See advocacy]

    Frank Bangay's Solidarity Poster October 1982 Frank Bangay's Solidarity Poster. This was sold as A4 photocopied sheets. It has been sold and given a way in various formats since. The last stanza is

    "We cried together last night, but our tears were in solidarity with the sadness in the world, and through our solidarity through our tears we found strength"

    Another image and words leaflet self-published at this time was "Woman on a Park Bench with Birds"

    25.10.1982 Dina Ibrahim born in Sudan. Her mother is a leading campaigner against female genital mutilation, her father is the architect of the library at Ahfad University for Women. She is a descendant of Babikir Badri, who established education for women in Sudan in 1908. In her early teens, Dina came with her immediate family to live in London. She remained here whilst maintaining links with her extended family in the Sudan and the middle east. Her experience of the world was a succession of deep depression and elation, but mostly depression. Overcoming the problems this created, she studied Sociology at Middlesex University and graduated in 2012. Dina died in Egypt on Friday 24.2.2017. She was 34 years old, and one of the youngest active members of the Survivors History Group. Dina became involved with the group when she helped with the Mental Health Training and Education conference at Middlesex University in September 2009. People may also remember her selling the Asylum relaunch issue at our Pageant of Survivor History at Kingsley Hall in March 2010. After she graduated, she was planning to work on her life story exploring what it is to be a survivor in the Sudan and in London. Her survivor history activities included attending the Birmingham seminar on "heath through history" in July 2010 and, with her cousin Hagir, a remberance of survivor poet Howard Mingham in 2014. In February 2015, Dina and Andrew Roberts wrote a report on the paintings of Mary Barnes, which Dina found expressed powerful emotions.. "If I could have expressed what I was feeling so openly", Dina wrote, "I might have overcome a lot of issues". When prevented by her mental life from attending meetings, Dina would sometimes find another way to participate, on one occasion speaking to everyone via her mobile. She had planned to come to our meeting in January 2017, but decided to fly to Egypt to stay with part of her family. She is buried in the Sudan, under the orange sun over the river Nile, which she loved.

    Tuesday 2.11.1982 Launch of Channel 4 (UK Television) to cater for minority interests not met by the mainstream channels. A demonstration video, Psychiatric Oppression, was produced to make the case to Channel 4 for a programme. This led, eventually, to We're Not Mad We're Angry

    November 1982 Eighth World Congress of the International League of Societies for Persons with Mental Handicap, held in Nairobi, was the first to fully involve people with mental handicaps. Thirty participants with mental handicaps came from Canada, England, France, Gaza, Germany, Kenya, Norway, Sweden and the USA. They spoke seven languages. They held their own discussions on the way they wanted to live, but made a presentation to the plenary session and made recommendations to the closing session. (CMH Newsletter 3, Spring 1983, pages 7-8)

    Sometime between 25.12.1982 and 31.12.1982 Colin Roach was released from Pentonville Prison after serving a three week sentence for theft and possessing an offensive weapon.

    1983

    1983 to 1985 Liz Sayce studying at Royal Holloway, University of London.

    1983 Ted Curtis born

    Time to Change About 1983 Nikki Llewellyn born in Hackney, East London. She joined Time to Change and made her first Time to Change blog in June 2011. Her life story was outlined in The Guardian ("The Truth About Depression: Six People Speak Out") in March 2012.

    From December 2012 to August 2013 Nikki wrote a regular feature in More Hackney about her "journey to change minds". She was a book in the human library that people could speak to. Someone who spoke to her offered her paid employment and "in the space of a few weeks, I went from being a book titled 'Clinically Depressed and Unemployed', to being a volunteer team administrator for the Barnet Improving Access to Psychological Therapies team". She also became a full time student for three years and took a second job as Health and Well-being Coordinator for the Healthy Conversations Project, as well as getting married. Follow her on Twitter.

    1983 The Manic Depression Fellowship started. (Later MDF The BiPolar Organisation - Link to website - See Perspectives on Manic Depression 1996 - On Our Own Terms 1997 - Strategies for Living 1997 - Meeting of Survivor Groups 2.3.2000 - web archive started September 2000 - MDF The BiPolar Organisation: September 2005

    Emergence of the allies Stephen Ticktin, in 1991, says that when Survivors Speak Out was set up (after 1985) "the impetus, ironically enough, came once again from a professional". The "once again" appears to refer to his own impetus in establishing British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry. Later in the article he says that "for me the most exciting venture" was the establishment of the Asylum magazine, whose management, he says "is at present small and too top heavy with professionals". Professionals and non-users who developed the user-movement in these years acquired the name "allies". Notable allies included David Hill - Ingrid Barker - Edward Peck - Lorraine Bell (Southampton) - Helen Smith (King's Fund) - Rick Hennelly (Chesterfield)

    The British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry ran from 1983 to 1988 (dates given by Stephen Ticktin in Asylum Summer 1991). Speaking of the importance of the British Network (May 2008), Peter Campbell said it "brought radical survivors and radical professionals together." Stephen Ticktin Asylum Summer describes himself as one of the founders and says "it was a loose affiliation of users and mental health workers who met on a monthly basis for purposes of both consciousness raising and campaigning. A number of working parties formed around particular issues such as the law, women, ECT, and major tranquillisers. In addition several study days were held ... one on the Closure of the Mental Hospitals, in 1985, and another on ECT and major tranquillisers, in 1987"

    Peter Campbell said (May 2008) that it included forceful characters like Shulamit Ramon and David Hill, who had both recently completed their Ph.D. theses (Shulamit in 1972). David was very important because of his trade union and political links. He got users into the Houses of Parliament and into conferences in Chesterfield organised around Tony Benn. These links were lost after David left.

    1983 minutes of the Greater Manchester Disability Action Group (foreunner of the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People) record that they changed their name from the Independent Living Group (facilitated by the fieldworker at the Greater Manchester Council for Voluntary Service) because one of the problems of encouraging new members was that the concept of independent living was new and relatively unknown to many disabled people. (email Anne Plumb 26.9.2010)

    12.1.1983 Death of Colin Roach at about 11.25pm inside the foyer of Stoke Newington police station, from a single gunshot wound through the mouth. Early press reports said Colin had committed suicide and had a history of mental illness.

    8.2.1983 Royal Assent to the 1983 Representation of the People Act. The possibility of staff organising mental patients to vote worried those members of parliament whose constituencies contained large mental hospitals. This fear was assuaged by requiring registration from one's previous address. The movement towards enfranchising long-stay mental patients must have had some effect on the willingness of policy makers to listen to patients.

    February/March 1983 First edition of OpenMind [See index], the replacement for Mind Out. It was launched and edited by Anny Brackx who, at this time, had been a journalist for about nine years. It was redesigned and relaunched in 1997 under the editorship of Sara Dunn (now described as Executive Editor). Kathryn Perry became editor in 2002. Closed April 2010

    It was during 1983 that Barbara Poole became administrator in Mind's conference office, which, I think, was part of the Training and Education Department (Tessa Jowell head). The tutors were Corrine Brewer, Charles Patmore, Chris Borne, then Auborn Wiseman. Peter Campbell has suggested that much of the rapid change in Mind with respect to user participation was due to the tutors' interest in this.

    2.3.1983 Cherry Allfree thirty-five.

    March 1983 to August 1983 Coventry Crisis Intervention Team initial six months. [It was continued]. There was a "Follow Up Consumer Survey - 1 month after the closure of our research cases". - The "first fifty consumers" were asked to "share their views of the service they had been offered" (Ann Davis, December 1988) - "After feedback from the Consumer Research" the length of time clients could be seen for was increased from 6-8 to 10-12 weeks. [March 1984 report from S.M. Newton, Project Leader] - Featured in Speaking from Experience (1985).

    9.5.1983 Royal Assent to the 1983 Mental Health Act (England and Wales)

    Thurstine Basset trained social workers to be approved under this Act. He started the Brighton and Eastbourne Good Practices in Mental Health studies, the report of which was "especially" useful for social workers training to be approved (SSC 1985 volume 2, page 150). The training courses Thurstine ran involved clients as well as professionals (SSC 1985 volume 2, page 158).

    June/July 1983 Ron Lacey, in Open Mind claims that mental patients in France, Italy and Holland have organised lobbies. Contrasts unfavourably with England. - Also a letter form Peter Campbell.

    July 1983 Laura Mitchison born. See May 2017

    August/September 1983 Peter Cambell in Open Mind

    8.9.1983 Peter Sedgwick found dead near his home in Shipley, York

    September 1983 - November 1985 Mental Distress in Old Age (Hackney)

    September 1983, Peter Campbell moved to Cricklewood [33 Lichfield Road, London, NW2"] and became involved in Camden Mind as a "volunteer" almost at once. David Hill was not the director at Mind in Camden at that time.

    "The material for the "Psychiatric Oppression" video was shot over a period of time (after Autumn 1983 as my bit was shot in my flat in Cricklewood) and was preparatory to We're Not Mad We're Angry, but when it was actually edited together into the video I am not quite sure" (Peter Campbell)

    Monday 24.10.1983 Chamh Annual General Meeting at Shoreditch Health Centre. Amongst those nominated and seconded for the executive were a number of patient activists who were taking a leading role in suggesting resolutions to organisational problems associated with the way Chamh had been generated within the system (Community Psychiatric Unit) and did not have complete control of its own affairs. Those elected included David Kessel and Valerie (Argent) Roberts. Also active at the meeting were John Wilson, Andrew Roberts and Joan Hughes. The patient reformers brought in Felicity Tregear (not a patient) to attempt to sort out Chamh's finances.

    October 1983 Registration in West Berlin of Wildwasser EV Berlin, a self-help group of women who had experienced sexual violence during their childhood, brought together by two survivors in 1982. (Alternatives)

    18.11.1983 Thomas Ritchie died 122 Huddleston Road, Tuffnel Park, London, N7 OEG. [Last known address in MPU records matches Probate record]. "Administration Brighton 15 May Not exceeding £40000" [I would be suprised if Tommy had any significant money. Brighton suggests John Ritchie, his brother from Crawley, wound up his affairs].

    November? 1983 Annual Conference of Mind. Members of Glasgow Link Clubs attended and were somewhat amazed and angry that none of the presentations, seminars or workshops were presented by patients. They made their own presentation in 1984.

    December/January 1983/1984 Peter Cambell in Open Mind "Open Mind seems to be heavily weighted in favour of the expert".

    1984

    Multiple Image Productions Ltd., Faringdon House, Swindon (Company 1914764) operated from 1984 to 1988. We're Not Mad We're Angry (17.11.1986) was the result of a two year collaboration betwwen the company and "a collective of present and former psychiatric patients" (Channel Four Press Release). The original collective was PROMPT. Multiple images wanted a more socially diverse group, with a lot more women. PROMPT felt marginalised in the new group, and withdrew.

    Bristol "The first open meeting of Women and Mental Health in 1984 brought together well over 50 women" - See MIND 1985 - Finding Our Own Solutions 1986 - Campbell, P. 1989b. See Womankind and Bristol Crisis Service for Women

    Saturday 10.3.1984 First issue of "Waves. Women and Mental Health Newsletter" contained the entries:

    Tuesday 20th Hackney Women and Mental Health Support Group are meeting local therapist interested in working with the group. If interested phone Val 986 5251.

    Hackney Support Group. At the moment we are meeting in each others houses. We do not aim to provide each other with 24 hour support - in fact we often just chat and drink tea. However we are willing to change and are open to new ideas. If any women would like to come along please ring Val ....

    Mental Health Services Project, Chesterfield
    Tontine Road Centre
    North Derbyshire Mental Health Services Project
    Contact Support Group

    Andrew Milroy and Rick Hennelly prepared a background paper "Exploiting Infinity" for the Mind Annual Conference in September 1984 and another, "Changing our Ways", for the Mind Annual Conference in November 1985. Both published by "Mental Health Services Project, Chesterfield". Rick Hennelly (1988), page 210, refers to these as "earlier descriptions of the service and the tensions between ideology and practice"

    From beside the Chesterfield Community Centre in Tontine Road one can look up at the famous bent spire. The centre houses a large number of projects, one of which was a North Derbyshire Mental Health Services day centre for people becoming reestablished in the community. In the mid-1980s this became run on increasingly democratic lines and was known as the Contact Support Group [first half of 1985] - Ivy Buckland from the centre was the first Survivors Speak Out Treasurer. Ernie Morris, another user, produced the first Survivors Speak Out newsletter. Rick Hennelly, a social worker at the centre was very active in the formation of Survivors Speak Out

    "The Education and Action Group - a group of ex-mental patients... met in 1984 to produce a tape and slide show based on their experience of mental illness and recovery entitled Life After Mental Illness (see Inside Out Issue 6)" (Christine Cowan Inside Out Issue 8, p.5) - Presented MIND 1984 - Grimsby 11.4.1985.

    Camden Mental Health Consortium (CMHC), possibly not with that name, was founded in 1984. in response to the planned closure of Friern. (Campbell, P. 1987)

    1985? Diana Rose "became part of the fledgling service user/survivor movement in the UK" by joining Camden Consortium. See 2000 paper.

    The first Draft Constitution for Consortium is dated 1985, before the MIND conference. It contains no provision for users to be the only members, or a special, full category of member but refers to promoting a 'strong consumer voice'. ( Rose, D. 2000).

    Survivors Speak Out: See summer 1986 Asylum) -

    "Don't ask me why people in Survivors Speak Out should live in Camden" ( Rose, D. 2000)

    Before September 1987? Campbell, P. 1987 "Giants and Goblins. A Description of Camden Consortium's Campaign to Change Statutory Plans" - Peter Campbell was "Public Relations Officer of Camden Consortium and secretary of Survivos' Speak Out. - Camden Mental Health Consortium's address was c/o Emma Baatz, 8 Burgess Hill, London, NW2 2WA

    The group remained active until 2009, describing itself as "the largest User Group in the London Borough of Camden. Its members are people who use or have used the Mental Health services and live or work in the Borough. Associate Members are people or organisations who for some reason have an interest in the Mental Health Services provided in the Borough and support the objectives of CMHC. Membership is free."

    Closed 29.3.2009

    1984 Peter Barham's Schizophrenia and Human Value (based on his thesis) published.

    1984 Anne Rogers graduated from the Polytechnic of Central London. She took her M.Sc at Bedford College. "Subsequently I gained employment as a research officer in the Legal Department of National Mind, exploring the implementation of Section 136 of the Mental Health Act and became interested in a broad range of mental health issues including civil commiment, coercion, drug treatments and user involvement". (external link) - 1987 - literature - 1991 - 1993 - 1993 -

    29.3.1984 Birth of Mark Gallagher. Using material from the archives, which we copied for him in June 2012, Mark researched and wrote about the Scottish Union of Mental Patients formed in 1971. The Survivors History Group will be discussing his work in London in November 2017.

    2.3.1984 Cherry Allfree thirty-six.

    May 1984 Death of Peter Barnes (aged 58) registered Camden, London. Living in a Camden hostel at the time, he died in hospital after a sudden coronary. Mary was living "in the flat in Devon". She arranged the Requiem Mass in a church in Kentish Town. "many people from where he worked and from where he lived, came to the funeral. Joe and Leon were there, and people who knew us both when we were children". Their parents had died. Ruth was in South Africa and Dorothy in Australia. Mary arranged for the flowers from Ruth and Dorothy. "It was a very beautiful service". (Barnes and Scott 1989 p.31)

    Wednesday 9.5.1984 C. Heginbotham and Chris Shaw from Mind questioned by Social Services Committee. No mention of consumer's voice. Miss Shaw spoke about " annual conferences directed towards a very large professional audience with topical themes each year, for example the forthcoming one is going to be on the whole range of after care and is there life after mental illness and the rehabilitation services which are available" (SSC 1985 volume 2, page 142).

    Wednesday 16.5.1984 Alison Wertheimer, Tom McLean and Derek Thomas from Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People questioned by Social Services Committee. The memorandum submitted by the group contained recommendations (SSC 1985 volume 2, pages 190-191), including

    1) All policy-making and planning ... should take the principle of normalisation as the starting point

    2) Consumer involvement Far greater consumer involvement is needed at all levels of service planning, management and delivery. The consumer is primarily the person with mental handicap although some people may also need or wish others (families, friends) to advocate on their behalf. We should like to see much greater support for the growing self-advocacy movement in this country."

    Wednesday 25.5.1984: mental handicap schemes are on the move ... mental illness schemes remain ... stuck in the ... tramlines

    Summer 1984 Hackney Mental Health Action Group formed "by local patients, ex-patients and other people". Doug Tilbury, a Hackney Social Worker who had been a friend of Hackney Mental Patients Union, was a key person in this group. Apart from Doug, the activists I remember were patients: Including Cathy Pelican [Pelikan?] - Ian Ray-Todd - Lisa Haywood - Jim Read - David Kessel - Jim has suggested that the group was a spin-off from the Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee - But that does not fit the sequence here.

    Lisa Haywood: First written mention found 14.3.1986 - Chamh AGM 1986 - Meeting with Chris Higginbottom - Day Hospital Committee - Mind Consumers Advisory Panel - 9.10.1987 election - 1989 to December 2006: Member of National Mind Council of Management - Mindlink South East Steering Group - January 1994 Advice and Outreach Manager, City and Hackney Mind - Mind election 1994 - Mind election 1995 - Vice Chair, Policies, National Mind - August 1998 - October 2004 Director, City and Hackney Mind. - January 2006 Mind support - 6.12.2006 ceased being vice-chair and management committee member of Mind. About here that Haywood Consultancy established - involvement in National Survivor User Network

    Saturday 23.6.1984 Launch of The Phoenix patients' publication at the "Conference on Normality, Normalism and Mental Health" - alternatively billed as Phoenix Cooperative Discussion on "Mental Health and Illness". 2pm-6pm Stoke Newington Community Centre, Old Fire Station, Leswin Road, N16.

    July 1984 Death of Michael Martin in Broadmoor. "Died after being stripped, injected with antipsychotics and placed in seclusion".

    August 1984 Women and Mental Health group meeting in Hackney

    1.8.1984 Following an overdose, Valerie (Argent) Roberts was admitted to Hackney Hospital. Discarded poems were rescued from the waste paper bin. She was a psychiatric inpatient until November, after which she was a day patient for several years. This was a period of poetic and organisational creativity. The organisational creativity may have been helped by her being a Community Health Council member. - See Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee

    26.9.1984 The Guardian: "'The agony of tranquillity': Jim Read and Kath Arnold, who both once took tranquillisers and now run groups for users, cite Tamara's case to show the pitfalls of withdrawal and how to cope with them". - See - 1.11.1984 - 28.1.1985 - 3.7.1985 - 16.7.1985 - October/November1985 - 8.1.1988 - October/November 1988 - Survivors Speak Out - - 1996 employed on Open University K257 - 2003: On Our Own Terms -

    22.10.1984 to 23.10.1984 Mind Annual Conference (Kensington Town Hall). Theme "Life after Mental Illness? Opportunities in an Age of Unemployment" - Possibly the first with a user presentation (By members of Glasgow Link clubs) - Also Chesterfield presentation. The conference notices mention three "special features" this year:

    • Greater opportunity for conference members to make their own contribution to the conference.
    • Particular attention to the potential of voluntary groups like MIND associations.
    • Listening to what former sufferers from mental illness say about what really matters where life after mental illness is concerned.

    1.11.1984 Community Care "Not so tranquil" by Kath Arnold and Jim Read. It ends: "The Government recently announced life sentences for heroin pushers. What is to be done about the entirely legal, highly profitable and even more destructive trade in tranquillisers?"

    November 1984 A reading and celebration of the life of Howard Mingham, who had died in June (possibly earlier). [ Emmy van Deurzen on Twitter gives the date as 1.4.1984]

    end of 1984 Conference in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, on plans to close the mental hospitals. It "became apparent" that an open, democratic, forum for debate about all mental health issues was needed and, out of this, the magazine Asylum was conceived

    # 1984-1985 Anne O'Donnell studied Plant Science at University College, Cork. See Beyond Diagnosis - 2002 - February 2005 - 2007 - June 2012

    1985

    In the United Kingdom, the mid 1980s saw a revitalisation of locally organised democratic organisations of mental patients, linked together in networks. Support and funding for these developments from national organisations, notable Mind, meant that the movement had the potential to grow and that some user/survivors could develop a career as advocates of one kind or another.

    Something exciting beginning to happen? . The perception of dramatic national change, between September 1983 and the summer of 1986, focused on November 1985, was the subjective experience of Peter Campbell, moving from "isolation" to being "privileged at conferences". Peter argued, in the summer of 1986, that his subjective experience mirrored "the comparative rapidity of the consumer movement's advance out of obscurity" (A View from the Gatehouse, by Peter Campbell Asylum Summer 1986, pages 8-9

    For four years prior to 1989 (An October 1989 Report) "the development team at Good Practices in Mental Health (GPMH)... focused on establishing district-wide user-only mental forums. Examples include the Islington Forum, Lewisham Users Forum and, most recently, Connections in Harrow"

    Winter 1984/1985 - Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee established. [Note that in February 1987, Lisa Haywood said this had existed for "2+ years"]. Those active in estabishing this included (I believe) Valerie (Argent) Roberts - Sheila Nash - Connie - Kathy (Cathy Pelikan?) and Sylvia. Alan Leader joined sometime later.

    1985 Alan Hartman went to Manchester. See Manchester index.

    1985 Terry Simpson "After my last hospitalisation ... I told my doctor I intended to stop takin psychiatric drugs. He laughed and said I would be ill for the rest of my life... For two weeks I had horrible flu- like symptoms... Then quite suddenly I felt better". Terry was helped by the "healing space" of a co-counselling group whose "other members were a teacher, a general practitioner (family doctor), and a student about to become a university lecturer, who all had experience of being a patient in a mental health institution" weblink provided - archive

    Ireland index Aware "formed in 1985 by a group of interested patients, relatives and mental health professionals, whose aims are to assist that section of the population whoses lives are directly affected by depression". (website)

    1985 The Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People founded. One of its founders was Ken Lumb. - External link to website - National Archive snapshot 26.1.2012 .

    January 1985 Frank Bangay's Stigma No.3, a poem that was published in What They Teach in Song - "You see, I believe in causing a fuss - at least we can... make someone think".

    28.1.1985 Social Work Today 'Fighting mad' by Jim Read, who describes it as his "personal manifesto" and comments that he "cannot imagine getting such an article into a professional journal today". It ends "But what will also be required is a challenge to the basic structures of our social, political and economic system. Capitalism depends too much on turning love and happiness into rare commodities. The change we want, the wresting back of control over our lives, will come more readily if everyone recognises the part the mental health system plays in keeping us all in place, and we challenge it at every opportunity".

    30.1.1985 Printing of the Second Report from the Social Services Committee - 1984-1985 session - on "Community Care with special reference to adult mentally ill and mentally handicapped people". [Government response was Series: Cmnd.; 9674]

    Consumer voice paragraph 31:

    "...we have had difficulty in hearing the authentic voice of the ultimate consumers of community care. There have been considerable advances in techniques designed to enable and encourage mentally ill or handicapped people to speak for themselves... But there is a long way to go. Services are still mainly designed by providers and not users, whether families or clients, and in response to blueprints rather than in answer to demand. Matching the service to the consumer rather than vice versa should be the one central aim of community care in the future. We recommend that all agencies responsible ensure that plans for services are devised with as well as for mentally disabled people and their families"

    Consumer view paragraph 148:

    "Too little attention has been paid in the past to the views of those most closely affected by the policy of community care - mentally ill and mentally handicapped people and their families... Many of the less severely disable are able to express their needs and wishes most articulately, as the Committee saw and heard on visits. For those unable to express their own wishes, some form of advocacy may be very helpful."

    We recommend that the Department lay an obligation on authorities to ascertain so far as practicable, and give due consideration to, the wishes and feelings of mentally disabled individuals for whom a service is provided, and in particular where closure of a long-stay facility is contemplated. We also recommend that efforts be made to facilitate the participation of individual mentally disabled people in the planning and management of services

    [Bold in original. In examining the report and the evidence, it is clear that the impetus for the "consumer view" did not come from organisations like Mind, but from organisations like Campaign for Mentally Handicapped People, and from the Committee itself.]

    MIND Consumer Network (idea for)
    "the idea of a Consumer Network has been around for some time and was in fact presented to the policy committee in
    January 1985. The idea was endorsed by the Council of Management in July 1985" (Ballot 1 Autumn 1986) - See 30.11.1985 - 18.4.1986 - Autumn 1986 - Summer 1987

    March 1985 PROMPT changed its name to CAPO

    2.3.1985 Cherry Allfree thirty-seven.

    5.3.1985
    Defeated miners return to work.
    Contesting Psychiatry argues that the survivors' movement is a consumers' movement that is post-unionism.

    16.3.1985 British Network for Alternatives to Psychiatry Study day on Closure of the Mental Hospitals ("in which we looked at the processes and objectives of current plans for the closure of large psychiatric institutions.)

    11.4.1985 Annual General Meeting of the Grimsby Cleethorpes and District Local Association for Mental Health Presentation of Life after Mental Illness by the Education and Action Group. In Inside Out Issue 8, p.5, Christine Cowan) adds that the show will be presented at Brighton in July. "Graham Kennedy, Christine Cowan and Thomas Graham who appear on the slide show have been invited to participate in the conference along with LINK/GAMH's Assistant Director, Jo Burns. All will be taking an active role in the presentation and anticipate a lively audience discussion afterwards. The... Congress... is a unique opportunity for users of psychiatric services to air their views and be taken seriously. Money is the real problem for financing the trip, and any donations would be greatly appreciated. Please send to Education and Action Group, LINK/GAMH, 2 Queen's Crescent. Glasgow". It is not clear if they got to Brighton. Jo Burns spoke on "New Approaches to Women and Mental health in Scotland".

    Summer 1985 Family History Group at the Hackney Day Hospital (Mondays). Members co-counselled for support. Each drew up a family chart and a chronology of his or her life. Valerie Argent's work has fed into this chronology.

    July 1985 British Network for Alternatives to Psychiatry paper "How would you plan a psychiatric service in Britain, and for what end?"

    Summer 1985 "Empowering the patient", a two day workshop organised jointly by Nottingham Mind and Nottingham Health Authority. Ingrid Peck (Ingrid Barker) was Development Officer for Nottingham Mind and her partner, Edward Peck, was Sector Team Adminsitrator, Mental Illness Unit, for Nottingham Health Authority.

    See World Congress 1985 - 16.7.1985 - meeting after the World Congress - Barker and Peck 1987 - Literature - 16.5.1988 - 22.6.1991

    "Ingrid Barker is committed to user involvement and advocacy particularly in mental health services and she led the establishment of the first mental health Patients Councils and Advocacy projects in Britain". (external source) - See allies



    July 1985 World Congress of Mental Health in Brighton.
    Speaking from Experience - a video about user involvement compiled and presented by Thurstine Basset

    Thurstine recalls that in 1985 there was very little interest in the training video and in service user participation amongst the mental health professions. This was "not on their agenda and if anything they were opposed to the idea". Barbara Poole, Mind's conference organiser, was concerned that not enough service users would come to the Patients to People conference in November. To help, Thurstine phoned a day centre in Brighton, which was known to be quite radical, and spoke to the manager. He asked her if she could get together a group of staff and service users to go to the conference. She was not keen and he thinks her response "but we go to conferences to get a break from the clients" says a lot about staff attitudes at the time.

    The following is the text of a handwritten leaflet distributed at the conference by some ex-patients from Holland:
    The Congress Mental Health 2000 is supporting injustice

    by not rejecting 'expert' knowledge of psychiatrists

    By calling human suffering illness the oppression is obscured.

    Consumers are not mad, BUT ANGRY

    By continuing the idea that you can talk for somebody else.

    Make it possible for all consumers movements to come and to speak for themselves.

    The need to change all this will be really helped by:

    - no 'generous' moneygiving to some consumers (the English CAPO was hidden away between the entrance and the elevator).

    GIVE FREE ENTRANCE TO ALL CONSUMERS

    and offer to share all their costs

    - not only rational stilted talks but moveable emotional/warm meetings too, where you can shout, scream, touch, cry, to express your anger!

    - TO CHOOSE TO CONFRONT the Conflicts rather than to pretend "harmony". Conflicts are necessary to change unequality, which is denied. But: out of their 'expert' superior position psychiatrists define real conflicts as "personal problems".

    It is significant that the elitist nature of the Congress is reflected in its having been held at such venues as the Brighton Cnference Centre and hotel Metropole etc. Why not organise it during the holidays in empty school buildings, where each group can cook once??

    Joyce, Monique, Aukje, Doetie

    Translated and corrected by Siobhan Kilgurriff

    Monique vld Mye / ex-consumer, worker in "patient movement"

    Doetie Bakker / starter of some mad things, no more consumer

    Aukje Westra / have been "mad", now working for "opatients" councils

    Joyce Huugland / starter of a run away house, unemployed full of activities

    3.7.1985 Peace News "To be ourselves - challenging the abuses of psychiatry" by Jim Read. It included a list of resources such as the videos Speaking from Experience - We're not Mad - We're Angry [??] - and Psychiatric Oppression

    16.7.1985 Jim Read attended a branch meeting of Hackney Workers Educational Association to discuss running a class on "Your Mind in their Hands - Politics of Mental Health" at Centerprise. The course ran on Tuesdays from 17.9.1985.

    Ceramic Hobs Summer 1985 Ceramic Hobs band started. Members are largely current or ex-psychiatric patients. Bedrooms and Knobsticks in 1988 contained one of their songs. After 1988 their existence ceased until relaunched in 1995. Four albums since - Psychiatric Underground (1998), Straight outta Rampton (2001), Shergar is home safe and well (2004) and Al Al Who.

    The critique by Deni is quoted in the sleeve notes of Shaolin Master (2002), a song from Straight outta Rampton on a 7". See facebook

    5.9.1985 Victoria Helen Smith born. External link to biography - 2002 website

    October/November 1985 OpenMind No 17 "Getting Back to the Starting Line" - Jim Read's personal story about being in The Cassel therapeutic community, with some more general comment about its strengths and weaknesses.

    Monday 8.10.1985 Chamh Annual General Meeting at Shoreditch Health Centre. Jim Read had been appointed as Chamh's (first) counsellor and was due to start in November.

    Wednesday 20.11.1985 Mental Distress in Old Age: Time for Action published by City and Hackney Community Health Council.

    1995/1996 was the official start of the survivor movement in England

    That is - it is the date that has been celebrated as the start by bodies such as Mind and the Centre for Excellence in Birmingham.

    Thursday 28.11.1985 and Friday 29.11.1985 Mind Annual Conference From Patients to People

    Charlie Reid (left) - Elvira Ridley (top) - Thomas 'Tam' Graham (front) - Kathy (top right) - and Vince Edkins (far right), members of Glasgow Link group, feature on the cover of Social Work Today on Monday 9.12.1985. With Viorel Vernea, they had made a presentation at the Mind conference in Kensington Town Hall. With them in the photograph are (centre) Jo Burns, a worker from Glasgow Link clubs - and a gentleman we have not identified (bottom right) who is holding the slides used to make the presentation. They are sitting on the steps of Kensington Town Hall after making the presentation.

    4.12.1985 Lord Ennals in the House of Lords: "a two-day national conference organised last week by MIND, under the heading "Patients become People"... I believe that people who are patients must be consulted about their own future. They are people as well as patients... There is no question of patient power. It is saying that patients are people. They should be consulted about their own future. Often of course they are in no position to decide their own future, but they should be consulted about it... full consumer participation in service planning and delivery should take place as of right

    Lord Mottistone House of Lords: "I have here the programme of the conference that he chaired last week. I must confess that the titles of the subjects spoken about frighten me. It seemed to be a conference more on the politics of civil liberties than on care for the mentally disabled."

    December/January 1985/1986 Peter Cambell in Open Mind "It seems MIND wants to run things on their terms. It is MIND for the mentally ill not MIND with the mentally ill."

    1986

    Finding Our Own Solutions: Women's experience of mental health care by Women in Mind, published by Mind in 1986.

    Mentions - Women's therapy in Yorkshire begining 1979 (pages 77-81) - White City Estate, West London, project, initiated by Sue Holland in 1980 (pages 81-83) - Birmingham Women's Counselling and Therapy Centre, planned 1981-1983 (pages 84-85) - Bristol Women and Mental Health (first open meeting 1984) generated Womankind (pages 102-103) - 1983 Scottish Women's Health Fair and Glasgow Women's Health Fair (pages 103-104) - Islington Women and Mental Health (grant 1983). Jan Wallcraft - Womantalk, York, Summer 1985, the first women's studies class for women receiving psychiatric treatment. Organised by Marilyn Crawshaw. A second class started in Leeds. (pages 71-4). -


    Womankind

    Womankind, Bristol Women's Therapy Centre was established in 1986 as a registered charity. "We provide counselling, group therapy and on-going support to women in the Bristol area" (2009). (website)

    Finding Our Own Solutions 1986 description: . A Woman and Mental Health group set up in May 1985 to explore funding possibilities secured "funding under the DHSS Helping the Community to Care scheme". Womankind is "based at the university settlement in Bristol" [website] "accountable to the settlement but managed by a separate committee". Aims to provide effective mental health resources for women - to initiate self-help groups - to assess need accurately - to promote health - to provide information - to liaise with other agencies. "It is a multi-racial project which aims to confront racism, oppressive stereotypes and prejudices of all kinds. Womankind evolved because women from different backgrounds wanted to gain an overall picture of how women are seen and treated inside and outside the mental health system. We hoped to develop and understanding of what it is about women's lives that leads so many to seek help from the medical, psychiatric and social services." "There are three paid workers - two development workers (one black, one white), and a coordinator". (Finding Our Own Solutions pages 102-103)

    August 1988 description: A women and mental health self-help project, employing workers with special responsibility for working [with?] Black women and women from other ethnic minorities, a volunteer coordinator and a worker helping woman coming off tranx. Support for self-help groups, information, contacts, workshops, talks on women's mental health needs, drop-in groups, resources for black women. (Mindwaves August 1988) See Summer 1986 - Asylum Summer 1987 - Address List May 1988 - Survivors Speak Out 10.9.1988


    Bristol Crisis Service for Women

    "Bristol Crisis Service for Women is a voluntary organisation and a charity. We were set up in 1986, to support women in emotional distress. We particularly help women who harm themselves (often called self-injury). This is how some people cope with their feelings and problems." (source old website, now redirects - archive - new website)

    Founder members included Maggy Ross and Diane Harrison."for the first time in my life" [I] "met other people who self-injured. I no longer felt a freak, I found some people who understood because they shared similar experiences" (Diane Harrison)

    Notes from Mark Cresswell:

    1986 - a group of women , mostly self-harmers, meet under the auspices of BWMHN [Bristol Women and Mental Health?]. At this stage the membership of the group seems to have been Maggy Ross, Diane Harrison, 'Jane', 'Sally', 'Holly' and 'Anne' (see Ross, 1988).They provide mutual support and 'begin to discuss the possibility of starting a telephone crisis line run exclusively by women for women facing these crises' (Ross, 1988: 46; see also Harrison [in Pembroke], 1994: 8).

    1987 - this planning and support continue. Tamsin Wilton (1995 p.28) informs us that she was "active in setting up and running the helpline from 1987-89"

    January 1988 Telephone crisis line started.

    1986 Brent Mental Health User Group (BUG) "is one of the oldest independent user groups in the country. The organisation was set up in 1986 by local people using services in Brent to deal with mental health issues and has since continued to go from strength to strength". website - archive - 2017 a good archive!

    Spring? 1986 Ealing Mental Health Action Group

    Probably 1986 that David Hill became director at Mind in Camden. "He is certainly signing himself as director in early 1987" (Peter Campbell)

    1986 Pageant: Survivors Speak Out
    January 1986 A series of weekend meetings at Minstead Lodge in the New Forest were paid for by the
    King's Fund, on the initiative of Lorraine Bell. Survivors Speak Out was set up. The first meeting (24.1.1986-26.1.1986) was of about twenty people - much larger numbers came to later ones (August 1986 - January 1987 - and August 1987). Users of a Chesterfield day centre were bused down, picking up people from Nottingham on the way. [Interview 11 in Contesting Psychiatry]. The Chesterfield connection was an important point in establishing the autumn 1987 event at Edale - Helen Smith from the King's Fund Centre remained an ally, and the King's Fund Centre continued to make a financial contribution to Survivors Speak Out for a period of at least four years (Anne Plumb). Lorraine described an animated discussion in which the name Survivors Speak Out was decided on - with survivor defined as

    "survivors of a mental health system which eroded our confidence and dignity, and survivors of difficult life experiences which took us into the system (Power in Strange Places p.16)"

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 speaks of the emergence of the "first national networks of service users/survivors" (But see the Federation of Mental Patients Unions). "Survivors Speak Out network ... initially for mental health service users/survivors and allies in UK, eventually allies' role reduced. Peak membership 950."

    Until 1988, Survivors Speak Out was the main network available to mental health service users. Mind Link formed in 1988. The National Advocacy Network (later UKAN) in 1990. Voices started in 1986, but only became a network in the 1990s.

    Survivors Speak Out
    by
    Peter Campbell February 2010

    Peter was active in the formation of Survivors Speak Out (from the November 1985 preliminary meeting). He was its first "Newssheet" editor (from summer 1986) and played a lead role at Edale in September 1987. He was (formally) elected Secretary at the first Annual General Meeting in September 1988. Louise Pembroke was elected Education Officer. Peter appears to have remained Secretary and (with assistance) Newssheet editor, until 1996, when Louise became secretary.

    Survivors Speak Out was founded early in 1986. For more than ten years it was an important networking organisation for the growing survivor movement. It owes its foundation to concerns that no UK service were represented at the important World Federation for Mental Health conference in Brighton in the summer of 1985. Some money was found to enable two [?] meetings of survivors and their allies to take place and at the second of these, at Minstead Lodge in the New Forest, the organisation was established and its name chosen. [The name was chosen at the January 1986 meeting - the first at Minstead Lodge.]

    Survivors Speak Out had an individual membership with groups being able to affiliate. There were two categories of individual membership - survivor and ally, an ally being someone who supported the group's aims and objectives but did not define themselves as survivors/service users. A number of allies played an important role in helping the organisation get on its feet but when the constitution was developed [See 1988] and voted through allies were given no vote at AGMs and could not stand for the coordinating group [See 1990]. Nevertheless, Survivors Speak Out continued to have an ally membership throughout the remainder of the 1980s and the 1990s.

    The main objectives of the organisation in the beginning was to produce a newsletter [Began summer 1986] and, most importantly, to organise a national conference where survivor activists could come together. This eventually took place over a weekend at Edale Youth Hostel in the Peak District in the autumn of 1987. The event was important as it brought people from different parts of the UK together for the first time. About 100 people attended, including a small number of allies. Not all the attendees were members of Survivors Speak Out. A Charter of Needs and Demands was unanimously agreed and a public statement opposing Community Treatment Orders was also agreed.

    In the months following the Edale Conference it became clear that Survivors Speak Out did not have the resources to adopt a regional structure. Apart from anything else, Mindlink was fast developing, building on Mind's [then] regional structure. Nevertheless, Survivors Speak Out played an important part in spreading the word about the possibilities of "self-advocacy" by sending speakers to local events where service users were discussing action and by producing and selling a Self-Advocacy Action Pack [early 1989] with practical advice about how to set up and run a local action group.

    Anne Plumb (Manchester member) says that the two activities that did most to hold the national group together were the Annual General Meetings and the newsletters.

    Although Survivors Speak Out had coordinating group members from different parts of the country, most of its core group came from London and the South East. As a result it was often seen as a London group. For the first few years [1986-1992] the organisation had no office or paid worker but operated from the Secretary's front room. Eventually it acquired an office base and an information worker [1992] who ran an information service. She was later joined by an administrative worker. Throughout its history Survivors Speak Out was being run on relatively small funds.

    Gloria Gifford was Information Network Co-ordinator from 1992 to 1996.

    In addition to the Self-Advocacy Action Pack, Survivors Speak Out produced three other publications - Eating Distress [1992] - Stopovers on my Journey Home From Mars [1993] (a comparison of service user/survivor action in the USA, United Kingdom and Europe - Self Harm: Perspectives From Personal Experience [1994]. The latter was the most successful publication, proving to be a pioneering work that is still in demand.

    Survivors Speak Out was more involved in facilitating action than in traditional campaigning. It did campaign and lobby to promote "self- advocacy". It did not, by and large, have agreed policies that it campaigned around. One exception to this is compulsion and the Mental Health Act where the group was always active, opposing any extension of compulsory powers in the Act. For some years it seemed that its work was helping to slow the move towards greater compulsory power but eventually, the 2007 amendments to the Mental Health Act, including the introduction of Community Treatment Orders proved a defeat for its long-held position. A position it shared with much of the service user/survivor movement. Survivors Speak Out's influence waned towards the end of the 1990s. This was partly due to an inability to effectively replace the original core group when they stood back from involvement and partly due to funding drying up. It seems that Survivors Speak Out was never formally wound up but it no longer plays an active part in the survivor movement as we enter the second decade of the new millennium.


    January 1986: Start of Nottingham Patients Council Support Group. This group led to the establishment of Mapperley Patients Council in September 1986 and the Nottingham Advocacy Group in 1987 - [See advocacy] - On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says this was an early example of the "first patients' councils and user-led advocacy projects" (starting 1986). A meeting organised by Nottingham Advocacy Group, in 1990, led to the formation of the United Kingdom Advocacy Network.

    Another patients' council identified by On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 is Hackney Patients' Council. This may refer to the Day Hospital Committee (see above and below. The organisation called Hackney Patients Council dates from 1994.

    The video Speaking from Experience was used as an aid in the setting up of patients' councils in Nottingham and Newcastle in 1986.

    January 1986 DHSS Draft Circular Collaboration between the NHS, Local Government and Voluntary Organisations [See Joint Planning]

    "planning should be directed towards meeting the needs of individual patients and clients... Service providers, clients, their families and community representatives including those of ethnic minorities are to have the opportunity to make a contribution to planning, ensuring the plans are seen by consumers..." (quoted Collaboration for Change p.4)

    2.3.1986 Cherry Allfree thirty-eight.

    Friday 14.3.1986 Lisa Haywood was the contact person (it circulated each month) for the Hackney Mental Health Action Group meeting at The Old Fire Station.

    March? 1986 Barnet Action for Mental Health (BAMH) established. The Community Health Council being the prime mover. The initial input was mainly from professionals. By September 1988, more users were involved. They had grants from National Mind, the local authority and the King's Fund.

    North West Mind conference at Crawshawbooth, Lancashire
    18.4.1986 to 20.4.1986 "over the weekend of" - "concerned totally with involving consumers in Mind services" -
    Crawshawbooth resolution conceived towards end.

    Spring 1986 (Before 17.5.1986) Inside Out! Hackney's Mental Health Newsletter No.1. "Some of us have been 'inside' and now we are 'out' as survivors of the mental health system." This carried a notice about "We're not Mad - We're Angry", inviting people interested in being interviewed to contact Dee Kraijj, Andy Smith or Peter Campbell. Inside Out could be contacted at the City and Hackney Community Health Council.

    Spring 1986

    Asylum - A Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry



    Asylum sought to be "the freest possible non-partisan forum for anyone in any way involved in mental health work" - [Link to box of more information including weblinks and index]

    The first issue had substantial material on or including the Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression. The second included some opposite points of view

    Spring 1986: The first membership of Survivors Speak Out enrolled at a meeting in Ivy Buckland's hotel bedroom at a conference in Newcastle. (Survivors Speak Out Newsheet December 1988 , p.6)

    12.1.1986 A meeting of the Working Party on Major Tranquilisers, chaired by David Hill with notes taken by Douglas Gill. "As the group was unexpectedly large the table was moved into one corner of the kitchen, and everyone spoke in turn about their particular interests". Others present in order of speaking: Steve Brewer, Eric Irwin, John Hoolahan, Christopher Rourke, Mike Lawson, Frank Bangay. Also present Nick Simons, Elena, Ivan Ellingham, Jackie and Stephan Ticktin.

    9.5.1986 Meetings starting at Hackney Psychiatric Day Hospital under the umbrella of the City and Hackney Community Health Council, Mental Health Working Group. They were a developement of the Hackney Day Hospital Patients Committee established by patients over a year before. As one of the participants, I (Andrew Roberts) see this as revisiting the meetings first set up in July 1974. Valerie Argent (Roberts) and Lorna Mitchison were active in setting the meetings up and Sheila Nash chaired. There is a report of the meetings from Alan Leader in minutes of 2.11.1986 and a newsletter in Spring 1987 reported on the development of this Patients Committee.

    Saturday 17.5.1986 HMHAG (Hackney Mental Health Action Group) public meeting: Psychiatric Treatment: Are Drugs Really Necessary? Homerton Library. Andrew Roberts chaired. David Hill, Peter Campbell, Valerie Argent and many others present. Continued at 177 Glenarm Road afterwards. Andrew Roberts making the sandwiches (so does not know what was talked about).

    Saturday 2.8.1986 - Sunday 2.8.1986

    "Will anyone wanting to go to MINSTEAD LODGE for the Survivors Speak Out weekend (AUGUST 2-3) contact Peter immediately on 450 4631 - DAVE KESSEL please note !! - or you won't get a place - Peter will answer any queries." (Hackney Mental Health Action Group notice for its own meeting on Friday 11.7.1986)

    Summer 1986 Asylum number 2: page 11 notice:
    Survivors Speak Out Survivors Speak Out Conference 1986 is to be organised after discussion between members of the following groups
    Link: Glasgow Association for Mental Health
    Contact: Tontine Road Centre, Chesterfield
    Bristol Women and Mental Health Survivors Group
    Womankind, Bristol
    CAPO (Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression)
    Camden Mental Health Consortium
    British Network for Alternatives to Psychiatry
    Nottingham Mind
    Hackney Mental Health Action Group
    South West Mind

    Survivors Speak Out wishes to launch a national self-advocacy movement for users of the psychiatric services. Our first goal is to hold the national conference, for which we are currently raising funds. [Contact Ivy Buckland, Tontine Road Centre]

    Summer 1986 Survivors Speak Out No.1 - 50p

    16.7.1986 First Meeting of the Independent Living Committee of Hackney Forum for Disability. Sheila Nash represented mental health serivce users.

    Late summer 1986? Alan Leader became a mental health service user in Hackney Day Hospital - and an instantaneous patient activist.

    September 1986 United Nations launch of the International Year of Special Olympics under the banner "Special Olympics-Uniting the World". In February 1988 the International Olympic Committee signed an agreement with Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver officially endorsing and recognising Special Olympics.

    Autumn 1986? Crisis Line - Bristol set up for women in distress. Took calls from women all over the country.

    November 1986 Wouter van de Graaf interviewed Eric Irwin and Frank Bangay for Asylum. The interview was arranged because of Eric and Frank's concern about criticisms of CAPO in Asylum. Wouther van de Graaf unintentionally returned to the Netherlands with the tape of the interview and, consequently, it was not published until April 1989. In the interview, Eric gave the first account I have traced of the 1973 Mental Patients Union as an origin of anti-psychiatry and the proginator of PROMPT and CAPO:

    "The anti-psychiatry movement of which CAPO is a part goes back to 1973, with the emergence of the Mental Patients' Union and also, in the same year, independently, COPE, which was the Community Organisation for Psychiatric Emergencies. Both these movements ran for three years or so. Then some of us who were in COPE and MPU got together and found PROMPT, which stands for the Promotion of the Rights of Mental Patients in Treatment. That continued until April 1986" [March 1985?] "when it was decided that we no longer wished to have the words 'patients' and ,treatment' in the title. At my suggestion we decided to change it to The Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression (CAPO)"

    Monday 20.10.1986 Chamh Annual General Meeting at Shoreditch Health Centre. Andrew Roberts listed present as a Chamh member; Lorna Mitchinson as from City and Hackney Community Health Council; Lisa Haywood and Ian Ray-Todd with their addresses rather than an organisation. Lisa Haywood was appointed to one of the two positions on the Executive Committee for representatives of "former/current users". The other position remained vacant. These positions had been created by a constitutional amendment at the same meeting, which Lisa had seconded. Jim Read was not listed as present.

    MIND's Annual Conference and AGM 1986
    Mind Annual Conference - Hammersmith 13.11.1986-14.11.1986
    Public Image - Private Pain
    Hammersmith Town Hall, London, W6
    This was another consumer dominated conference. Peter Campbell recalls that "there was a strong negative vibe with people getting up from the floor and saying how badly they had been treated. Nursing Times did an article afterwards accusing us of having nothing positive to offer." (email 4.4.2010). Full (plenary) sessions included a charismatic one by David Brandon (director of North West Mind at the time) and one run by three or four members of Survivors Speak Out. The collective who made We're not Mad - We're Angry ran a workshop about the making of the film. Survivors Speak Out and the The British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry both ran stalls. This may have been the first time survivor groups had stalls at the conference, as they did in many subsequent years (and I expect still do). Survivors Speak Out lobbied Mind for a survivor run quiet room at conferences. Peter cannot recall if one was provided at this conference (email 6.4.2010). Entertainments, organised by Frank Bangay, took place in a pub in Parsons Green, Fulham. A handbill for the survives.

    MIND Consumer Network (ballot for)
    Friday 14.11.1986 Ballot 1: "As a matter of urgency MIND (NAMH) should develop a broad based consumer network to ensure that Mind's policy and work is informed by and reflects the views of consumers of mental health services". Ballot 2: The
    Crawshawbooth resolution to Mind National Conference: "All local associations must include at least one consumer of mental health services on any management or executive committee by 1.4.1987".

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1986 onwards Media impact is made by the emerging movement: Many individuals speak out on radio, TV and in published articles."

    17.11.1986 We're Not Mad We're Angry 70 minute TV programme/video on Channel 4 from 11pm to ten minutes past midnight. (See Multiple Image Productions. Led by survivors, it was critical of the biomedical model of mental illness. White and black survivors give their perspectives on mental health services. Shown as part of the MIND'S EYE season (a critique of Britain's psychiatric system from the patients perspective), it is the result of two years collaboration with a collective of present and former psychiatric patients. The producer was Tim Langford and the director John Hay. - A 64 minute version is available from Concord Media

    Re-shown in September 1987

    November 1986 Breakdown on Capital Radio, produced by Peter Simmons and Mark Halliley. Mental breakdown as experienced by two young Londoners. The man is Mike Lawson, who put the programme online in August 2009. - offline - The woman remained anonymous. "A marvellous example of sound employed to open up another realm of consciousness" (The Times of London). Breakdown won Gold at the New York Radio Festival was specially commended in the Prix Futura Berlin. Mind distributed a tape of the programme. Cover illustration: Phill Ellinston. Capital Radio PLC. 1986. Thurstine Basset's collection.

    21.11.1986 Meeting of Hackney Mental Health Action Group received a report from "Alan (who is on the committee)" [Alan Leader] relating to the Patients Committee at the Day Hospital. "We also discussed the effectiveness of the Patients' commitee and the Dutch model of Patients' Councils. Jim will contact Lorraine Bell to see if she knows about videos or speakers about the patients councils. Lorraine was the contact for the next national meeting of Survivors Speak Out, noted at the same meeting.


    24.11.1986 Meeting that established The National Voices Forum. Established by the National Schizophrenia Fellowship - See 1988 - It changed its name to The National Perceptions Forum Link to website about 2007, when it celebrated its 21st birthday. This is a network "for people who have experienced schizophrenia" for mutual support and recovery, and to eliminate stigma and misunderstanding. The group never described iteslf as being for people with the "diagnosis of schizophrenia" as it considered people should be "the judge of their own experience". (Email from Graham Estop 14.3.2014). On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 gives its "peak membership" as 500, but Graham says (same email) "having worked as its coordinator, and having set up its membership database, I'd put it at nearly 800." The Forum's magazine Perceptions started in 2000 - Some web archive links: - official site started 20.4.2001 - The leaflet on the web is first recorded 3.8.2001 - Zyra's copy started on 25.12.2001.

    zyra.org.uk registered to Zyra 5.7.2000. - voicesforum.org.uk registered to "Graham Estop, National Voices Forum" 12.2.2001 - perceptionsforum.org.uk registered to Christopher Barchard 24.1.2007

    26.11.1986 "Removing labels - Psychiatric nurses were given a dressing down by the users of the service at the mental health pressure group MIND's annual conference. Martin Vousden found out why." Nursing Times. 26.11.1986. "many of those who spoke from the floor and conference platform, also appeared in the Channel 4 television programme We're Not Mad, We're Angry, transmitted a week after the conference. Which is appropriate timing because the conference was ... intended to look at how public images of mental illness are formed".

    November 1986 Meeting of patients and ex-patients of North Manchester General Hospital that started a weekly group which eventually became Manchester Users Support Group. It had this name by 1989. See 5.4.1989 Having a Voice Conference - article by Alan Hartman in Asylum April 1989 and address c/o Tony Riley in Asylum Autumn 1990. About 2001 Manchester Users Support Group became Manchester Users Network. This established its website in 2008

    Heart 'n Soul was founded in 1986 and based at the Albany Theatre in Deptford. It consisted of a small band and 12 performers. All people with learning difficulties.

    London Disability Arts Forum was founded in 1986 (website)

    See Cresswell, M. 2004 for some of the following

    1986 What They Teach In Song - Poetry About Psychiatric Experience - The first? CAPO collection.

    1987

    "Yvonne Christie lives in South East London and has been an advocate for improved changes in mental health services for two decades now.

    Yvonne has spent many years looking at addressing inequalities in a range of services with changes in mental health being a key development area. A case in point is working on 'Breaking the Circles of Fear' (SCMH) and Black Spaces (Mental Health Foundation). Yvonne works as an independent consultant and is currently looking at Recovery in relation to Black and Asian people in collaboration with Catch-Afiya and other independent consultants." (Whose Recovery is it Anyway? 2007

    See 1990 - 2008

    In 1987 Mary O'Hagan set up Psychiatric Survivors, in Auckland, New Zealand, after reading On Our Own by Judi Chamberlin.

    1987 Althea and David Brandon Consumers as Colleagues Mind. 34 page pamphlet. Thurstine Basset's collection

    From 1987, Robert Dellar was working for "various Mind affiliations". (Mad Pride 2000, p.211)

    8.1.1987 Chris Harrison minuted at a meeting of HAMHP (Hackney Action for Mentally Handicapped People). He became a regular attender. probably as senior disability officer Hackney Borough Council in succession to Karen Buck. Discussion of taped minutes discussed at next meeting. See Survivors Speak Out May 1991 - Nottingham 26.11.1991 - with Peter Beresford 1996 - April 1998 - with Peter Beresford 2002 -

    9.1.1987 Minutes of Hackney Mental Health Action Group Item 11: "Users Meeting with Chris Higginbottom of MIND Lisa [Haywood] had attended this meeting with users groups from different areas about issues of concern to them. She will now be on the Planning Group for the next MIND Annual Conference ". At the same meeting there was discussion of setting up an in-patients committee at the hospital.

    23.1.1987 - 25.1.1987 A Survivors Speak Out weekend at Minstead Lodge

    18.2.1987 Meeting: " Val Roberts spoke for the Day Hospital Patients' Committee on the problems as seen by the patients, and Lisa Heywood spoke on CHAMH and its involvement with the patients committee over the 2+ years of the committee's existence.

    Saturday 7.3.1987 British Network for Alternatives to Psychiatry Study day on the Use, Abuse and Alternatives to E.C.T and Major Tranquillisers.

    March 1987 Insight (Brighton) formed. In the summer of 1987 about fifteen people were involved and they were seeking funding. "Write to Richard Pennel, Brighton Mental health Group, 17-19 Ditchling Rise, Brighton, BN1 44L" ( Asylum Summer 1987). By September 1988 it consisted of up to 30 users/ex-users and some allies. It met weekly "bi- weekly there is a business meeting where users and workers from the locality are invited to share experiences, knowledge and initiatives". "Insight are quite involved in service planning. Members also have input to ASW training and run other workshops. Members of Insight drew up a draft Charter of Rights" and work was done on rights issues in liason with a local Law Centre. (Survivors Speak Out AGM September 1988)

    Joan Hughes, Tony O'Donnell, David Kessel Tuesday 5.5.1987 Constitution of Hackney Union of Mental Patients set up "for the purpose of obtaining or devising useful and gainful ways of work"

    Joan Hughes, Tony O'Donnell (the founder) and David Kessel prepare to leave the Old Fire Station, Stoke Newington for a Hackney Union of Mental Patients expedition to Walthamstow Marshes


    Members included - John Roberts - Tony O'Donnell - John Confidine - David Kessel - Pat Walters - and Harold Leeson

    May? 1987 Bristol Survivors started after a large meeting to find out what people wanted.

    Address May 1988:-
    BRISTOL SURVIVORS: Secretary Felicity Couch, 139 Ashley Road, Montpelier, Bristol BS6 5NU.

    Autumn 1991 Vivien Lindow: joined the (London based) Survivors Speak Out Coordinating Group

    1994 Self-help alternatives to mental health services by Vivien Lindow. (Also see DATA

    Susan Rooke Matthews and Vivien Lindow 1998

    Notes for AGM August 2005 say "Bristol Survivors Network started off as a branch of Survivors Speak Out over 20 years ago. Survivors Speak Out folded and closed its London office a few years ago, but we kept going mainly due to the commitment of Viv Lindow who unfortunately can't be with us tonight. This is our first AGM, although we have a constitution, we do not follow it to the letter. A Chair is usually decided upon at the meeting and we usually have a Secretary (thanks to Claire Barnard) and a Treasurer. This was Liz Macmin, now Pauline Markovitz with Susan Rooke-Mathews as assistant Treasurer."


    website archive 2008

    20.11.2008 Network's list of Service User/Survivor Support Groups

    Over recent years those of us suffering from mental 'illness' have started to organise ourselves in order to offer mutual support and to fight for each other. Free from the control of funding bodies or the supervision of professionals. For me they provide great hope for the future - at least as much as the prospect of the medical industry coming up with new drugs.

    Local

    The Patients Council
    Open to all survivors/service users whether they have been to hospital or not. Helen Hamilton is the paid worker for the group.
    The Patients Council, Callington Road Hospital, Marmalade Lane, Brislington, Bristol, BS4 5BT
    Tel: 0117 919 5617

    Kaleidescope
    As a mental health service user group which also welcomes carers, this is a progressive self help, lobbying and consultation group. They engage in consultation with statutory and voluntary sectors to help share services we use. Monthly meetings, guest speakers and a chance to access wider mental health arena e.g. training,, conferences and an opportunity to engage in lifelong learning, build confidence, overcome social isolation and become empowered in a friendly, supportive environment. Meetings are held monthly Marine Hill CMHT, Marine Hill, Clevedon. (Please call to check venue before you go)
    Meetings happen on the third Wednesday of the month from 2.30pm to 4.30pm.
    Contact: Sue Ricketts 01275 853 960

    Bristol Survivors Network
    This is a Bristol-wide group that helps and supports by campaigning for anyone with mental health problems. Meetings are held on the last thurs of every month (except Dec). For further information on where meetings are being held please call tel no below.
    Bristol Survivors Network, PO Box 2505, Bristol, BS6 9AJ Tel : Pauline - 0117 924 8124 (daytime only) or Susan - 0117 923 1796 (daytime only)

    S.U.N - Southmead Users Network
    This is a campaign and support group and members need not have attended Southmead Hospital or be located in the Southmead Ward for further information ring 07765 307 134 (weekdays 11am - 1pm

    Hearing Voices Network
    Every Tuesday 3pm - 4.30pm at Bristol Mind, 35 Old Market Street, Bristol, BS2 0EZ. For further information contact: Mobile: 0789 423 0207 (answer phone) Tim / Glenn @ Grove Rd: 0117 973 5142
    Website: www.hearing-voices.org

    National Groups

    Mad Pride
    Mad Pride is an exciting campaign aimed at doing for mad people what Gay Pride did for gay people.

    U.K. Survivors Newsgroup
    Very busy e-mail newsgroup of the big U.K. Survivors Network.

    National Hearing Voices Network
    http://www.hearing-voices.org Great web-site for all who hear voices. You can call their national office on 0161 834 5768


    "Bristol Survivors continues to meet monthly as a group and also has a regular social meeting. It continues to campaign and lobby for better mental health services." (Glenn Townsend email 6.4.2012)

    Bristol Survivors Network website April 2012

    MIND Consumer Advisory Network (Steering Group for)

    Summer 1987 Notice that a steering group had been set up for a MIND Consumer Advisory Network. It had been decided that the co-ordinator would necessarily be a consumer.

    Peter Campbell was a member of this steering group. Not all the members were survivors. Others who were included Lisa Haywood, Colin Gell and Peter Beresford. When Jan Wallcraft became the first paid worker (part-time), Peter Campbell decided he could not be a mindlink person and a Survivors Speak Out person, so he dropped out of any major involvement in MindLink. Although he has always been a member.

    Mind established its Consumer Advisory Panel before Jan Wallcraft's appointment. She says she

    "worked with the existing Consumer Advisory Panel, meeting a host of stars such as Peter Beresford, Lisa Haywood, Graham Estop and Anna Neeter"

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says:
    "1987-present Mindlink: service-user network within Mind - peak membership 1,200." [The "1987" may refer to Jan Wallcroft's appointment in December 1987. MindLink started in 1988]

    Summer 1987 Islington Mental Health Forum, set up with assistance from Good Practices in Mental Health, was "now well established" and had "secured premises to operate from". "They are particularly concerned about the closure of Friern-Barnet Hospital and have started a Friern Interest Group which meets at the hospital". For information contact The Old Darkroom, The Laundry, Sparshott Road, Islington, London, N19 ( Asylum Summer 1987)

    Asylum Summer 1987 says
    New Patient's Council Support Group being established at Southampton.
    The Southampton group was set up after a Nottingham Patients Council Support Group Workshop. Southampton Patients Council Support Group was started by a local user group in the Department of Psychiatry. "The groups hold regular ward meetings to discuss whatever the patients want to talk about - there are no minutes or agendas, which patients do not want. There is Joint Fiance funding for three years with a promise of lifetime funding if all goes well. They have a say in Joint Planning but no office or other facilities" (Mindwaves, December 1988)

    Friday 31.7.1987 - Sunday 2.8.1987 Fourth Minstead Lodge meeting

    September? 1987 Ingrid Barker and Edward Peck, editors, (1987). Power in Strange Places - User Empowerment in Mental Health Services. London, Good Practices in Mental Health - Discussion includes patient councils and advocacy - Articles include: Colin Gell, "Learning to Lobby, The Growth of Patients' Councils in Nottingham" - Lorraine Bell, "Survivors Speak Out. A National Self-Advocacy Network" - Ivy Buckland, "Power Through Partnership. An Account of the Contact Group in Chesterfield" - Peter Campbell, "Giants and Goblins. A Description of Camden Consortium's Campaign to Change Statutory Plans" - Judi Chamberlin, "The Case for Separatism. Ex-Patient Organising in the United States - 30 pages - Anne Plumb collection. - COPAC lists copies in several libraries. - Review by Peter Tyrer in Psychiatric Bulletin

    Summer/Autumn 1987: National Council for Voluntary Organisations launched a fund to help disabled people take action to promote employment and training opportunities. Grants, limited to £1,000 for each organisation, could be used by disabled people wishing to organise a major local conference relating to employment and training opportunities. Or it could be used to establish a specific project. The main criteria was that proposals should be led and controlled by disabled people and related to training or employment.

    "The Self-Advocacy Movement in the UK" by Peter Campbell probably describes the period before Edale. He speaks of Survivors Speak Out "acting as an umbrella organisation, campaigning and fund-raising towards a national conference of service users and their allies" (page 209). People like himself had adopted the terms "self- advocacy" and "self- advocate" over the eighteen months or so since Autumn 1985 (page 209). He speaks of "over a dozen groups in this country speaking and acting for themselves in the area of mental health". Ealing, Barnet, Camden, Islington and Hackney have self-advocacy groups, CAPO and BNAP are based in London. "Outside of London" Glasgow, Chesterfield, Nottingham and Bristol also had "large and flourishing groups". "In other cities like Southampton there are the beginnings of groups run by users" (page 209) [Compare with Summer 1986 list of groups planning the conference]. He did not think "more than 400 people at the most are directly and actively in Britain at present". (page 212). "The majority of existing groups are alliances of users and workers with a small element of 'carers', each alliance weighted in a different way" (pages 206-207) Only CAPO and Sagacity in Community Care (SICC) claim to be user only (page 206).

    "In broad terms", Peter says,"there are three main types of group"

    1) The national campaign groups: CAPO (Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression) and British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry

    "Although based in London they address themselves to the whole of Britain, do not concentrate on local matters but campaign on major issues affecting the whole of the psychiatric system such as the abolition of ECT, no compulsory element in psychiatry, the provision of adequate facilities for withdrawal from major tranquillizers.They are limited in size...but increasingly active in certain areas where they are now being noticed..."
    The locality based group London examples: Camden Mental Health Consortium - Barnet Action for Mental Health - Hackney Mental Health Action Group. "...often set up with initial involvement by community health councils, concentrates on its local area and on the problems of the psychiatric systems expressed in the local services".

    "Groups connected to existing service provisions or which are themselves supplying significant services"

    " Link attached to Glasgow Association for Mental health and Contact at Tontine Road Centre in Chesterfield are examples of the former, whilst Bristol Women and Mental Health - an umbrella covering a number of services for women in Bristol - is a notable example of the latter." (page 211)

    "Finally mention must be made of the Nottingham Patient Council Support Group (NPCSG) which is establishing the idea of patients'councils within psychiatric hospitals along lines inspired by the example of the Patients' Councils in Holland" (page 211)

    Edale Conference and Edale Charter
    Friday 18.9.1987 to Sunday 20.9.1987
    Survivors Speak Out organised the first United Kingdom conference of mental health service users/survivor activists over a weekend at an Edale Youth Hostel.

    The team largely responsible for organising things were Lorraine Bell as "coordinator" - Ivy Buckland as treasurer - Peter Campbell as secretary - Jackie Biggs "publicity" - Rick Hennelly (local transport).

    Friday evening: social gathering

    Saturday Groups on topics suggested by people there, including * Women and mental health * Major tranquilisers * The Community Treatment Order * How to achieve user-involvement * Surviving without medication * The role of allies in self-advocacy and their relationship to users.

    The conference produced a list of 15 "needs and demands" (Survivors Speak Out 1987, Charter Of Needs And Demands (Edale Conference Charter), London, Survivors Speak Out)

    " Mary Nettle entered the mental health system in 1977. There was no discussion about medication or someone's problems. Treatment was totally drug oriented. One day her Community Psychiatric Nurse gave her a leaflet about the Edale conference. She felt the description "survivor" was just right and felt herself to be a survivor of life. She warmed to the friendly but efficient style in whcih the leaflet was written, and went to the conference with a group of people. It was a most amazing experience. A great array of ideas was expressed, "and there was Peter Campbell, holding it all together". Source: (Two decades of change conference)

    "The grass roots movement that created the Edale Charter, also created the UK Advocacy Network (UKAN) in the early 1990s" (Terry Simpson, UKAN)

    Manchester Survivors Speak Out formed after Edale. The formation of the Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) followed this. See Manchester index. The May 1988 address list says contact Steve Brown, Flat 4, 107 Withington Raad, Whally Range, Manchester, for information about the Manchester group.


    Autumn 1987 Towards the end of his life Eric Irwin spent a lot of time in the library at the Westminster Mind headquarters on the Harrow Road. It was here in the autumn of 1987 that he collapsed and was rushed to hospital. For a while, Stephen Ticktin looked after Eric in his (Stephen's) own home. Eric died in St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney (see below).

    October 1987 Publication of Asylum to Anarchy by Clair Baron.

    Thursday 8.10.1987 Inaugural meeting of the London Alliance for Mental Health Action (LAMHA pronounced llama) [Has also been stated as 1.10.1987] - See 5.12.1987 March against Community Treatment Orders - 17.9.1988 Psychiatry on Trial - 4.3.1989 SANE adverts - 20.6.1989 Robin Cook - Active until 1991/ 1992. - See Rogers and Pilgrim June 1991.

    9.10.1987
    Hackney Mental Health Action Group AGM elected Lisa Haywood and Ian Ray- Todd as co-chairs and Lisa Haywood to the "MIND Consumer Advisory Panel"

    Stichting Weerklank logo 31.10.1987 First hearing voices congress held in Utrecht, Holland. At this, Stichting Weerklank (Foundation Resonance) was formed, a collaboration between voice hearers and professionals. See Wikipedia on the Hearing Voices Movement - See below 1988

    November? 1987 Mind's first Annual Conference outside London was held in Blackpool. Alan Hartman took part in a presentation about 24 hours support with assistance from service providers Douglas Inchbold and Neil Harris (now retired)

    Saturday 5.12.1987 London Alliance for Mental Health Action anti Community Treatment Order demonstration. March from Marble Arch to the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
    Hugs Not Drugs 11.12.1987 "Hugs not Drugs" Greenford, Northolt and Southall Recorder

    There is a seven page document "The Scientific and Medical Argument Against Compulsory Treatment Orders - a report prepared for the London Alliance for Mental health Action" by "Dr M J C Brown M.B., B.S., B.SC. (Hons), B.A." Dr Mario Brown was a survivor who was a medical doctor. The Royal College of Psychiatrists report had not specified what community treatment was likely to be. Mario Brown suggested it would be "long acting major tranquillisers", and criticised their effectiveness.

    Louise Pembroke (emails 23.4.2017) recalls that Mario Brown's document was prepared after the 5.12.1987 march, for use in the 17.9.1988 Psychiatry on Trial event.

    1987 Compulsory Community Treatment Orders Survivors Speak Out Information Sheet by Dave Lowson. (Anne Plumb collection). -

    Just before Christmas 1987 Eric Irwin died in St Joseph's Hospice, Hackney after a year long struggle with undiagnosed cancer. CAPO was continued until 1991 largely by Eric's friend Frank Bangay. After Eric's death it decided to affiliate to Survivors Speak Out. Frank's tribute to Eric was published in Asylum Volume 3, No 1, Summer 1988. His poem "The Laughing Flowers" ("Never really felt so sad before - I try to reach myself through my craziness") was written in the Spring of 1988. Naked Songs and Rhythms of Hope pages 17-18)

    1988

    Mind Consumers Network
    Newsletter: Mindwaves in August

    1988: Wokingham and District Mind founded. It affiliated to National Mind in 1989. Crisis House in Station Approach, a user run crisis centre, opened by Pam (Pamela) Jenkinson on 2.4.1991. It is now West Berkshire Mental Health Association. (website)

    1988 Hamlet Trust established by Peter Barham - Its first project was to establish the Bradford Mental Health Advocacy Group (now Bradford and Airedale Mental Health Advocacy Group)

    1988 An anti-war marathon organised by athletes with intellectual disability to denounce the civil war in Lebanon. In 1989 coach Mohammad Nasser founder of Special Olympics Lebanon received the endorsement of Special Olympics International. - (source)

    Changes in organisations 1988/1989 - From Rogers and Pilgrim 1991

    Voices - the National Schizophrenia Fellowship funds an ex-patient as an organiser. It describes its meetings (Voices Forum) as a support group 'run by and for schizophrenics'. At the time of the research it had a membership of around fifty people. [Presumably just users]

    Survivors Speak Out - a national users' organisation with over fifty local groups. "It aims to facilitate communication between local groups of users and their professional allies promoting self-advocacy. In June 1988 the paidup membership of this group was 230" [Presumably, allies and users]

    Mindlink an information network facilitated by an ex-patient salaried by national MIND. At the time of the research it had around two hundred members.

    In 1988 and 1989 Barbara Taylor a patient in Friern Hospital for three periods totalling about eight months. See 24.9.2010


    1988 Nelsy graduated and moved from Colombia to London, England. She married and became a teacher of Spanish privately and created a successful Latin American dance course for beginners. Her diagram shows how, after her breakdown (1998) and self analysis, all of her life, including the politics, history and education systems of both countries, was infused with emotion.

    January 1988 Collaboration for Change - Partnership between Service Users, Planners and Managers of Mental Health Services King's Fund Centre Discussion Paper by Helen Smith. The outcome of regular group meetings of people form Good Practices in Mental Health - the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Waltham Forest Health Authority and the King's Fund

    Democracy in Psychiatry poster 1.1.1988

    "... a student on placement at Barony called Colin Murray, who was very inspired by... Survivors Speak Out... called a meeting called Democracy in Psychiatry (Be Morris, CAPS2010 p.43) - 8.1.1988 appears to be the earliest secure date in the book Oor Mad History. There are references to the stimulus of " '85, 86 MIND Conferences, where users were very vocal" (Be Morris p.45)

    See 26.9.1988 and June 2012

    January to March 1988 Survey of City and Hackney Psychiatric Services carried out following "intense criticism" by the City and Hackney Community Health Council and others. "The patient questionnaires were distributed through a specially briefed team of patient advocates drawn from Community Health Council Staff, Hackney Mental Health Action Group, Federation of Consumers of the Mental Health Services and the Family Centre Staff (HCRE). One further advocate was an Administrative Worker from CHAMH". April 1988: "Mental Health Services - Initial Report on Survey of Views of Psychiatric Patients Mid January to End of February 1988" (CHCHC Mental Health Working Group). Later: City and Hackney Health Authority Psychiatric Services. Survey of Mental Health Facilities as perceived by the Providers and Clients 1988 Michael Lung - Support Nurse.

    Mark Cresswell describes "1988-1996" as "a period that witnessed a first phase of self-harm survivor activism in England."

    January 1988 Bristol Crisis Line opened by Bristol Crisis Service for Women - Telephone Bristol 354105 Friday and Saturday evenings, 9 to 12.30 - run by women for women in the Bristol area. Counselling service for women feeling isolated and distressed - "received media attention with articles focused on women and self-harm. The line receives up to 12 calls a night, and women who have phoned often become volunteers with the project. Volunteers are doing education work in hospitals - talking to psychiatrists and social workers - and aim to negotiate suitable consultancy fees" (Mindwaves December 1988) [Mark Cresswell says BCSW starts to run a national telephone help-line for women. - Address May 1988 - See Guardian 28.6.1988

    8.1.1988 New Society "Asylums with Long Arms: Last month mental health patients groups demonstrated outside the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Belgrave Square. Jim Read explains why". This was about opposition to community treatment orders. A brief extract: "A recent national conference of Survivors Speak Out, which attracted 100 participants, voted unanimously to oppose CTOs, and set up regional coalitions to campaign against these."

    February 1988 Conference on Co-ordinated Care organised by what became The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. Have we got views for you (1994) says "the views of service users were largely overlooked". This was illustrated in the language of "cases" and "case managment". "This led to The Sainsbury Centre's first efforts to bring in a user perspective. A group of users from around the country began to meet together to produce a response to Towards Co-ordinated Care" See 1990 - 1.3.1994 - Diana Rose - Perspectives on Manic Depression - 1998 - workbook - Jan Wallcraft (2001) - 23.1.2001 - 2.6.2003 - 12.9.2003 - 30.11.2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007

    21.4.1988 The Patients' Case: Views from experience; Living inside and out of a psychiatric hospital by North Manchester Resettlement Support Group. Editors Neil Harris and Doug Inchbold. Also Jeff Warburton. Produced by Harpurhey Resettlement Team and 'users' of Springfield Hospital Manchester. Published by the Community Psychiatric Nurses Association Publications, Rossendale. ISBN: 0948260203 22 pages. Sold for £1 by Survivors Speak Out. Includes Alan Hartman. See Asylum July 1989

    May 1988 First Survivors Speak Out Newssheet
    Survivor Speak Out Address List May 1988 (Known groups)

    survivor/user enterprises: see DATA (1988) - CAPITAL (1997) - ARISE and developing partners and Raise (2006) -

    May 1988 Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) established. "Individuals with personal experience of emotional and mental distress who provide service-user and survivor led training, research and consultancy". Describes itself as "the UK's longest established group of this kind". - Three founder members were Andrew Hughes - Anne Plumb - and Tony Riley. Helen Gibb joined during 1988.
    20.6.1988 Date on proposal to formally set up a Mental Health Awareness Trainers Group which accompanied the first application (late 1988?) from DATA to the Disabled Employment and Training Action Fund (DETAF) administered by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. (Anne Plumb collection). The application was to undertake initial organisational development work, to look at ways of establishing contacts within the North West, to produce a training course and to look at the type of organisational structure that might suit DATA. It was designed to create 10 weeks of part-time work for DATA members. "I had to drop out early days as I was busy with a spot of madness" (Andrew Hughes). See November 1991 - Autumn 1992 - 29.5.1993 - late 1993 - June 1994 - Asylum Spring 1995 - 6.10.2001 (website) - Asylum 2002

    21.5.1988 Oldham meeting of "North-West Mind Consumer Network" - The first of the regional networks. Irene Whitehill was a founder member.

    28.6.1988 Michelle Hanson's article in The Guardian "Letting out the big scream inside" "self-destructive behaviour is not uncommon among women. Their numbers are growing and there is little help for them", She interviewed interviewed Maggy Ross, Diane Harrison and 'Ellie'. Also about this time (mid-1988) Maggy Ross published an article in a woman's lifestyle magazine called The Company.

    8.7.1988 Consumer Advisory Panel Workshop - Harley Street

    August 1988 Issue one of Mindwaves - The Newsletter of the MIND Consumer Network. At this stage, the network claimed about 200 members. Members were entitled to two years free membership of Mind. "So do fill in the forms and send them back and you will be able to come to the AGM on 19th November in London to vote for the Council of Management" (page 1).

    23.8.1988 Death of Joseph Watts in Broadmoor: "Ward staff appeared with shields and helmets, entered his seclusion room, injected him with a drug cocktail and within minutes he was dead".

    Autumn 1988 First interviews by Anne Rogers and David Pilgrim in research that led to Pulling down churches. The names of interviewees have not been stated. Peter Campbell and Jan Wallcraft believe they were interviewed. Mike Lawson also appears to have been interviewed. Frank Bangay believes he was not. Eric Irwin was dead. See opinions and Voices

    Saturday 10.9.1988 Survivors Speak Out Annual General Meeting at Hampden Community Centre. Contact was Lorraine Bell, Southampton.

    Saturday 17.9.1988 LAMHA street theatre event "Psychiatry on Trial". See Mario Brown's paper.

    Monday 26.9.1988 to Thursday 29.9.1988 Common Concerns: International Conference on User Involvement in Mental Health Services - Brighton.

    Colin Murray, Be Morris and Anne Bardsley, were amongst those who attended the Brighton Conference in September 1988... "the theme of it was user involvement and advocacy. We started a bit behind them but we had got ahead and things were more advanced here than they were down South. I think it was me and Be and Anne sat pounding the table,
    'we are doing just as well as them in fact we're doing better' 'Let's have a national conferennce in Scotland for users'
    there is something to celebrate and shout about and bring more people together". (Colin Murray CAPS2010 p.44)
    The group to plan a national network first met in December 1988

    Autumn? 1988 "About a dozen users from all over England" met with "staff at the National Unit for Psychiatric Research and Development who are preparing a report on "The Co-odination of care for People Disable by Long Term Illness" for the DHSS"

    October/November1988 OpenMind No 35: "ECT - A controversial treatment: counsellor and former mental patient, Jim Read, argues that Mind has failed to present the case against ECT and ignored the viewpoint of many people who have received treatment." (A response to Mind's special report which 'cautiously condoned the use of ECT'.)

    19.11.1988 Mike Lawson elected vice-chair of Mind at the MIND A.G.M, replacing Dr Hugh Freeman. Served until 1994, when he was replaced by Judith Morgan-Freer. In his Testimonies' interview, Mike Lawson refers to "me being elected Vice Chair of National Mind as a collective action, you know amongst survivors and our groups and lobbies". Mike says (in an email) that his election "was immediately challenged by the Royal College of Psychiatrists because of a claim against David Hill for promoting my candidacy by mailshot from Camden Mind. So my inception was delayed and a re-election announced. However my rival failed to stand." Anne Plumb remembers "reading in the pages of The Guardian, Hugh Freeman (already/later deposed as vice-chair of Mind by Mike Lawson) defending his take on psychiatry against survivors and allies (the correspondence was carried over several days).

    Asylum Winter 1988. The cover of this edition is displayed on the wall behind the Survivors Speak Out stand at the November 1988 Mind Conference below. The edition contains a report headed "Mind 1987 Conference Report" which also reports on the AGM that elected Mike Lawson (above)

    Tam 1988 Tam Graham at the Survivors Speak Out stall at the November 1988 Mind Conference

    "A "Scottish Users Interest Group" first met in December 1988 with a view to forming a national network. From this inaugural meeting the Scottish Users Network was formed, which has a current membership of 45 people, drawn from all over the country. The Scottish Users Network adopted a constitution in October 1990, and charitable status has been obtained. (from a letter from Brian Sinclair, the then Secretary of the Scottish Users Network, undated but written in the aftermath of the 1991 conference, which he had attended." (UKAN archives). - See also July 1989 - March1994 - Asylum 1995

    December 1988 First edition of Psychiatry in Transition: the British and Italian Experiences. Contains some acknowledgment of users' opinion. Section on "The Users' Perspective" contains an article by Ann Davis called "Users' Perspectives" about Britain and one by Maria Grazia Giannicheda" called "A Future of Social Invisibility" about Italy. Both are mostly about mental health policy in their country, but the issue of a consumers' view is addressed.

    1988 Mind the Gap Theatre Company inclusive theatre group for actors with and without a learning disability

    1988 First United Kingdom Hearing Voices group established in Manchester - See Hearing Voices Network box - On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1988-present The Hearing Voices network (based on the work of Professor Marius Romme in Holland) began holding national events in 1990/1991 and now has 100 groups across the country." See Asylum July 1989 - October 1989 - Asylum Summer 1990 - Asylum Winter 1990/1991 - Conference November 1990 - Independent Hearing Voices 6.1.1991 - Asylum Spring 1991 - Asylum Summer 1991 [??] - 1991 Conference - Asylum Winter 1991/1992 - 1992 Conference - 1993 Conference - Late 1993 Newsletter 10 - February 1994 Newsletter 11 - 13.4.1994 - May 1994 - August 1994 Newsletter 13 - 1994 Conference - December 1994 Schizophrenia Media Agency - April 1995 Horizon - 1995 Conference - 1996 Conference - 1997 Conference - 2000 Terence McLaughlin Thesis - 2006 First "World Hearing Voices Day" - 2015 Conference

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1988 Influential publications by service users/survivors emerge: A notable influence on the movement" was the publication by Mind of a British edition of "On Our Own by Judi Chamberlin - an exploration of the rise of the survivor movement in the US." "Numerous local publications and newsletters by service user/survivor groups begin to emerge, critically examining services and describing personal experiences."

    1989

    1989 JosephAtukunda 20. "I became withdrawn, fearful and kept to myself most of the time. I started contemplating suicide," (15.12.2014 interview) - Before admission to hospital, Joseph was taken to traditional healers, "as most Ugandans are tempted to do when faced with mental illness for the first time". "I was first treated at Mulago Hospital (general hospital). I was told very little about what I was suffering from. (26.5.2011 interview) - "After spending several months on ECT treatment with no improvement, Atukunda was taken to Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder". (15.12.2014 interview).

    "It was Survivors Speak Out members who came up to early meetings in Edinburgh when the movement was getting started here. Through these early meetings Lothians' first user group was formed, Awareness, in 1989." (Kirsten's blog)

    Awareness met at EAMH (Edinburgh Association for Mental Health, now called Health in Mind), 40 Shandwick Place and at Contact Point, Basement, 67 York Place. It was supported by Lothian Mental Health Forum and developed into a steering group that led to CAPS. CAPS2010 pp 46-49).

    Names associated with Awareness include Colin Murray - Adrienne Sinclair Chalmers - Anne Bardsley - Be Morris - and Graham Morgan -
    Royal Edinburgh Hospital Patients' Council
    Royal Edinburgh Hospital
    Morningside Terrace
    Edinburgh
    EH10 5HF (website)

    "The Patients' Council was set up in 1989 and continues to be based in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. It facilitates collective advocacy for patients and former patients of the hospital, bringing about change in the way that services and treatment are provided"

    1989 APSA l'Association des Psychotiques Stabilisés Autonomes

    Department of Health (January 1989) Working for Patients (Griffiths Report). (Cm. 555) London: HMSO, "recommended that consumers of health care should be involved in future developments and evaluation of services provided by the NHS" Since then "successive governments have sought to strengthen the role of patients as active participants in their relationship with those who provide services." (Mike Crawford, March 2001)

    Lucy Johnstone Users and Abusers of Psychiatry: A Critical Look at Traditional Psychiatric Practice, London: Routledge, 1989. See Asylum Spring 1992 March 1993 - OpenMind 1994 - Asylum 1994 - Asylum 1999 - Asylum 2000

    28.2.1989 to 25.3.1989 The One Sided Wall by Janet Cresswell and Niki Johnson, a one person play performed by Cindy Oswin at the Bush Theatre, Shepherds Bush. The Theatre Programme said "The play is completely fictitious, but draws on her experience.." - Her being Janet.


    4.3.1989 London Alliance for Mental Health Action anti- SANE advertising demonstration at the Imperial War Museum. Included Street Theatre.

    16.3.1989 "Mental health split" City Limits

    24.3.1989 "Groups lock horns over schizophrenia posters" Hampstead and Highgate Gazette?

    12.4.1989 Labour Briefing "We're not in-SANE"


    April 1989 Self Advocacy Action Pack: Empowering Mental Health Service Users first produced by Survivors Speak Out.

    Ireland index 1.4.1989 IMPERO (Irish Mental Patients' Educational and Representative Organisation) founded - (external link)

    27.4.1989 Jan Wallcraft's article "Winning through against fear and contempt" in Community Care described the Mind consumer network. (Anne Plumb collection).

    Having a Voice Conference

    5.4.1989 First session of Having a Voice Conference for people who use Mental Health Services in North Manchester. Organised by Manchester Users' Support Group, North Manchester Community Health Council and North Manchester Health Authority. There were three sessions in all. The other two were on 19.4.1989 and 17.5.1989. See Manchester index and Having a Voice

    OR

    "The group held its first two conferences in March this year. The first one was for users, the secnd for professionals. There was supposed to be a conference for both users and professionals but this didn'thappen. The conference provoked a lot of discussion and a documnet summing up some of the points made was typed out. The conference was aptly named 'Having a voice' Norman Howard

    20.6.1989 Members of the London Alliance for Mental Health Action were involved in setting up and participating in a meeting in the House of Commons between Robin Cook MP (then Shadow Minister for Health), Harriet Harman and Keith Vaz, and "forty or more mental health service users, representing most of the mental health action groups, Patients' Councils, Consumer Networks and advocacy projects". "The meeting was chaired by David Hill, Director of Camden MIND, who has put in a great deal of work and effort to convince the Labour Party to give greater priority to mental health issues and the importance of consulting the 'users'." (Jan Wallcraft Mindwaves Summer 1989, page 7)

    Asylum July 1989
    Nottingham Patients Council Support Group appoint a worker. [Colin Gell]
    Mention similar developments in Brighton, Leeds, Newcastle.
    Scottish Users' Network established.

    July 1989 Romme and Escher 1989. "Effects of mutual contacts from people with auditory hallucinations". Perspectief no 3, 37-43, July 1989. In 1989 they also published "Hearing Voices" in Schizophrenia Bulletin 15 (2): 209 - 216

    Paddy McGowan recovered from Schizophrenia with the support of other survivors and participated in the original study (Romme/Escher, 1989) into hearing voices. See - UKAN1992 - 1994 - Irish Advocacy Network 1999

    September 1989 Patient advocacy- Report for Public Policy Committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. offline - This policy was reviewed in 1999 and 2012

    August 1989 Date on Ann Scott's introduction to Something Sacred. Conversations, writings, painting (Mary Barnes). The first interview "Reflections on Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey Through Madness and on Kingsley Hall" is dated May 1988 - 2. "1971-1988 and the work of the work of the Shealin Trust" is also May 1988 - 3 "households, helping and regression" is July 1988, as is 4. "Painting, writing and giving talks". 5 "'Something Sacred' religion and psychotherapy" is dated November 1988. The introduction notes that Ronald Laing died in August 1969, whilst the book was in production.

    5.9.1989 Looking at self-harm: the first national conference on self-harm to be held in the UK, "entirely organised by the recipient movement" at the International Students House in Great Portland Street in North London. Louise Pembroke organised the conference as Education Officer of Survivors Speak Out. Alan Leader spoke a few words of introduction and Louise Pembroke "chaired and co-presented with the other speakers." One of the speakers was Maggy Ross:

    "I'm Maggy and I started to cut my body 5 years ago. I go to casualty and get hauled onto the psychiatric bandwagon. I am then given a nice little 'label'. The current label is Schizophrenia. That's how the professionals see me. I'm a self-destructive Schizophrenic. But how do I see myself? I am a survivor of sexual abuse and a survivor of the system. I know why I self-injure. When I feel I am losing control, I reach for a razor and prove to myself that I can have control over my body. When I am lost for words, my cuts speak for me. They say - look - this is how much I'm hurting inside ... I'll tell you what self-injury isn't - and professionals take note. It's not attention seeking. It's not a suicide attempt. So what is it? It's a silent scream. It's a visual manifestation of extreme distress. Those of us who self-injure carry our emotional scars on our bodies." (Quoted in Self-Harm Perspectives. This is an edited quote from Cresswell, M. 2004)

    "I found it incredible to listen to individuals talking about their...inwardly directed aggression and then to learn that in accident and emergency departments some of them have been deliberately stitched up without the use of anaesthetic". (Peter Campbell reflecting on the conference in Open Mind December 1989).

    Asylum October 1989, p.16 says "Congratulations for the pioneering efforts of the City and Hackney Federation of Consumers of the Mental Health Services who went ahead and organised the conference against all the odds". It notes, on page 17, that "following the success of the Self-Harm Conference" a conference on "Hearing Voices" is being organised for 18.4.1990. Information from Alan Leader, City and Hackney Federation of Consumers of the Mental Health Services, c/o City and Hackney CHC.

    Self-Harm: Perspectives from Personal Experience (1994) was a consequence of this conference.

    Crisis cards - Launched by the International Self-Advocacy Alliance and Survivors Speak Out in 1989, crisis cards are intended as an advocacy device to be carried by the person who has written it, to be used in mental health emergencies.

    Crisis Cards were the invention of Jackie Biggs (journalist) and Mike Lawson, living at that time in Jackie's cottage in west Wales. They called themselves the International Self-Advocacy Alliance [Rhiadle, Llangrannog, Llandyssul, Dyfed SA44 6BG, Wales, UK - Telephone 0239 78661]. The idea was patented and, being short of money, Mike sold it to Survivors Speak out for about £75. (Information from Mike 31.10.2008). Survivors Speak Out launched the card at its Annual General Meeting.

    Saturday 16.9.1989 Survivors Speak Out AGM "Sixty-five members, including individuals from the UK, Holland, Italy and West Germany attended". Reference made to "more than a dozen local groups". (Asylum October 1989, p.16)

    16.9.1989: Press Release: "Crisis Card Launched" made by International Self Advocacy Alliance

    October 1989 Article by Chris Halford in Voluntary Voice explained that Good Practices in Mental Health (GPMH) "now offer a resource to mental health user groups across London"

    1990

    In the United Kingdom, the 1990s saw the further development of a recognised and professionalised user movement. There are now statutory requirements for consultation and the providers need someone to consult with. Some survivor groups received significant funding. (See King's Fund support from 1985). In June 1990, a relatively small grant from what became the Sainsbury Centre helped to start the National Advocacy Network. The substantial (and continuing) investment of The Arts Council in the users movement began in 1991. That of the Mental Health Foundation began in 1992. See £11,750 for Survivors Poetry in 1991, £30,000 for Survivors Speak Out in 1992, £50,000 for a National Advocacy Network in 1992. £25000 for Hearing Voices Network in 1994.

    One of the main reasons for the spread of practical user involvement, as opposed to theoretical, was the work of people from Nottingham going around the country in the early 1990s and supporting others to get started. Much as the Dutch folks helped us... (Colin Gell... email 1.8.2008)

    Early 1990s The idea of AdvoCard is conceived by service users and research and meetings are happening.

    1990 Whose Service is it Anyway? Users' views on co-ordinating community care Edited by Marion Beeforth - Edna Conlan - Vida Field - Brian Hoser - and Liz Sayce, London: Research and Development for Psychiatry (RDP). - Reviewed by Tony Whitehead in the Psychiatric Bulletin June 1991

    Brian Hoser was, or became, the treasurer for the National Advocacy Network - Edna Conlan, from Milton Keynes Advocacy Group, was, or became the first chair. -

    1990 Patricia Chambers was at university "away from my family and at the time a long term relationship". Stress of the course, her circumstances, accomodation and grant problems "eventually all the stress resulted in my breakdown". "Having someone to talk to it would have made all the difference". However, she completed the course, but was admitted to the local mental hospita after her return home. (source)

    Rhythm of Struggle - Song of Hope

    Justice for Women began in 1990

    1990 Hamlet Trust in Poland

    1990-1991 JosephAtukunda a student at Nkumba college of Commerce (now Nkumba University) where he obtained qualifications in Accountancy.

    Thursday 15.3.1990 - Friday 16.3.1990 User Involvement - The Way Forward conference organised by Nottingham Advocacy Group which led, eventually, to setting up the United Kingdom Advocacy Network (UKAN)

    April 1990 Relaunch of Bristol Mind. See website - Bristol index - Jeff Walker - April 2002 UFM report - 2004 -

    18.4.1990 Date for which London Hearing Voices Conference was planned.

    May and June 1990 Donations from Nottingham Advocacy Group (£400) - Survivors Speak Out (£200) and Research and Development in Psychiatry (£1,000) enabled the planning group for a National Advocacy Network to meet.

    Asylum Summer 1990

    America

    "The Ex-Patients' Movement: Where We've Been and Where We're Going" by Judi Chamberlin - (National Empowerment Center) published in The Journal of Mind and Behavior Volume 11, Number 3, Summer 1990 Special Issue, Challenging the Therapeutic State, pages 323-336 is mostly about the movement in the United States - Link to online copy

    19?.6.1990 Judi Chamberlin and Rae Ouziker (Co-ordinator of the National Association of Psychiatric Survivors) took Valerie and Andrew out to lunch in London.

    June 1990 Annual Report of Camden Mental Health Consortium (Anne Plumb collection) includes an example of user-professional research - A user for Consortium devised a simple questionnaire with a senior nurse to find out what users had been told about medications, and what information they would like, as a contribution to Bloomsbury Community Health Council's attempt to raise awareness of the need for improved practice. Results (75 respondents) "indicated much disappointment with the quality of information, and a particular need for guidance on long term effects". Action on recomendations had already been taken on acute wards at St. Pancras.

    29.6.1990 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act first established requirement for service user involvement in community care planning. (On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4) - See section 46

    July 1990 Helen Spandler's (unpublished) paper "An attempt to analyse the anti-psychiatry and mental patients movements with regard to the social and political period of the sixties". She concludes

    "The mental patients movement in many ways helped pave the way for organisations such as Survivors Speak Out and the various "consumer networks" in Britain. Some ex-patients and activists joined Mind local groups and have helped influence them towards a more radical approach to treatment, legal rights etc. The most recent campaign was that against the proposed Community Treatment Orders in 1987 (compulsory psychiatric 'treatment' in the community)."

    Wednesday 4.7.1990 Launch of magazine Beyond Diagnosis - The first "Summer issue" "The Voice in Scotland of people who have been diagnosed mentally ill - and those with related experiences". The Steering Group, John and Anne Macdonald, Marion Donovan, Vincent Donnelly, Jeff Frew, Julia White, Jeff Haddow and Jimmy Milroy, held a wine and cheese party at the Stafford Centre, Edinburgh, to celebrate the launch. Also an autumn edition in 1990. The intention was quarterly, but issue seven did not appear until 1994. See also Asylum Summer 1992 - issue 6 - January 1994 - issue 7 - Scottish Users Network March 1994

    John Macdonald: 27.5.1994 - 2008

    August 1990 First United Kingdom People First Conference held in Twickenham. Betty Steingold, Susan Baldwin, Susan Jennings and Elani went from Hackney. They spent a whole week there and discussed many things. Betty went to a conference last year, so many people knew her. Betty, an active member of Hackney Action on Learning Difficulties (Previously Hackney Action for Mentally Handicapped People) told the Conference, that she did not want people to say "mental handicap". Other people spoke about living independently and about getting jobs. Food and the accommodation were good.

    Asylum Autumn 1990

    November 1990 First National Hearing Voices Conference held in Manchester. See Manchester index.

    Autumn 1990 issue two of Beyond Diagnosis. Editor now Marion Denovan, 146 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, EH10 4PX - who remained editor for some years.

    October 1990 Workshop on researching user involvement, Nuffield Institute, University of Leeds. A collection based on this was edited by Marian Barnes and Gerald Wistow (1992).

    Asylum Winter 1990/1991

    1991



    books
    CAPS Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service has been working with groups of people who use mental health services since 1991. It has office bases in Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian. The majority of members of CAPS management committee are people who have experience of using mental health services. Projects supported by CAPS include Lothian Users Forum - East Lothian Involvement Group (1992) - Beyond Diagnosis - Edinburgh Users Forum - Working Like Crazy UK 2001 - Service Users Midlothian - Oor Mad History (2008) - See CAPS 2005/2006

    1991 Anne Bardsley Advocacy Report Edinburgh: Scottish Association for Mental Health, 15 pages.

    Alan Baker 1991 "On Hearing Voices and other Phenomena" in Libellus Dementum (issue one?). Oxford Survivors. (Anne Plumb Collection). See Asylum Winter1991/1992. A letter was published in Beyond Diagnosis 6 from Sarah Bell, OS Publishing, Oxford Survivors, c/o Littlemore Hospital, Oxford, OX4 4XN, She enclosed "issue 2 of our magazine Libellus Dementum which mentioned Beyond Diagnosis and hoped it would mention Libellus Dementum. "Beyond Diagnosis will shortly be made available to all members of OS in our new office".

    Ireland index Brian Hartnett (in London) "Around 1991, at the same time as the company I worked for closed and I lost my job, I started to retreat into myself. I am not sure when I started hearing peoples voices and exhibiting signs of ill health. It crept into my life gradually. Thoughts began to become vocalised in my head and I began to hear voices in the babble of conversation in crowded places."

    1991 Wiltshire and Swindon User Network founded - website - Mary Nettle wrote "when I lived in Minety in Wiltshire I was in networks like the Wiltshire and Swindon User Network" with Odessa Chambers "who also had her struggles and lived in Trowbridge in Wiltshire she was also a campaigner as one of her sons was in Broadmoor". Mary lost touch when she moved away, but "it was lovely to meet her daughter Patricia occasionally". (source)

    Sunday 6.1.1991 the Independent on Sunday published a report by Christine Assiz, "Heard but not seen", on a Hearing Voices conference arranged by five mental health activists, connected to Manchester Mind. (Asylum Spring 1991)

    Ron Coleman "Any recovery journey has a beginning, and for me the beginning was my meeting with Lindsay Cooke my support worker, it was her who encouraged me to go to the hearing voices self-help group in Manchester at the start of 1991." Ron names Anne Walton, Mike Grierson, Terry McLaughlin and Julie Downs, and Paul Baker as his "navigators" to sanity. (source) - (new source)

    April 1991 "The Mental Illness Specific Grant (MISG) was introduced under the NHS and Community Care Act 1990, providing from April 1991 revenue grant for the development of social care services for individuals with mental health problems" (external source)

    2.4.1991 Wokingham and District Mind's Crisis House in Station Approach, Wokingham, a user run crisis centre, opened by Pam Jenkinson. - source

    Asylum Summer 1991

    "The Users' Voice in Mental Health Services - towards a democratic psychiatry" Asylum Summer 1991

    " Ealing and Barnet now have local Mental Health Action groups. Islington has a mental health users' forum which is trying to negotiate the setting up of a Patients' Council at the Whittington Hospital. Camden has a Consortium.

    User groups exist in Bristol index Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. Patients' Councils now exist in Nottingham, Newcastle, and Southampton.

    June 1991 Anne Rogers and David Pilgrim (1991) "'Pulling down churches': accounting for the British mental health users' movement" Sociology of Health and Illness 13, 2, pp 129-148 - See Literature List. - offline - The authors describe themselves as "professional commentators on, or allies of the MHUM" [Mental Health Users Movement]. They explain that they were members of Mind and of the London Alliance for Mental Health Action. Between Autumn 1988 and 1989, they interviewed ten people (seven users, three professionals) who were also members of the London Alliance for Mental Health Action and/or Mind - MindLink - CAPO - Survivors Speak Out - Voices - British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry - Good Practices in Mental Health - Afro-Caribbean Mental Health Association - Nottingham Patients Council.

    6.6.1991 From the Mental Patient to the Person by Peter Barham and Robert Hayward, Routledge -

    22.6.1991 Letter from Ingrid Barker (now Newcastle Health Authority) and Richard Greave in the British Medical Journal. "As part of our work establishing contracts for mental health services, both in Newcastle and in other places around England, we have attempted to get a range of users to help plan and to comment on contracts".

    23.8.1991 World Federation of Psychiatric Users - First committee meeting - This was at the World Federeation for Mental Health Congress. Mike Lawson attended the congress as Vice-Chair of Mind, but was not minuted as attending tthe users meeting

    28.8.1991 Orville Blackwood, aged 31, died after being given injection of calming drugs (150 mg of Sparine and Modecate) in a secure unit at Broadmoor after attempting to punch a doctor on 28.8.1991. He died of heart failure. Diagnosed schizophrenic, Orville was sent to Broadmoor in 1987 after attempting to rob a post office using a toy gun. - accidental death verdicts October 1991 and 1.4.1993 - High Court decision leading to second inquest, 16.11.1992. See 26.8.1994.

    Two other black men, Michael Martin (died 1984) and Joseph Watts (died 1988), died in Broadmoor under similar circumstances.

    Saturday 28.9.1991: Louise Pembroke (for Survivors Speak Out) organised an Eating Distress conference. Hampden Community Centre from 10.30am to 5.30pm (registration from 9.30am Numbers resticted to 80: 40 employed/professionals at £20 and 40 low waged/unwaged at £2. [photocopy of 4 page notice in AandV archives]
    The Eating Distress booklet published by Survivors Speak Out came out of that. (Louise Roxanne Pembroke (editor) Eating Distress - Perspectives from Personal Experience. Conference Papers. Survivors Speak Out 1992 (1st edition) - 1993 (2nd edition. 23 main pages) - 1994 (Revised and reprinted edition). ISBN: 1898002002 (paperback) - COPAC lists copies in several libraries. It is also avalable on Louise Pembroke this website.

    27.10.1991 European Network of those Affected by Psychiatry. [Europäisches Netzwerk von Psychiatrie-betroffenen] formed in Amsterdam. (Press Release 12.11.1991 - exernal link in German) - This evolved into the European Network of (ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry

    November? 1991 Second National Hearing Voices Conference held in ## Manchester

    26.11.1991 Mental Health Service Users as Trainers - International Community Centre, Mansfield Road, Nottingham. A "Training the Trainers" event in Nottingham, jointly organised by Survivors Speak Out - MindLink - and the National Advocacy Network Steering Group. This, and the DATA event in May 1993, were very early examples of service user Training the Trainers events. A 20 page report was edited by Viv Lindow and available from Survivors Speak Out for £1.50 plus postage. [photocopy in AandV archives. Aslo a photocopy of "Addresses of People who Attended Users as Trainers Day in Nottingham" - 36 people]

    November? 1991 Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) applied for further DETAF funding to host a "Training the Trainers" event. Initially scheduled for Autumn 1992, it was delayed to 29.5.1993 whilst DATA obtained further support from Rochdale Council's Equal Opportunities and Central Training sections.

    By the early 1990s, CAPO was no longer in existence

    Survivor's Poetry

    November 1991 Survivors Poetry founded 'to foster and promote poetry workshops and performances for and by survivors of the mental health system'. 16.11.1991 Survivors' Poetry event with: Ferenc Aszmann (MC Poet) - Paulette Ng (Poet) - Raz and Sam (Music/poetry duo) - Peter Campbell (Poet) - Pauline Brady (Singer) (source) - See also Poetry index

    Survivors Poetry was Arts Council funded. It received £11,750 from Disability Projects for the financial year 1991/1992, There was no grant in 1992/1993, but from 1993/1994 there was continuous funding apart from the crisis year of 2006/2007

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says "1991 Emergence of networks and groups for survivor art, poetry and drama: A major network is Survivors' Poetry, which runs workshops and performances, and publishes collections of survivor poetry."

    Asylum Autumn 1991

    Autumn 1991 Reclaim the Streets originally formed in London. (external source) Its philosophy and methods were influential in the development of Reclaim Bedlam and Mad Pride, later in the decade.

    Asylum Winter 1991/1992

    1991-1995 Rhian Thompson studied Communication at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. From September 2010 to September 2012 she was Information Officer at the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance. See June 2012

    1992

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 dates (some?) user-run services from 1992. It says user-run drop-ins were established, including McMurphys in Sheffield and Brixton Community Sanctuary in Lambeth. - Brixton Community Sanctuary and Lambeth Community Fourum were projects closely associated with Alan Leader

    "By 1992 more than a hundred local survivor groups had come into being, stimulated by the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act and the introduction of Mental Illness Specific Grant (MISG) in 1991. These groups became linked up through the creation in 1992 of the United Kingdom Advocacy Network (UKAN)" (A4MHD history)

    Department of Health consultation document Inspecting Social Services (1992) said

    "There is a valuable and up to now under-recognised role [in inspection] for people who actually use the services, those close to them and able to speak for their interests, and for other lay people" [Lay Assessors]"


    In 1992, Clare Ockwell oversaw the merger of the Society for the Advancement of Research into Anorexia (SARA) into the Eating Disorders Association.

    Nigel Rose Romme and Escher : the Dutch experience : an examination of the research and development work on voice hearing in the Netherlands. Manchester : National Hearing Voices Network, 1992. 14 pages/

    Paul Monks, a local artist, used an abandoned ward at Hackney Hospital as his studio. With limited funding, an open studio was created. "Several successful exhibitions later, Core Arts was officially born, gaining charitable status in 1994."

    The first Scottish Users Conference was held in 1992. The second was held in November 1993.

    East Lothian Involvement Group ("Our voice on mental health services") formed 1992 with funding from CAPS (Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service). The group had guest speakers from East Lothian Mental Health Forum, Disability Scotland and others) and took part in consultation processes including curriculum planning for Mental Health Nurse students at Napier University, Edinburgh. It became an independent group on 1.4.2000 - See new website 2008

    International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 38, No. 1, 30-35 (1992) "Changes ? What Changes? The Views of the European Patients' Movement" by Ed Van Hoorn - Clients' Union in Mental Health Care, The Netherlands

    "People on the receiving end of mental health services have an increasingly important role to play in the transformation of mental health care. It is argued that user involvement in itself does not guarantee a good outcome, but we need to take the views of (ex-)patients seriously without trying to fit them into theories. Dealing with the, often uncomfortable, relationship between patients and mental health professionals, and that between patients and relatives' organisations, two main strands in the European patients' movement are identified: those who seek to abolish psychiatry (abolitionists) and those who seek to reform it (reformists)." (source)

    Tuesday 18.2.1992 10-12 noon Newham Mind Mental Health Public Talks at Newham Mind, Lawrence Hall, Cumberland Road, E13. Psychiatric Survivors Speak Out! Through Campaigning/Information/Poetry. Speakers: Peter Campbell (Co-founder and National Secretary of Survivors Speak Out). A representative from Survivors Poetry.

    FNAPSY: Fédération Nationale des Associations d'usagers en PSYchiatrie. Historique: Elle a été créée le 1er mars 1992, sous le sigle FNAP Psy (Fédération Nationale des Associations de (ex) Patients des services Psychiatriques), par trois associations d'usagers, AME (Association pour le Mieux Òtre), APSA (Association des Psychotiques Stabilisés Autonomes), Revivre Paris, dont le Président était Monsieur Jacques Lombard, notre actuel Président d'Honneur. La fondation de la FNAP PSY a été encouragée et soutenue par Monsieur le Professeur Edouard Zarifian et Monsieur Joël Martinez (alors Directeur du Centre Hospitalier Spécialisé Esquirol 94). (website)

    March 1992 Tower Hamlets Union of Mental Patients - Dumpy News no.1 - (newsletter of London Union of Mental Patients). First meeting Saturday 9.5.1992 2pm-5pm. Met monthly. "Almost 20 people" attended the second meeting. Founded by Vikki, David [Kessel], and Roy. Based at Mind in Tower Hamlets. - THUMP and LUMP!

    9.4.1992 to 11.4.1992 A London conference of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, organised by Pam Jenkinson, included Judi Chamberlin, Rae and Jim Ouziker from the USA and Peter Campbell from London. Anne Plumb and Andrew Roberts involved on the sidelines.

    Friday 10.4.1992 Andrew Roberts' diary: Met Peter Campbell. Went with Judi Chamberlin, Rae and Jim Ouziker, Peter Breggin and David Cohen to an organ recital by Dewi M. Lewis at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. Heard Jackie Etheridge sing "I know that my Redeemer Liveth" (7.30-8.30pm). Afterwards to an Italian Restaurant in Greek Street, where we may have been when the IRA bomb went off (9.20pm) in the City of London.

    Asylum Spring 1992

    MINDWAVES Summer 1992, pages 8 and 14:

    National Networks

    Survivors Speak Out were recently given £30,000 by the Mental Health Foundation towards employing a worker. Their main activities at the moment include looking for an office base in London and producing the updated Self-Advocacy Pack which it is hoped will be ready for the Mind conference in November. Survivors Speak Out's Annual General Meeting will be on Saturday 31.10.1992 at Hampden Community Centre, Ossulston Street, Euston. Details from Peter Campbell (home postal address).

    National Advocacy Network Additional funding of £50,000 has been received from the Mental Health Foundation. The National Advocacy Network is also looking for an office. Elections to the first management Commitee are proceeding apace, and an inaugural General Meeting will be held on 29.9.1992 at the ICC Nottingham

    Asylum Summer 1992

    July 1992 Survivor's Poetry - From Dark to Light, an anthology edited by Frank Bangay, Hilary Porter and Joe Bidder, was the first publication of the Survivors Press (London). 124 pages. ISBN: 1874595003 (paperback). A copy in the British Library is the only one listed on COPAC. - See Mixed Emotions
    Poems by Ferenc Aszmann - Frank Bangay - Joe Bidder - Francesca Blass - Pauline Bradley - Steve Brewer - Martin Brownlee - Dawn Burgess - Lord Byro - Peter Campbell - Rosalind Caplin - David Cook - Debbie - Rosemary Dillon - Michael Francis - Paul Gerhard - Jan Guice -
    David Harley - Angela S. Hart - Colin Hambrook - Eric Irwin - Jan J. - David Keay - Bushy Kelly - Ian Kelly - Judy Kessler - Kim - Jason Kingdon - Lucy Lant - Bill Lewis - Dinah Livingstone - Laura Margolis - Jan Marshall - Paul Mayhew - Mr Social Control - Anna Neeter - Paulette Ng - George Parfitt - Eric Penrose - Hilary Porter - Razz - John Rety - Sara Rivers - Sinead - Neil Sparkes - Lizzie Spring - Sam Stevens - Peter Street - Leah Thorn - Premilla Trivedi - James Turner.
    Illustrations by Martin Brownlee - Colin Hambrook - Neil Sparkes - Frank Bangay - John Larson - Ken Mullen - Sara Rivers - Jan MarshaLucy Lant - ll - Paulette Ng - Jan J. - Michael Francis - Hilary Porter - Colin Mahoney - Jan Guice - Francesca Blass.

    August 1992 MAD premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Written and directed by Jeremy Weller. The play was based on the experiences of and acted by eight women who had suffered mental health problems. MAD was covered by the BBC's Late Show and Channel 4 News. Won a Scotsman Fringe Award and Evening News Award

    Asylum Autumn 1992 contains Helen Spandler's Socialist Patient Collective article. Helen begining her MA at Sheffield University in Psychiatry, Philosophy and Society. The course leader was Tim Kendall who was involved in Asylum with Alec Jenner. Alec, who had just retired as Professor of Psychiatry and became emeritus professor, came back for the occasional lecture. Nick Crossley taught the Sociology component of the course

    18.9.1992 to 20.9.1992 "Psychiatries' Presumptions: European Philosophy and Psychiatry". Conference organized jointly by the University of Sheffield Department of Philosophy, the Section of ... Sheffield. Reported in Asylum Winter 1992/1993 and Spring 1993 [May gave been jointly organised with The Royal College of Psychiatrist's Philosophy Group] Followed by "fat cats" correspondence in Asylum 1 1994 and 2 1994

    Tuesday 29.9.1992 Inaugural General Meeting of the National Advocacy Network It changed the name to United Kingdom Advocacy Network (UKAN).

    November? 1992 Third National Hearing Voices Conference.

    The Government set up a Mental Health Task Force in September 1992 to help build up a balanced range of locally based services. The full membership of the group and its support groups was still being finalised in January 1993
    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says "1992- 1994 Mental Health Task Force Service User Group (part of Department of Health's Mental Health Task Force) set up. Produced publications: guidelines for service user charters and advocacy, ran a series of regional service user conferences and Training the Trainers events."
    Anne Plumb: The User Group had three representatives each from Survivors Speak Out, the United Kingdom Advocacy Network and Mind Link; with the brief of preparing publications on Guidelines for a local Charter for users of a mental health service - Advocacy - a code of practice; and Building on experience, a training pack for mental health service users working as trainers, speakers and workshop facilitators. The Charter working group was Marion Beeforth, Colin Gell, Jim Read and Jan Wallcraft - The Advocacy working group was Edna Conlan, Colin Gell, Roberta Graley, Ian Mooney and Tony Day - The Training working group was Roberta Graley, Mary Nettle and Jan Wallcraft. See 19.10.1992 - 29.4.1993
    ... a Mental Health User Task Force organised 11 events at which over 1,000 service users got their first introduction to the possibilities of being involved. (Colin Gell... email 1.8.2008)

    See Sheffield 27.4.1994 - Manchester June 1994 - Derby 29.11.1994

    Regional acknowledgements were made in 1994 to the contributions of:

    Leeds: Leeds. Roberta Graley. Ian Mooney, Migs Noddings, Terry Simpson, Maria Trainer, Patrick Ward, Michael Lockyer

    Manchester. Karen Colligan, Andrew Hughes, Tony Riley, Ronnie Soeakma

    Birmingham. Jane Stallard, Ros Caplin, Roberta Graley, Jill Henley, Ian Monney, Leigh Valance

    Taunton. Helen Hamilton, Francis Halloran, Phil Savagew, Phil Craqcknell, John Doveton, Mary Nettle

    London. Ros Caplin, Partick Ward, Chris Harrison, Miriam Hastings, David Crepaz-Keay, Colin King, Jan Wallcraft.

    Saturday 10.10.1992 "World Mental Health Day 1992 was a turning point for mental health service users, when representatives of three national groups, Mindlink, Survivors Speak Out and the United Kingdom Advocacy Network (UKAN) met the then Secretary of State for Health, Virginia Bottomley" [NOT CORRECT - SEE BELOW]

    Monday 19.10.1992 Minutes of a meeting on or about the Mental Health Task Force Service User Group

    16.11.1992 "Orville Blackwood's mother, Clara Buckley, supported by the Orvillle Blackwood Community Campaign, was successful at the high court in their demand for a new inquest..." Campaign c/o Brixton Community Sanctuary, Talma Road, SW2. Meetings were held at Brixton Town Hall.

    Friday 18.12.1992 Meeting with Virginia Bottomley

    December 1992 Mary Nettle self-employed as a Mental Health User Consultant, under the Enterprise Allowance scheme.

    Asylum Winter 1992/1993

    31.12.1992 Ben Silcock

    1993

    "Leeds Mental Health Advocacy Group started 1993" - External link to its history and the history of advocacy archive [Actually incorporated as company limited by guarantee on 16.9.1992] Terry Simpson was a Director from 29.6.1992 to 29.4.2005 (resigned). Occupation "patients advocate). "LMHAG'S initial role was to provide trained volunteer advocates for citizens advocacy and Patients' Councils. One to one representational advocacy requests were referred to two full time equivalent workers in the Health Unit of Leeds City Council's Benefits and Rights Department. The Health Unit was wound up early in 1998 and after six months it became clear that this had created a serious gap in services. The City Council then agreed to proposals from LMHAG that workers would provide direct paid advocacy rather facilitate volunteer advocacy." - Became Advocacy for Mental Health and Dementia in December 2007 "to incorporate and promote our Dementia advocacy services" - Link to website archive. Celebrated "21 years of advocacy (1993-2014)". Company dissolved 25.4.2017.

    IT! Poems by Paulette NG copyright 1993. A tape in Thurstine Basset's collection. Paulette NG was a member of Survivors Poetry

    1993 Hearing Voices: A sociological study by Michael George Grierson. University of Manchester, Department of Sociology Ph.D. thesis. 513 pages. See Ron Coleman 1991 - Asylum Winter 1991/1992 - Having a Voice - 2001 - 2002 - 16.9.2002

    Beyond Diagnosis, c/o CAPS, The Engine Shed, 19 St Leonard's Lane, Edinburgh, EH8 9SD 1993? Beyond Diagnosis issue six produced after an "extremely lengthy delay". It included a letter about Libellus Dementum (Oxford, England) (p. ) - a "Self help" article about Express Group (Fife), which focused on a theatrical performance at its Annual General Meeting in May 1992 (pages 10- 11) - A personal account of mental illness by Carolyn Raeburn, one of the actors in Mad at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 1992.

    Begining of 1993 City and Hackney Mind Advocacy Service established at Hackney Hospital. Coodinator: Robert Dellar

    1993 Open Society Institute founded by George Soros in New York. Peter Barham sent him a letter which eventually led to substantial funding for Hamlet Trust work in central and eastern Europe.

    5.1.1993 Joan Hughes' diary: "One hour phone-in on Community Care on Radio Four. Only five minutes devoted to calls from ex-patients living in the community - and 55 minutes devoted to calls from relatives and professionals. Emphasis is always on the worst cases."

    29.1.1993 Letter from Virginia Bottomley to Peter Campbell, responding to a letter of 7.1.1993. "I very much appreciated meeting last month with you and the Chairs of the other two organisations. It is so important that mentally distressed people are actively involved both in their own treatment plans and in the development of mental health services." "I know that both Mrs Conlan and Ms Haywood are in contact with officials and that you are all involved in the Mental Health Task Force Support Group."

    Community Care Support Force

    February 1993 Two day event "when people from five local areas (professionals and service users) came together to discuss their progress so far in developing assessment and care management and how user participation could be promoted."

    26.2.1993 Participants at meeting: Pam Barette: Power House - Nasa Begum - Blodwen Brewster: Community Care Support Force - Brian Brianstocker: People First - Jane Campbell: British Council of Organisations of Disabled People - Alice Ethrington: People First - John Evans: British Council of Organisations of Disabled people - Phil Friend - Roberta Graley : UK Advocacy Network (UKAN) - Millee Hill: Black Disabled People Group (Action) - Michael Jeewa: Asian people with Disabilities Alliance - Cheryl King: Power House: Facilitator - Viv Lindow: Community Care Support Force - Lucille Lusk: British Council of Organisations of Disabled People - Sandra Martin: People First: Facilitator - Narendra Mehta: Apna Ghar Housing Association - Jenny Morris: Consultant and meeting chair - Andy Smith: Survivors Speak out - Albert Thompson: British Deaf Association and Deaf Services Participation Project.

    31.3.1993 User Participation in Community Care Services - A series of documents prepared by Jenny Morris and Vivien Lindow on behalf of the Community Care Support Force

    March 1993 Peter Breggin visited the United Kingdom. He "did a conference in Bristol with Lucy Johnstone" which Peter Campbell was supposed to attend, but did not, and "spoke at an event organised by Hackney Mind", which is where Peter Cambell heard him. (email Peter Campbell 31.7.2009). At some time, a Peter Breggin/David Cohen Conference was organised in London by Pam Jenkinson (Anne Plumb emails)

    Asylum Spring 1993

    April 1993 Short article in Hackney Gazette said someone (City and Hackney Mind?) was looking for volunteers who had used psychiatric services to work in Hackney Hospital. Terry Conway read and responded. This role led to Hackney Patients Council

    April 1993 Mission statement of the (USA) National Association of Consumer/Survivor Mental Health Administrators (NAC/SMHA) which "represents state mental health department senior managers who are current or former recipients of mental health services". archive

    Thursday 1.4.1993 Second inquest returns verdict of accidental daeth in the case of Orville Blackwood. Clara Buckley, Orvilles's mother, said "... this is the third young black man who has died in Broadmoor in the same circumstances and this is accidental death. I can't understand it. I would like the staff of Broadmoor to come to discuss this situation with me and really to see what they can do to prevent these deaths in hospitals like Broadmoor. I am going to take this campaign as broad as I can. It is time for us to get together as a community to prevent these unnecessary deaths in secure units and hospitals. I want care and counselling to be the priority, not drugging."

    29.4.1993 Meeting of Mental Health Task Force Service User Group at which David King explained the objectives, and users listed their concerns. Jan Wallcraft wrote a memorandum. The meeting was attended by Peter Campbell from Survivors Speak Out - Jim Read Independent Trainer - Jan Wallcraft from MINDLINK - and Edna Conlan from UKAN

    29.5.1993 and 30.5.1993 Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) "Training the Trainers" two day event. Mary Nettle, who had recently become a full-time user consultant, delivered part of the programme. Sarah Berry, then at North West Mind, helped with pre-publicity. One of the trainees, Munir Lalani, is a current member of DATA.

    First half of 1993 Experiencing Psychiatry: User's Views of Services by Anne Rogers, David Pilgrim and Ron Lacey. Based on evidence from a survey of the views of 500 users of psychiatric services. Macmillan in association with Mind. 205 pages.

    12.6.1993 Queen's Birthday Honours list included "Mrs Edna Conlan, chair, UK Advocacy Network, for services to improving mental health" Order of the British Empire Member (MBE). [The Order has "officers", who are OBEs, and "members, who are MBEs]

    Asylum Summer 1993

    27.8.1993 "Terms of Reference of the Voices Forum National Committee". National Schizophrenic Fellowship. (Anne Plumb collection).

    28.7.1993 Meeting of the Charter Group (of the Mental Health Task Force Service User Group) at Richmond House. Terry Simpson says "There seemed at the time something very symbolic in survivors meeting at the heart of the Department of Health, at Richmond House". He still has the early draft of the Charter that was discussed at the meeting.

    Asylum Autumn 1993: "All Survivor Issue. Diana Her Survivor Story".

    "I had to more or less drop out of DATA by late 1993 through domestic commitments". (Anne Plumb)

    The second Scottish Users Conference was held in November 1993. The theme was community care. Workshops were held to determine gaps in services and to prioritise real needs as identified by users. Tishe Shaw spoke on black and ethnic minority issues and Maria Fyfe MP was the other speaker. A report was published in March 1994.

    November? 1993 Fourth National Hearing Voices Conference.

    December 1993 - March 1994 Survivors' Poetry UK tour: Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Wolverhampton (source)

    Late 1993 Hearing Voices Newsletter no 10. Editorial Nigel Rose Groups continuing to grow. Some survive only a short while, some go from strength to strength. Hearing Voices Network National Office (Manchester). Groups - Manchester, Liverpool, North Wales, Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh, Wakefield, Oxford, South London, North London.

    Late 1993 Stopovers on my way home from mars. Reflective journey through the psychiatric survivor movement in the USA, Britain and the Netherlands by Mary O'Hagan published by Survivors Speak Out

    1994

    about 1994 The Mad Persons Union.
    MPU c/o 369 Oxford Street, Sheffield, S6 3FD

    Issue 4 "ECT - The Shocking Facts" has material on the October 1993 Annual General Meeting of Survivors Speak Out.

    Issue 5 identifies "Leading examples of mental illness" in John Major as Prime Minister, Kenneth Clarke at the Treasury, Michael Howard at the Home Office, Viriginia Bottomley at Health, John Paten at Education and Peter Lilley at Social Security. "Peter Lilley regularly displays a startling fear of 'the other'" - "single parent women and people from countries that aren't British" [See Lilley's List]

    Self-Harm: Perspectives from Personal Experience edited by Louise Roxanne Pembroke. London : Survivors Speak Out, 1994. 71 pages. Illustrated. ISBN: 1898002029. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72). COPAC lists copies in several libraries.

    1994 Louise Roxanne Pembroke called for the setting-up of a National Self-Harm Network in order to campaign more effectively for 'rights for self-harmers'. The network was established shortly afterwards with Pembroke the first Chair. (Cresswell, M. 2004, incorrectly ascribed to 1994. On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says it was "set up for mutual support, information and education of mental health workers and general public on self-harm issues".

    The address of the National Self Harm Network was c/o Survivors Speak Out 34 Osnaburgh Street. (1999 source) - Later PO Box 16190, London NW1 3WW - website 2002

    External link to National Self Harm Network website
    The network is now based in Nottingham

    Advocacy Information Pack published by Good Practices in Mental Health in 1994. A copy in the British Library is the only one listed on COPAC.

    Wolf Howls [poems] by Paulette NG. copyright 1994. A tape in Thurstine Basset's collection.


    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1994-present Black service users/survivors begin setting up separate groups and organisations: These include Awaaz in Manchester, Buddies in Bradford, and Share in Maudsley Black Action (SIMBA) and Black Women and Mental Health in London."

    1994 Carol Jenkin started BUDDIES and Pat Butterfield started ECT Anon. "...if it hadn't been for the support we both gave each other, we couldn't have made it through the negativity being aimed towards us at our development stages." (Carol Jenkin, email 6.8.2008)

    Buddies is a Mental Health Support Network and Befriending Scheme (Black/multi-cultural with mental health issues is its focus) which was originally based in Bradford, but has now moved to Manchester where the city seems to support it and want it. (Carol Jenkin 17.9.2008)

    The BBC places the start of ECT Anon about 1995/1996. See The North West Right to Refuse Electroshock Campaign - ECT Anon website 16.1.2001 - Winter 2002/2003

    Dominic Makuvachuma-Walker was born in Zimbabwea, but at sometime came to London. About 1994 he "survived a racially motivated arson attack which became a murder investigation" in "inner city London". "I kind of clammed up and I coiled into myself for a number of years, and I relied primarily on a lot of support from peers". They set up a users (survivors) group in Waltham Forest. See I haven't got a presentation. I am the presentation! (2013?) offline
    1997 Married in Walthamstow, became a "father of three" About 1997 that he began "contributing to the voice of direct, lived experience of using mental health services ... through a range of platforms". a Disc Jockey. Noted for "role play case studies" See
    description on Social Perspectives Network (2005) and Radio 4 2003 - User Survey Steering Group 2003 - 14.1.2005 - 7.6.2005 - 18.7.2005 - Catch-A-Fiya Network 2006 - "the first African Survivor to contribute as a panellist to an Independent Homicide inquiry as well as an internal inquiry into a Serious and Untoward Incident leading to the Death in Custody of an African Caribbean Patient". (about 2008/ 2007) - Lives with chronic physical health conditions [Since about 2012?}. Currently (2018) an Engagement Manager for Mind and Co-chair of the National Survivor User Network (NSUN).


    Ireland index 1994 Paddy McGowan established a mental health service users group in Ireland.

    1994 "When I" [Alison Faulkner] "first arrived at the Foundation in 1994, June McKerrow (the then chief executive) said: "Let's do some research that is user-patient led". I was well connected with service users so got together different people from user organisations such as Speak Out and the UK Advocacy Network as well as Mind Link and the Brent user group, who had done so much work involving members of the whole community. We also had people from the African-Caribbean Mental Health Association - We designed the questionnaire by committee and I did all the work in-between." (Alison Faulkner 2.2009) - This led to Knowing Our Own Minds

    1994 Awaaz users group was set up in 1994 with the support and help of Having a Voice.

    Hanif Bobat sometime Development Director of the "national charity group" AWAAZ. - Attending Mosque Helps Mental Health - A user-led research project into Mosque: exploring the benefits that Muslim men with severe mental health problems find from attending Mosque Hanif Bobat, Mental Health Foundation, 2001, 16 pages.

    1994 Self-help alternatives to mental health services by Vivien Lindow 78 pages ISBN: 1874690219 and Purchasing mental health services: self-help alternatives by Vivien Lindow, 33 pages, ISBN: 1874690227, published by Mind. 76 pages.

    January 1994 The editorial team of Beyond Diagnosis began to meet again. "We spoke about the possibility of a relaunch and in the meantime... got on with producing another issue"

    February 1994 Hearing Voices Newsletter no 11. Editorial Nigel Rose

    February 1994 Distress or disability? by Anne Plumb

    March 1994 Hackney Patients' Council founded. The founders were Robert Dellar (coordinator for the City and Hackney Mind advocacy team, whose office was on the ground floor of F Block) - Terry Conway, social worker - Deb Percy, retired psychiatric nurse - Earil Hunter, ex-patient - and Debbie MacNamara ex-patient. (Robert, Terry and Debbie have articles in Mad Pride 2000.

    At this time, there were only two other patients councils in the country known to the group. The founders made a grant application to the health authority and gained temporary funding for three months. At the end of the three months, Hackney Patients Council was offered an annual grant of £30,000 on condition that certain targets were met and certain pre- requisites honoured.

    for predecessors in Hackney Hospital - see above - See below 2001

    April 1994 A Report Concerning Conditions at the Hackney Hospitals as Seen by the Patients" by Earil Hunter and Phil Murphy, edited by Robert Dellar, published by City and Hackney Mind Mental Health Advocacy Service.

    1.3.1994 Have We Got Views for You - User Evaluation of Case Management by Marion Beeforth - Edna Conlan - and Roberta Graley. Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.

    End of March 1994 Annual General Meeeting of the Scottish User Network. Edna Conlan, chair of the United Kingdom Advocacy Network, was the speaker.

    Issue 7 of Beyond Diagnosis reports on the above conference.

    13.4.1994 Accepting Voices. Understanding the Voice Hearing Experience Brixton - The Hearing Voices Network. (Asylum 1 1994). This was the first Hearing Voices conference to be aimed at psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Speakers included Marius Romme and Sondra Escher - Consultant psychiatrist Philip Thomas (University of Wales) on The British Experience; Clinical psychologist Gillian Haddock (University of Manchester) who developed the 'focusing' approach to coping with hearing voices on Psychological Therapies; Alan Leader, Helen Heap (chair HVN), Anne Walton on the HVN (aims, objectives, work) and Ron Coleman from HVN on coping with the experience.

    27.4.1994 "Forging Our Futures" conference at the Forte Crest Hotel on Manchester Road in Sheffield - part of the Mental Health Task Force process - Organised by Roberta Graley and Terry Simpson of UKAN

    May 1994 Hearing Voices Newsletter no 12. Karina Carlyn, voice hearer takes job as editor from Nigel Rose. "We thought it was time that a voice hearer took over the job as editor. There is a wind of change blowing through the whole of the Hearing Voices network and we voice hearers are taking on more and more responsibilities in the running of our organisation at every level. We believe it is time we were in control of our destiny." Funding of £25000 received from Mental Health Foundation.

    May 1994 Ron Coleman (Manchester HVN) and Alan Leader (South London HVN) attending conference in Maastricht organised by Foundation Resonance

    Friday 6.5.1994 UK Government blocked a Civil Rights (Disabled Persons Bill) aimed to give disabled people protection against discrimination. A government backed Disability Discrimination Act became law in November 1995. This created the National Disability Council.

    27.5.1994 Annual General Meeeting of the Lothian Users Forum. Issue 7 of Beyond Diagnosis reports. Groups mentioned include "E.A.M.H." - MIND - Lothian Mental Health Forum - CAPS - the Patients Council - Sprout - UKAN - Awareness - John Macdonald said that UKAN "seems to have no representatives from Scotland" [John MacDonald was on the UKAN board for several years as a Scottish representative - Two UKAN tresurers were from Scotland and for many years UKANs links with Scotland were strong. (Terry Simpson 2.6.2009)

    June 1994 "Forging Our Futures" conference at Manchester Airport - part of the Mental Health Task Force process. Andrew Hughes outlined history of the Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) (as since reused on this web page). "A volunteer scribe from the audience that day, Caroline Hellewell, is now DATA's most senior member". (Andrew Hughes - former coordinator and treasurer DATA)

    2.7.1994 Founding conference of Psychology, Politics, Resistance (Asylum 2 1994)

    "Psychology Politics Resistance was founded in 1994 as a network of people who are prepared to oppose the abusive uses of psychology. Members of PPR in different places have organised meetings and have been involved in a number of different campaigns. The purpose of PPR is not to duplicate or replace but to network the many different groups and individuals who have already been organising. Now our newsletter is incorporated in Asylum magazine" (discourse unit website)
    Beyond Diagnosis c/o CAPS, 5 Cadzoow Place, Edinburgh, EH7 5SN Summer 1994? issue 7 of Beyond Diagnosis - "I'll stick my neck out here and say that issue 8 should be out before the end of the year"
    Picture from Oor Mad History shows Issue 7 (fairground) on top of 6 (money) and an earlier addition. The fairground photograph was taken by Jimmy Osborne, the money photograph by Tony Hankins.
    Anne O'Donnell wrote in Oor Mad History "I kind of came in towards the end of Beyond Diagnosis. It was a magazine that offered creative opportunities for people with mental health problems and used mental health services. There was photography, poetry, fiction and autobiographical pieces... I think it gave people a space to be open about having mental health problems.

    August 1994 Hearing Voices Newsletter no 13.

    26.8.1994 Orville Blackwood Community Campaign "In memory of all those who have not survived psychiatry". A picket of survivors to be held outside the Royal College of Psychiatry... 11am to 1pm.

    November 1994 Appointment of Hackney Patient Council workers: Eileen Philip - Julie Hathaway - Phil Murphy - and Andy Martin (the present coordinator)

    November? 1994 Fifth National Hearing Voices Conference.

    November 1994 Judith Morgan-Freer, another user, elected vice-chair of Mind, in place of Mike Lawson. Mike had been asked to step down by Tim Durkin (retiring chair) who had proposed Judith Morgan-Freer as Mike's replacement. Judith served for one year and was succeded by another user, Lisa Haywood.

    3.11.1994 and 4.11.1994 Conference of the British Medical Association on Core Values for the Medical Profession in the 21st Century.

    "recognising that paternalism is no longer an appropriate model for the doctor-patient relationship... argued that the relationship should be a 'partnership of mutual trust' in which doctors should encourage patients to help decide treatment and care." (Mike Crawford, March 2001)

    29.11.1994 and 30.11.1994 Conference "Forging our Futures" held at Derby by the Mental Health Task Force User Group to mark the culmination of their work. A transcript was published in 1995 Forging Our Futures: Lighting the Fire. London: Mental Health Task Force User Group - Conference proceedings, discussing work of the mental health task force user group. Details examples of user involvement in service planning and delivery.
    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1994: National Service User Conference in Derby, attended by over 200 service users representing the movement, endorses national charter and publications."

    Building on Experience: A training pack for mental health service users working as trainers, speakers and workshop facilitators NHS Executive Mental Health Task Force User Group. Roberta Graley, Mary Nettle and Jan Wallcraft. 27 pages and 11 training handouts (Or "with 7 training pack handouts in a pocket at the end".

    Guidelines for a local charter for users of mental health services. Mental Health Task Force,

    Advocacy - a code of practice : developed by UKAN (United Kingdom Advocacy Network). Edna Conlan, Colin Gell, Roberta Graley, Mental Health Task Force User Group. 33 pages

    December 1994 Launch of Schizophrenia Media Agency, c/o Hearing Voices Network, 1st Floor, Fourways House, 16 Tariff St, Manchester M1 2FN. Tel: 061-228 3896. Health Matters Feature (archive). See Manchester index.

    1.12.1994 First World Assembly (and Fourth World Congress) of Disabled Peoples' International held Sydney, Australia. Paper by Peter Beresford, John Bowden and Gloria Gifford on "Psychiatric System Survivors and the Disabled People's Movement".

    Internet: The A.C.O.R.N (Advocacy and Community On-line Resource Network) project was designed in late/early 1994/1995. The concept was to use the media of the Internet to produce a service that would be useful for communications, organisational developments and information and most importantly a service that was open and independent. The World Wide Web is available anywhere so, Bolton is as equal as London (source)

    1995

    Internet: ... we had a dream, the mental health user movement U.K plugged into the Internet with pages crammed full of information for individuals and organisations. Despite making our way up to a United Kingdom Advocacy Networks management meeting early in 95 the management committee decided to defer any active involvement in the project until a decisive vote was had on the matter.. A bid to MHF in early 95 was also pointless..." (article by B.J. Brecknock)

    Kathryn Church: Forbidden narratives : critical autobiography as social science published. Republished 2003. 160 pages - (Google books extracts) - "about her personal involvement with the user movement - and how it resonated with her own experiences of women's oppression and also her own experience of physical/mental breakdown" (Helen Spandler)

    "Madness and Feminism: Bristol Crisis Service for Women" by Tamsin Wilton. Chapter two in Gabriele Griffin Feminist Activism in the 1990s pages 28 - 40

    About 1995 The begining of Clare Allan's "lost decade" See Daily Mail interview 4.3.2008

    February/March 1995 Louise Pembroke "National self-harm network" in OpenMind 73, page 13.

    Is the Writing on the Asylum Wall? by Ron Coleman published under the imprint of his "Action Consultancy and Training (ACT)" in 1995. Other publications followed under the same imprint: Celtic Madness - The Voice Inside and Killing Me Softly. Ron Coleman and Andy Gilbert formed Handsell Publishing in 1997. Handsell organised a conference to mark ten years of the Hearing Voices Network in 1998 and then conferences on "Recovery" in 1999 - 2000 - 2001

    March 1995 Meetings and draft "ongoing statement" of CAPO

    Asylum Spring 1995

    April 1995 Under the Asylum Tree - 15.4.1995 Survivors Poetry 150 Ossulston Street, Special Anthology Launch

    April 1995 BBC Horizon programme for and about people who hear voices. Many more people contacting the Hearing Voices Network.

    10.5.1995 Beautiful Octopus Club, The Albany, Deptford, SE8, launched by Heart 'n Soul - 'the first cabaret club to open in London to give expression to the culture of learning disabled people'. (source)

    Asylum Summer 1995

    July 1995 National Conference in Manchester that was the culmination of Helen Spandler's research at 42nd Street into the needs and experiences of young people who attempt suicide or self-harm.

    August 1995 Survivors Poetry Scotland launched as part of the Out of Sight - Out of Mind Exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery (Glasgow). - See Sweet Sourand Serious (1996)

    November? 1995 Sixth National Hearing Voices Conference.

    November 1995 Lisa Haywood elected vice-chair of Mind. She served until 2006.

    December 1996 On a snowy morning, Sidney Millin, a journalist from Zimbabwe arrived in London "to make a new start in life". See THACMHO - 2000 Sidney joined THACMHO - January 2006 ITU meeting - February 2008 - Lifting Barriers -

    Two Survivors Speak Out information sheets by Adina Halpern, solicitor, were published in 1995: "The Survivors Speak Out Crisis Card" and "Advance Directives". (Anne Plumb collection). - See Mind Advice on Advance Directives

    Five or six years after the launch of crisis cards at the Survivors Speak Out AGM in 1989, Peter Campbell recalls someone from Mind coming to Survivors Speak Out and saying "Mind are not interested in the idea of Advance Directives - Will you take it up?"

    Alan Leader (1995) Direct Power: A Resource Pack for People Who Want to Develop Their Own Care Plans and Support Networks. London: Brixton Community Sanctuary, Pavilion Publishing and Mind

    1995 On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1995-present Service users/survivors as workers: Employment campaigns and programmes are developed by service users, including EcoWorks in Nottingham, and service user employment programme to support service users to find work within the South West London and St George's NHS Trust." [Not called that then?]

    Rachel Perkins, a clinician and service user, set up the South West London and St George's scheme. Shelley Harper became part of the scheme. She had physical disabilities from 1976 and had campaigned around those issues. In 1990 she developed clinical depression as a result of brain damage from her disability and transferred to mental health issues.

    1996 consumer research NHS

    Internet: "The only way I knew there was any survivors activism was by finding the online Madness list in the US in 1996. There were only 3 of us from the UK on the list and I kept wishing we had a UK movement like them. I didn't know about you guys. So historically speaking the internet has made a big change in the ways we can communicate." Jill Goble

    Significant further development of a recognised and professionalised user movement took place from the mid 1990s. These included Diana Rose's user-led research and the first service user development worker in 1996 and the Capital Project Trust in 1997 for service user training. Aspects of the user movement were becoming institutionalised as part of the system of social administration.

      1996 was the official start of user-led or survivor research Diana Rose has said (Summer 2009) that "Survivor research in mental health can be traced back to two programmes of work in Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) - Strategies for Living at the Mental Health Foundation, and User-Focused Monitoring at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. These were established in 1996, the same year that INVOLVE was founded as Consumers in NHS Research".

    For examples of user led research before 1996, see the MPU questionnaire in 1973 - Society for the Advancement of Research into Anorexia, (SARA) in 1982 - the Hackney Survey in January 1988 - Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) in May 1988 - Camden Consortium in June 1990 - UKAN's survey of attitudes to ECT in 1994 - Research leading to Knowing Our Own Minds 1994 to 1997

    10.1.1996 Living in the Community by Diana Rose, published by Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health described itself as "the first survey of users' experiences of day-to-day living based on interviews conducted by users". Brian Hoser and Brian Rhodes helped Diana with the interviewing. (external - offline - Reviewed by Tom Burns in Psychiatric Bulletin October 1997, Volume 21, Issue 10 ( external - offline)

    1996 Representations of madness on British television : a social psychological analysis. Ph.D.(London) thesis 1996 LSE. Diana Susan Rose. (See below)

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 dates user-led research from 1996, saying

    "a number of programmes and projects were set up where research is led and carried out by service users/survivors".

    It lists the

  • User Focused Monitoring programme at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (external link - internet archive) [carried out in Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster as a pilot project in 1996 by Dr Diana Rose. Published 1998] -

  • Strategies for Living at the Mental Health Foundation - which was managed by Alison Faulkner - See 1994 - February 1997 - newsletter 1.1 - Big Alternative Conference March 1998 and webisite with publications - newsletter 2.2 - Big Alternative 1999 - 2000 - Big Alternative 2000 - January 2001 - newsletter 12 - February 2001 - Big Alternative 2001 - (Alison Faulkner left) - newsletter September 2002 - Big Alternative 2002 - newsletter December 2002 - newsletter March 2003 - newsletter June 2003 - newsletter 20 Autumn 2003 - October 2003 -

  • Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) [Co-director Diana Rose] at the Institute of Psychiatry, which started in 2001

  • 1996 Patricia Chambers began her research creer by conducting her own research into "different ways, pathways or reasons that young black men were coming into the mental health system".

    1996 The Avon Mental Health Measure, The Avon Mental Health Partnership, Bristol, published by Mind. "A measure designed to enable users of mental health services to have a structured voice within the process of their care to help identify needs and priorities. A service user-centred approach to assessing need... a comprehensive, valid measure for drawing up care plans, based on identified needs. It helps engage service users in the management of their care. The assessment tool enables service users to examine various aspects of their lives, resulting in a holistic needs assessment which, when used over time, can be used as a proxy measure of outcome." Vicky Rigley 2007?

    "it was South West Mind (Earle Kessler and Alison Cox are names I remember) who led on it rather than user groups, although the steering group had people from Bristol survivors patients council on it as well as commissioner's and providers council and mental health care trust (before AWP) existed services were provided by 3 acute non mental health trusts across Bristol and this one was in United Bristol Health Care Trust patch mainly" Glen Townsend 2.8.2012

    In 1996 Peter Relton became Service User Development Worker with the new "Bradford Home Treatment Service". He says he was "the first service user in the UK employed to provide a user perspective within a team of mental heath professionals". He also speaks of "post-psychiatry, which has its origins in the work pioneered by the Bradford Home Treatment Service." (external source)

    Southwark Mind (website) - archive

    "We have been a pioneering and radical group since 1996" (Denise Mckenna). Pete Shaughnessy one of Southwark Mind's original user members and was its first chair. Denise Mckenna joined acouple of months later in 1996 and they became co-chairs.

    Southwark Mind had been almost user led for about a year before the 1997 AGM - with the enabling help of Anna Carver of the Independent Advocacy Service - and we had all been working towards it becoming fully user led for some time. There was no opposition to it becoming user led. (Denise Mckenna)

    Besides being involved in Southwark Mind, Pete was involved in many other user activities, some of which involved users from Southwark Mind, but many were distinct from Southwark Mind. (Denise Mckenna) See Reclaim Bedlam

    24.8.1997 Southwark Mind AGM that converted it into a user run group.

    [The following is misleading in at least two respects: Pete Shaughnessy, with the help of Denise Mckenna, "carved up" the 1997 Annual General Meeting of Southwark Mind, turning it into a user-lead charity. This led to Robert Dellar being appointed as a development worker "to take ideas forward including Pete's" (source)]


    See Newsletter December 1998 - 1999 - November 2000 - September 2002 - 2003 - Kindred Minds 2007 - October 2009 - December 2010 - May 2011

    And the World Really Had Changed (ISBN: 1901045005) published by Leeds Survivor Poets. LSP Press, Leeds, 1996. Paperback. 25 Cms x 18 Cms. 135 pages, 99 poems written by members of The Leeds Survivors' Poetry group, who describe themselves as survivors of "mental health system involvement". The poetry varies from humorous to touching to painful, and is the first anthology by this group.

    Sharon Lefevre, Killing me Softly. Self harm, survival not suicide Gloucester: Handsell Publishing, 1996. 95 pages. ISBN: 1903199069

    1996 Perspectives on Manic Depression - A Survey of the Manic Depression Fellowship, by Robert Gareth Hill, Pollyanna Hardy and Geoff Shepherd The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, - external download - offline - The most recent leaflet was one on the self-management of manic-depression. This concept was picked up by the Self Harm Network and Voices. See also Mary Nettle February 2000.

    about 1996 that Tina Coldham walked out of her psychiatrist's room thinking "Is this all there is?" A local charity helped her set up and run a self-help group, which she did for eight years. About 1999 she began working as a Mental Health User Consultant/Trainer. She coordinated user evaluations of a city centre day centre (2000), mental health day services in the rural areas of South Winchester, and a hybrid service (CAB, Advocacy, Housing, and legal advice) in an inpatient setting (2001). She was elected to the Mind Link National Advisory Panel in 2003 and is vice-chair of the National Survivor User Network

    1996 [Daniel] Kofi Sunu became Head of Supported Housing and Care Services, Kush Housing Association, Hackney. About 1997 Kush Housing established the Nile Centre, a mental health crisis centre for people of African and Afro-Caribbean origin, living in Hackney. This aim to reduce the number admitted to hospital as schizophrenic. [BBC link]. About ten years later, Kofi Sunu helped to start Haywood Consultancy"

    Aya or fern is a symbol of endurance and resourcefulness. In 1996, Hammersmith and Fulham Black User Group (Hand f Bugs) chose this symbol "because we thought it was apt for the experience of the members of the group". (website) [website lost]. Patricia Chambers was a member of this group.

    BUGs (Black User Group) was "a self help black user/survivor group that believes in sharing the mechanisms that have helped us recover from mental illness or maintain a reasonable quality of life while suffering mental distress, with other people in the same position. We work in the community with other black user/survivors that have mental health issues. We do regular hospital visits to the local mental health unit, where we will sit and talk to in-patients there and take them in small items that they may need during their stay. We also run a drop-in once a month on the first or last Tuesday of that month. Here people can come and relax and play games and have refreshments and discuss topics and issues that are pertinent to them. We take part in research and also run conferences and events with a user/survivor focus and lead and here we will quite often debate current mental health issues. BUG's is completely run by user/survivors." It was based at The Ellerslie Centre 50 Ellerslie Rd Shepherds Bush W12 7BW. (source)


    Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation (THACMHO) was established in 1996 by Harry Cumberbatch. Its projects include "The Health Through History Initiative".
    One of its symbols is Tabono representing strength, confidence and perseverance. Another is the Sankofa bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg in its mouth. The egg symbolises the future. We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today.

    Index:   1996 - 2000 - out of the picture leaflet - 2001 history sub- committee - October 2001 walk and exhibition - October 2002 walk - 2004 reminiscence conference on West Indian Seamen - Power Writers book - January 2006 ITU meeting - May 2006 (Decade) - 2007 website - November 2007 Sugar and Slavery - Tower of London - May 2008 THACMHO Newsletter: Summer edition - 14.5.2008 Radio interview - 30.10.2009 F.E.E.L. presentation - 19.3.2010 Pageant - 14.7.2010 Birmingham Seminar - 28.7.2010 Annual General Meeting - 29.9.2010 report from Fabian and Philip - 24.11.2010 heritage bid - 25.1.2012 feared closure - 4.4.2012 working with Mellow - 19.12.2013 Celebrating Our Strengths - 29.10.2014 Promoting Well Being - 2017 Death of Philip Morgan - spirit of Philip Morgan
    10.5.1996: First User Group meeting held in the offices of the Tower Hamlets Community Health Council in Whitechapel.

    26.11.1996:

    Consultation conference held Mind Open House, 13 Whitethorn Street, E3. Drew up recommendations respecting St Clements Hospital, Care in the community, and eventual provision of a mental health resource centre.

    Active members before 2015 included - Sidney Millin - Philip Morgan - Fabian Tompsett - Sam Shakes -


    1996 Black Women's Mental Health Project set up: "Two women - Mary Ampah and Hyacinth Dapaa - set up the group. They registered the name as a company. All they had, when I joined them in 1996, was one community room in Stonebridge, which they were given, plus four chairs which they provided themselves." - [Currently] "We are at Park Royal Business Centre in Harlesden... We have proved over and over again that The Black Womens' Mental Health Project is a beneficial, valuable addition to community welfare in Brent." (Angela Linton-Abulu contact person March 2003) -

    Ireland index 1996 Brian Hartnett returned home to Limerick, where a doctor diagnosed him as schizophrenic. "For the first time ever I realised that everything going on in my head could possibly be attributed to an illness and that this illness might be treatable". "When he said he could prescribe medication that would stop this nightmare, a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon. I was worried though about what this drug, would do to me. Would it turn me into a vegetable, would I be sedated to a state of numbness. He reassured me by saying it was a relatively new drug and that it was the best thing for me. He mentioned hospital saying I could go there but I agreed to be treated as an out patient under my parents supervision. He also gave me a prescription for side effects." "The effect of the medication was to subdue the voices and delusions to a state where I could function to a relatively normal degree, but I found that I also had to be careful to avoid stressful situations. I had to eat, sleep and exercise on a regular basis. I also had to take the medication twice a day every day. If I didn't look after myself in this way the voices and delusions would rise up and start to interfere in my life again."

    January 1996 "Some Points to Consider when Putting your Crisis Card into Use" Survivors Speak Out Information sheet. (Anne Plumb collection).

    February 1996 The UK Federation of Smaller Mental Health Agencies - "Representing the Unrepresented" formed as a result of a Forum organised by the Matthew Trust in the House of Lords in February 1996. Founder and President Peter Thompson. More than 120 representatives of 86 agencies attended and agreed that the Federation should be formed. As many again wrote in with support after that meeting. The Federation is a Company limited by Guarantee (number 3236769). It is a membership-based Charity (number 1058342) set up to support its locally based and independent Members who develop and provide mental health services in their community. At its peak it had 250 voting and associate members, representing more than 150,000 service users.

    Federation website archive. Not updated since November 2005. The Trust Deed of The O'Hara Trust (On the Side), a family charity which supports the Federation, is dated 21.3.1997. "On The Side is a charity which mainly supports the efforts of small user-led mental health groups."

    March 1996 Pembrokeshire Hearing Voices Group (Grwp Clywed Lleisiau Sir Benfro formed. Between April 1998 and March 2000 the group produced a monthly newsletter (edited by Hywel Davies). These were later bound as Hearing and Belonging. The Newsletter Pack 2000. Hywel also produced Hearing Voices: An Information Pack in 1998 and the Mental Health Factfile (Ffeil Ffeithiau Iechyd Meddwl).

    April 1996 Robert Dellar's Gobbing, Pogoing and Gratuitous Bad Language!: An Anthology of Punk Short Stories published by Spare Change Books.

    4.4.1996 Launch of Brixton Community Sanctuary Anthology, by Survivors Poetry at Diorama. (source).

    June 1996 Highland Users Group (HUG) established. See website

    Summer? 1996 Press launch of Helen Spandler's Who's Hurting Who? Young people, self-harm and suicide. "During that launch, a story was touted around the tabloid press with the headline 'voluntary sector encourages people to self harm', and a psychiatrist, on local television, indicated that we were out of our depth. Following this publicity, we also learnt that some services mistakenly believed that 42nd Street had 'cutting rooms.' Accepting that self harm may be 'functional' for some young people at particular times in their lives did not mean that we actively endorsed or encouraged self harm, nor provided places where young people could 'cut up'. Despite these misunderstandings and attempts to undermine our work, we knew from our experience that young people responded positively to a less controlling approach." (42nd Street Forward to Spandler and Warner 2007)

    October 1996 launch of the Millennium Awards scheme by the Millennium Commission. The Millennium Commission was set up under the National Lottery Act of 1993. It met between February 1994 and November 2006. Millennium Awards were small (typically about £2000) grants to individual people for projects which benefited themselves and their community. They were administered by charities, including Mind. Mind Millennium Awards made 514 awards from a total grant of £1,011,629 - See weblink. Awards made included to Jason Pegler - Andrew Hughes - Peter Munn

    10.10.1996 Sweet, Sour and Serious: illustrated anthology Survivors' Poetry Scotland. Glasgow: Survivors' Press Scotland, 1996. 136 pages. 22 cm. Includes portraits. Includes indexes. ISBN: 095291400X. Launched on World Mental Health Day, which was also National Poetry Day. COPAC lists two copies: One in the National Library of Scotland and the other in Bristol.

    15.11.1996 and 16.11.1996 Seventh? Eighth? National Hearing Voices Conference. Who Owns Voices, Who Owns Psychosis. Language in Crisis. Birmingham. Hearing Voices Network in association with Action Consultancy and Training. Speakers included Phil Barker, Richard Bentall, Lisa Blackman, Thomas Bock, Judi Chamberlin, Ron Coleman, Jenny Day, Sondra Escher, Gill Haddock, Sharon Le Fevre, Loren Mosher, Ian Parker, Eoro Riikonen, Marius Romme, S P Sashideran, Tholene Sodi, Phil Thomas, Sara Vatsala.

    K257 Mental Health and Distress: Perspectives and Practice, Open University second level undergraduate course, started. Peter Campbell was amongst those employed in its preparation.

    Mental Health Matters: A Reader edited by in T. Heller, J. Reynolds, R. Gomm, R. Muston and S. Pattison, Buckingham: Open University Press, contained Peter Campbell (1996) "The History of the User Movement in the United Kingdom"

    20.11.1996 Speaking Our Minds - An Anthology Edited by: Jim Read and Jill Reynolds. Palgrave Macmillan. 240 pages £18.99

    1997 Reclaim Bedlam - Reclaim History
    See Histories - libraries - archives

    Should we be mainstream? Engage Visually depict the way the river was flowing in 1997 - but Reclaim Bedlam (and later Mad Pride) were a counter current.

    Conflict or collaboration? In the 1990s, Peter Campbell suggests, the survivors movement was mainly collaborative. Large numbers of local group worked closely with service providers and nationally the government sponsored Mental Health Task Force brought people together.

      1997 is remembered for iconic collaborations and conflicts in survivor culture which continue to provide foci for debate.

    The year began peacefully with a lottery grant to "document and disseminate people's strategies for living with mental health problems". This helped fund the Big Alternative conferences from March 1998.

    Collaborative events coinciding with the 750th anniversary of Bethlem included The Bethlem Gallery "for artists who have experienced mental health problems" and Beyond Bedlam: Poems written out of Mental Distress.

    But the celebrations also engendered cultural conflict in the Reclaim Bedlam campaign, eventually leading to Mad Pride.

    Reflecting on these events, Peter Beresford argued (Summer 1998) "If mental health service users/survivors are to take charge of our future, then we must also regain control of our past"

    Nick Crossley's research on mental health movements probably began in 1996 or 1997. He was at Sheffield at the time (Contesting Psychiatry p.9). Peter Campbell was interviewed in 1997. Nick contacted Helen Spandler in 1996 or 1997 to ask about her knowledge of the local and national movements, including the survivor/patients movement. She lent him some of the material she had collected over the years, including material that Andrew Roberts and Clive Perrett had copied for her on the MPU and SPK. She also gave him a few local contacts in Manchester and details of other national figures - including Andrew Roberts. (email 2.10.2012). Nick interviewed Andrew on 14.1.1998.

    1997 Mary Nettle appointed a Mental Health Act Commissioner (since 2009 part of Care Quality Commission). "My role is visiting psychiatric units to ensure the rights of patients, detained under the 1983 Mental Health Act (amended 2007), are observed." - "Ms M. Nettle" is one of the eleven "Lay Visit Members" 1997- 1999 listed in the Mental Health Act Commission's eighth biennial report.

    Kathryn Church: Because of where we've been : the business behind the business of psychiatric survivor economic development published Toronto?. 40 pages. "Written for the Ontario Council of Alternative Business in partnership with 761 Community Development Corporation."

    On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4 says: "1997-present Service user/survivor-led innovations for self-managing mental health problems are developed by service users/survivors: Service user/survivor-led crisis projects emerge in Devon, Brighton, Birmingham, London, Wokingham, Corby, Leeds and elsewhere. Advance directives are developed as means of ensuring choice of treatment in crisis. Manic Depression Fellowship develops self management programme. The Strategies for Living project runs annual 'Big Alternative' conferences, [from March 1998] which become the focus for service user/survivor-led alternatives."

    "When I first came to CAPS in 1997 in Edinburgh there was only CAPS and a very, very young Advocard that had been around for a couple of years and only worked in the North East of Edinburgh. Over the next 10 years I watched advocacy becoming more and more rooted in the Lothians. CAPS were instrumental in establishing individual advocacy in East Lothian and also in Midlothian as well, so really it's been gradual haul over 10 years up until about 2005 and the final stage in that was the Mental Health Act." (Keith Maloney in Oor Mad History)

    LUNA: an arts-based mental health project established in Dundee. See the film Recovering Lives: Mental health, gardening and the arts: A film by LUNA and Hester Parr (Dundee University)

    The Afiya Trust was established as a charity in 1997.

    INTERVOICE, the International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices, was established 1n 1997. archive of voices.schublade.org website starting 21.1.2007     intervoiceonline.org starting 27.4.2007. However "The 1st World Hearing Voices Congress took place in Maastricht, Netherlands in September 2009. It was this congress that led to the formation of Intervoice". source - Current website "In 1997 a meeting of voice hearers and mental health workers was held in Maastricht to discuss developing the further promotion and research into the issue of voice hearing. The meeting decided to create a formal organizational structure to provide administrative and coordinating support to the wide variety of initiatives in the different involved countries. The new network was called Intervoice (The International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices). Intervoice holds annual steering group meetings, encourages and supports exchanges and visits between member countries and the translation and publication of books and other literature on the subject of hearing voices. Intervoice was incorporated in 2007 as a not for profit company under UK law. In 2012, we registered as a UK charity, under the name International Hearing Voices Projects - known as Intervoice." source Charity number 1148779. Company number 06337580

    1997 Skallagrigg House opened in Birmingham, with funding from the Mental Health Foundation's crisis programme. Later, in diferrent premises, it was called Anam Cara (Celtic for 'soul friend'). A crisis house run by "C.H.A.N.G.E." to provide an alternatives to acute hospital inpatient admission. All staff had experienced their own mental health crises. Only staffed during the day (weekdays) and limited support at weekends. Piers Allott is described as the "main developer".


    1997 Mental Health Uganda formed for people with mental illness.
    Mental Health Uganda works through community-based associations of people with mental illness and their caregivers to share experiences, success and breakthrough stories to create awareness and reduce social stigma. and to improve mental health service provision.

    By 2005 the biggest psychiatric user owned and politically managed organisation in Africa. It was the coordinating centre for the Pan African Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry and was recognised by the Ministry of Health, National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda, the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development and the World Health Organisation as a distinct and growing User organization on the African continent
    Mental Health Uganda volunteer,
    Daniel Iga Mwesigwa, effectively represented Psychiatry Users in Africa in the Ad hoc Committee Meetings at the UN during the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities .
    See website archive and SINDMHUbox

    1997 In Uganda, Eddie Nkurunungi experienced his first episode of mental illness and was admitted to Butabika Hospital where, like Joseph Atukunda, he was subjected to isolation. In 1999 he completed his studies, but at about this time his mother died in a motor accident. Travelling to the United Kingdom in search of a better life, he discovered a culture clash. In 2006 he was admitted to a hospital in East London. There he took part in "Working Together" groups in which users met with clinicians. In August 2007 he returned to Uganda - Another culture shock as he had to make new friends. Cerdic Hall visited Uganda in 2007 and made contact about the Heartsouds idea. Eddie Nkurunungi was Adminstrator/ Treasurer Heartsounds Uganda from December 2009 to February 2014 and. Coordinator to February 2015. (Mainly based on Eddie Nkurunungi 9.4.2016 )


    February 1997 Alison Faulkner, Knowing Our Own Minds - Users Views of Alternative and Complementary Treatments in Mental Health, Mental Health Foundation

    Why do you think Knowing Our Own Minds was important?

    "The Foundation was making a transition away from being a committee-led organisation funding doctors, so it was a way of trying to change the emphasis and say: "It's all very well what research says about what's effective but what do we find helpful, what do we think about these different treatments and therapies?" There wasn't much research asking people their opinions about services and treatments. I think it was ground breaking because it really was designed by us." (Alison Faulkner 2.2009)

    Strategies for living came with a logo and a website. The logo appears on its website "last updated" 18.2.1997

    "The Strategies for Living research project followed on from the Knowing our own Minds survey by investigating in greater depth the key issues raised by the survey, through face-to-face interviews with 71 people." [source?]

    How did the Strategies for Living program follow-on...?

    "Our aim was to document and disseminate people's own ways and strategies for managing mental distress, primarily through user-led research. The core piece of work was the Strategies for Living report, but we also then invited applications from service users to do their own research. I think that was the most innovative and exciting part, because we were giving people training in skills and understanding research. I think it had a huge impact." (Alison Faulkner 2.2009)

    In 1997 the National Lottery Charities Board made a grant to the Mental Health Foundation for a three year programme of work led by service users, to "document and disseminate people's strategies for living with mental health problems". (Newsletter 1)

    May 1997 Steering group established with members from UK Advocacy Network - the Manic Depression Fellowship - Depression Alliance - African-Caribbean Users Forum - Mind Link - and the Scottish Users Network. (Newsletter 1)

    September 1997 Jim Green's report on consultations with users groups in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Irelend. Jan Wallcraft's report on published and unpublished work on the role of alternative and complementary therapies in mental health.

    October 1997 First newsletter. Jan Wallcraft appointed researcher for the strategies for living project.

    "Since 1997 the Mental Health Foundation has played a key role in supporting and promoting user/survivor-led research in the mental health field across the UK through its Strategies for Living initiative." Phase one of the initiative ran from 1997 to 2000 and phase two from 2000 to 2003. ( (Mental Health Foundation, November 2003))

    "The Survivor Researcher Network began as part of the work of the Strategies for Living project hosted by the Mental Health Foundation (confirm with Alison Faulkner) in the very late 1990s. S4L no longer exists but the SRN continues to be supported by the MHF who provide a room and travelling/subsistence expenses and administrative support." (David Armes, email 1.8.2008) - See 2001 - website 29.9.2002: "Research Support News Newsletter of the 'Research Support Network', part of the 'Strategies for Living' programme from the Mental Health Foundation. The Research Support Network aims to encourage people with experience of mental health problems to find out more about what helps them."

    Website established July 2009 with this text: Survivor Researcher Network (SRN) The SRN is an informal network of people who have experience of mental health problems or emotional distress. They are interested in sharing thier experiences as researchers in the mental health field. Feel free to join if you are a service user or survivor doing research. They meet up in London every quarter. Reasonable travel expenses will be paid. Also, some of the SRN members have been involved with the production of the book This is Survivor Research ISBN 978 1 906254 14 8.

    Survivor Researcher Network, c/o Mental Health Foundation, 9th Floor, Sea Containers House, 20 Upper Ground, London, SE1 9QB.

    Coverage of Organisation National

    2011 Survivor Research Network moved from the Mental Health Foundation to the National Survivor User Network. The date 2001 given in the SRN Manifesto Summary distributed to the Survivors History Group on 24.10.2018 is wrong.

    March 1997 Veronica Dewan appointed by West Sussex Social Services to set up a Users as Trainers' Project as a training project for people in West Sussex who use mental health services. This became the Capital Project Trust in 1998 ( website - archive - history - contact details). CAPITAL stands for "Clients and Professionals in Training and Learning". In August 2005 it had just under 100 members, many of whom work as volunteers delivering service user focused training or are involved in consultancy and research. Clare Ockwell, one of its founders, is an active member of the Service Users History Group, as is its ex-Director, Anne Beales.

    May 1997 "The North West Right to Refuse Electroshock Campaign was formed following a packed public meeting organised by Psychology Politics Resistance in May 1997 at Manchester Town Hall. The founding meeting heard members of ECT Anonymous describe the effects of this `treatment'" (external source)

    Reclaim Bedlam?

    Summer and Autumn 1997 Reclaim Bedlam campaign (protest against the celebration of Royal Bethlehem Hospital anniversary), eventually leading to formation of Mad Pride, a group that organises demonstrations and celebrations of 'mad culture'. (On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4) - but incorrectly given as 1999

    750th anniversary celebrations of Bethlem Hospital

    These were publicised in March (Probably earlier).

    Pete Shaughnessy (Evening Standard Magazine 17.3.2000) "I was involved in the Maudsley at the time. They came and talked to us, as an afterthought, and said we'll have a "Users' Day" on the third day. I thought that was really token, that we were tacked on at the end of this really naff event. And then they said we're having a Thanksgiving Service at St Paul's, and I think that's probably when I snapped. We called that a Commemoration, for the people who have died and the sadness they've lived in."

    Pete Shaughnessy and colleagues in Southwark Mind countered the idea of "celebration" with that of "commemoration" in what he later described as a "battle with the Maudsley PR machine". "We spoke at Reclaim the Streets and political events. We gatecrashed conferences... I know we pissed users of with our style..". A picket of the staff ball and following "Fun Day" (Family Spectacular) was planned. However, when Pete heard that users were willing to cross the picket line in order to run a stall at the Family Spectacular - "I lost my nut, which meant I threatened to bring Reclaim the Streets down to smash up their stall." The police were called and the pickets had to be called off.

    Friday 21.6.1997 Staff Summer Ball at Bethlem

    Saturday 22.6.1997 Family Spectacular "An open afternoon at Bethlem"

    Sunday 23.6.1997 Proposed third day to be devoted to users? (see above)

    Saturday 5.7.1997 Gay Pride March and Festival on Clapham Common. (See Independent 6.5.2007). "A few survivors of the mental health system said "we could do with a festival like this". And so a motley collection of individuals got together and slowly started organising themselves so as to put on events". - source. See Mad Pride 1999

    "The first events were ... a rally and march from the Imperial War Museum to the Maudsley in Camberwell; and a picket of the service at St Paul's, which involved a minute's silence on the steps outside". (Pete Shaughnessy 17.3.2000)

    "We had our first picnic at the Imperial War Museum... Simon Hughes MP came and spoke. There were features in the Big Issue and Nursing Times, and we were afloat... Our next event was to screw up the thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral" (Pete Shaughnessy Mad Pride (2000) page 22)

    Monday 21.7.1997 "Happy Birthday Bedlam?" The Big Issue

    Wednesday 23.7.1997 "Two sides to every story" Nursing Times

    24.8.1997 Southwark Mind AGM

    Thursday 23.10.1997 Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral 11am

    See index

    Sunday 31.8.1997 Although nothing appears to happened in the world for 24 hours except the death of Diana Princess of Wales, in fact many dependent people suffered neglect as staff watched television.

    Sunday 31.8.1997 Sunday Mirror article by Lynne Kelleher, Screamers are back! - See Jenny James

    September 1997 Issue one of The Camden Bugle - Monthly Newsletter of Camden Mental Health Consortium

    19.9.1997 A Framework for Mental Health Services in Scotland was the first of the national frameworks for what would follow the closure of the mental hospitals in the United Kingdom.
    User involvement was an explicit aim of the frameworks for Mental Health for Scotland (1997) - England (1999) - Wales (2002) - and Northern Ireland (2003). The National Health Service plans for each nation also put patients at the centre. Each nation has also established separate policies and structures to support general user involvement in the NHS, some of which encourage service user involvement in research as one of several 'involvement' strategies.

    September 1997 Doing Disability Research, edited by Colin Barnes and Geoff Mercer, published by The Disability Press, Leeds. Available online. See chapter five Psychiatric System Survivors and Emancipatory research: Issues, overlaps and differences by Peter Beresford and Jan Wallcraft - ( offlinecopy)

    October 1997 Strategies for Living Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 1. [Issue 2 January 1998 - [Issue 3 March 1998 -

    October 1997 Formal constitution? of Advocacy France. "Un mode de participation active des usagers en santé mentale" (a way of active participation by users of mental health services)- The association started in 1996 - weblink
    Advocacy France is a national network of five local associations, which was set up in 1996 by Martine Dutoit and
    Claude Deutsch. The Paris premises are located in Place des Fêtes in the 19th arrondissement. (source) - (See France)

    Beyond Bedlam: Poems written out of Mental Distress, Anvil Press (in conjunction with Bethlem and Maudsley - the Mental Health Foundation - Mind - Survivors Poetry

    Beyond Bedlam consists of a mixture of general survivors' poetry, work by famous poets who had experienced mental distress, such as John Clare and T S Eliot, and work by living poets who might not be known to the public as survivors.

    Edited by Ken Smith and Matthew Sweeney who both said they experienced "emotional turmoil" in their lives.

    Foreword by Felix Post who retired in 1978 as psychogeriatrician at Bethlem

    The cover shows A Mask by Vaslav Nijinsky

    15.11.1997 Survivors Poetry launch of Beyond Bedlam with poets from the new anthology. (Hampden Community Centre) (Chronology of Disability Arts.

    Joe Bidder states that,

    It did away with a taboo in the literary world. All these famous poets saying, "I've been in the bin too."'A first print run of 5,000 copies sold out within five months. 'The book had favourable reviews in every single broadsheet paper. It was a transforming moment.

    There were other launches "the book was launched at a celebratory reading at the Museum of London followed by readings in other parts of the country" (source)

    "The anthology Beyond Bedlam came about because the Maudsley who were holding the celebrations gave Survivors Poetry some money." (Frank Bangay 14.7.2009) [See Bethlem 1997]

    See Annabel Jackson 2003 for direction Survivors Poetry was taking at this time

    Peter Campbell (Survivors History Group 27.5.2015) described Beyond Bedlam as "a good anthology with a range of moods - not all gloom" which combines "unknown and unpublished with known and famous poets". 5,000 poems were submitted - We do not know what happened to the ones that were not published in the anthology.

    Peter questioned "to what extent survivors and Survivors were Poetry involved in making the book?". Survivor Poetry's network was used to bring in the poems, but it is unclear whether Survivors Poetry had anything to do with the selection or publication. Peter noted that there are good illustrations, but that they are not integrated with the poetry.

    Peter Campbell compared Beyond Bedlam to two anthologies compiled independantly by survivors Survivors Poetry from dark to light published in 1992 with work from 54 poets and artists and Under the Asylum Tree published in 1995

    November? 1997 Eighth? National Hearing Voices Conference.

    1998

    The Hurt Yourself Less Workbook by Eleanor Dace, Alison Faulkner, M. Frost, K. Parker, Louise Pembroke and A. Smith. 79 leaves, single-sided: illustrated; 32 cm. (ring binder) ISBN: 0953402703 Published by the National Self-Harm Network London: 1998. Includes bibliographical references. This was the first self-management workbook written by survivors for survivors. COPAC lists copies in four libraries, but not the British Library. It was sold at £12.50. (Community Care review) - Download a copy

    Ireland index In 1998 North and West Belfast Health and Social Services Trust set up user and carer groups to assist in the development of mental health services. The user group evolved into L.A.M.P. (Life After Mental health Problems). L.A.M.P. aims to provide support and advice to users of mental health services.

    L.A.M.P.'s office 3 Rosemary Street, Belfast (028 90 242982) opened in 2001 and is staffed by volunteers from the group.

    L.A.M.P. also organise a weekly ward round in the Mater Psychiatric Hospital in Belfast where Advocates can be accessed on the wards.

    Click the daisy for the website Footsteps was set up by four local artists in Ealing, West London in 1998. It "uses art in all its forms to help people who live with, or who are recovering from, mental health problems". Joe Kelly was a co-founder and the director to 2009. He remained a trustee to 2012. Footsteps arts became Registered Charity Number 1117933 in February 2007. Its website was first archived 10.5.2008. It became Alpha One Activity Clubs - Mental Health Arts Group

    January 1998 Nick Crossley in London (12th to 16th) researching the survivors' movement. Wednesday 14.1.1998 (morning): Interview with Andrew Roberts at Andrew's home. Interview 2. [Note that Peter Campbell (Interview 9) was interviewed in 1997.]

    In Our Experience cover 1998 In our experience : user-focused monitoring of mental health services in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Health Authority, by Diana Rose (35 pages) published by Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.

    " User Focused Monitoring was started in 1996 by Diana Rose, a user- researcher and lecturer, who had the idea (in short) of involving service users in a project set up to evaluate care planning in an area of London. It was so successful in terms of process and outcome that it was commissioned again. From that first venture, other groups adopted the model and slowly a network was formed. The model is used in different forms around England mostly. There are other models in Scotland and Wales. In January 2007, we published a Guide on Setting up and Running a User Focused Monitoring project (Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health)."

    (Email from Anne-Laure Donskoy - User Focused Monitoring (national) Network coordinator 15.12.2008)

    February 1998 Getting Ready for User-Focused Monitoring (UFM) - A Guide for mental Health Service Providers, Users and Purchasers Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. A Workbook compiled by Libby Gawaith (Quality Assurance Project) - Diana Rose (Coordinator, User Focused Monitoring Project) - Peter Lindley (Training and Practice Development Section) - Gabriel MacKintosh (User Focused Monitoring Project) - Richard Ford - (Head of Service Evaluation). "The cost of a two year licence, which includes the right to use questionnaire materials and inspection visit workbooks, as well as one training visit from The Sainsbury Centre is £900"

    Tuesday 10.2.1998 [First] National Voices Forum Conference on Self-Management of Schizophrenia, Birmingham. - see box - External link to report. There were five conferences focussing on personal methods of coping with mental illness/distress and its associated problems. See 30.9.1999- 5.10.2000 - 30.7.2002 - 21.7.2005

    Pete Shaughnessy was interviewed by Fergus Walsh for BBC1's News at One. Others taking part in a "media blitz" were Roberta Graley, Gloria Brown (Brent User Group), Pat Butterfield (ECT Anonymous) and David Crepaz-Keay (Survivors Speak Out) #

    12.2.1998 "Former bus driver Pete Shaughnessy, who has signed up for Mental Health Media training, went into hospital five years ago suffering from manic depression after he was attacked on a bus. A new two- year drive by the national charity Mental Health Media is aimed at giving those with mental health problems like Mr Shaughnessy the chance to speak out"

    March 1998 First Big Alternative Conference organised by Strategies for Living. "to celebrate the credibility of service user involvement in services, and demonstrate that that mental health services can be different" (Newsletter October 1997)


    2.3.1998 to 5.6.1998 Phase two training for first recruits to Users to Trainers' Project. Name changed to Capital Project Trust

    May/June 1998 Open Mind:

    Andy Smith: With the internet "the coordination of smaller movements in a larger strategy becomes easier by the day... simultaneous demonstrations or direct actions at targeted hospitals across the country can be arranged at relatively low cost... The user movement is no longer beholden to ... gargantum national charities. We can now represent ourselves locally via the cellular structure and nationally by collective and coordinated campaigning."

    Probably relates more specifically to the development of the world wide web

    Beginning of the Beresford - Hopton dialogue on survivors' history

    Peter Beresford "If mental health service users/survivors are to take charge of our future, then we must also regain control of our past" - Asylums are being converted into luxury flats - "One of these institutions should be preserved as living testimony of the experience of the generations who lived and died within their walls." - "run under the control of psychiatric system survivors and our organisations" - "putting together our accounts in exhibitions, books, news and broadcast media" - "accounts and testimony of psychiatric system survivors over the years" - an "archive of survivor material" - "survivors' mementoes" - "artefacts of psychiatry and its institutions"

    John Hopton (July/August 1998): "for users to develop a competing historical narrative would simply leave us with two opposing historical accounts with similar methodological flaws and biases. What is required is collaborative historical research"

    This was followed by a debate between Peter Beresford and John Hopton in Openmind November/December 1999

    John Hopton (November/December 1999): "I would like to see ... a single archive or museum where oral testimonies from users/survivors would be side by side with oral testimonies from mental health professionals, together with various documentary sources and artifacts."

    Peter Beresford: "A crucial first step for us as survivors is to have safe space to develop our own narratives and history (and survivors will tell of the good as well as the bad), before our history can be placed next to professional accounts".

    June 1998 Seaton Point, a novel by Robert Dellar, Ted Curtis, Martin Cooper, Rob Colson, Lucy Williams, Mally Mallinson and Emma McElwee, published by Spare Change Books.

    Anselm Lionel-Rajah appointed "Service User Involvement Worker" at MACA (the Mental After Care Association). Responsible for delivering MACA's "service user involvement strategy": Visiting service users, finding out how people wanted to be involved in the decision making process. Devised and lead his own training course called the Service User Involvement Workshop. Coordinated a central service user group, producing newsletters and minutes. An advocate for service users at management meetings. Liased with other statutory and voluntary agencies. (Information from Linkedin 3.7.2012). To June 2005 (6 years 10 months). See Service User Involvement Directorate

    September/October 1998 Survivor's Poetry Newsletter Number One: (downloadable pdf) - This became Poetry Express.

    10.9.1998 and 11.9.1998 International Conference to mark ten years of the Hearing Voices Network held in Birmingham. Organised by Handsell publications

    October 1998 Strategies for Living Newsletter Volume 2 Issue 2.

    8.10.1998 Reclaim Bedlam - ECT Anonymous and the All Wales Users and Survivor Network target the "Changing Minds" campaign as a "smokescreen to let them get away with compulsory treatment orders" (Peter Shaughnessy) - (source)

    Saturday 31 October 1998 Rocky Bennett (David Bennett), a 38-year- old Black man, was certified dead in the early hours. He had been a detained patient in the Norvic Clinic, an NHS medium secure unit in Norwich, for three years. His death followed an incident involving the use of restraint.

    November 1998 Two day conference in Birmingham leading to the setting up of the National Advocacy Network

    SIMBA: let the tiger
roar     Autumn 1998 Mysterious notices all around the Maudsley Hospital warn that the tiger is coming.

    17.12.1998 let the tiger roar... First official meeting of SIMBA (Share In Maudsley Black Action), the Black Patient/User/Survivor group in the Maudsley Hospital, held in the Visitor and User Centre at the Maudsley.

    The tiger continues roaring: October 1999 - August 2000 - 23.3.2000 (SIMBA "goes public" at Big Alternative Conference) - Autumn 2001 - October 2002 - March 2004 - March 2005 - blog March 2015

    1998 PACE service user/survivor-led report on gays'/lesbians'/bisexuals' experiences of mental health services. (On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4)

    December 1998 Southwark Mind Newsletter Issue ten.

    In June 1998 Nelsy became a mental patient. This diagram shows in pictures how she confronted her fears and through self-research became healthy. The period of almost fifteen years of being "healthy" is 2000 to 2015. Since 2005, she says, she has "been happier".

    1999

    During 1999, Louis Pembroke organised the first to risk reduction conferences for survivors. One of the outcomes of these was the publication of Cutting the Risk [NSHN 1999], the first and only book on practical harm-minimisation for self-harm. - Download a copy

    Nick Crossley (1999) "Fish, field, habitus and madness: the first wave mental health users' movement." British Journal of Sociology 50, 4, pp 647-670.

    Peter Campbell, (1999) "The Service User/Survivor Movement" In C. Newnes, C, G. Holmes, C. Dunn (editors) This is Madness: A Critical Look at The Future of Mental Health Services. Ross on Wye, Herefordshire: PCCS Books.

    M. Crawford and A. S. Kessel (1999) "Not listening to patients - the use and misuse of patient satisfaction studies". International Journal of Social Psychiatry, volume 45, pages 1-6.

    1999 Clare Allan's social worker, Bernadette, (to whom she dedicated Poppy Shakespeare) provided encouragement. In 1999 Clare applied for and was accepted on to an MA course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. See Daily Mail interview 4.3.2008

    Mental Health Alliance 1999 Mental Health Alliance (MHA) founded - See 1998? - 1999 - Press Releases 2002-2006 - 2002 - 14.9.2002 - 23.10.2002 - 23.3.2006 - archive of website from 25.4.2006 - Current website

    1999 First date on chronology of the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive "The Story So Far" - archive - A current website (2014) - the relevant SHAPE current website

    The Survivors United Network newsletter and email, run by Andrew Hughes between between 1999 and 2002, was funded by a Mind Millennium Award. The first archive Survivors United Network website was taken on 24.2.2001 (See Content archive on this site)

    List of known issues:

    SUN Newsletter September 1999
    SUN Newsletter October 1999
    SUN Newsletter November 1999
    SUN Newsletter December 1999
    SUN Newsletter January 2000
    SUN Newsletter March 2000: Rachel Perkins speech
    SUN Newsletter April 2000
    SUN Newsletter June 2000
    SUN Newsletter July 2000
    SUN Newsletter August 2000
    SUN Newsletter September 2000
    SUN Newsletter January 2001
    SUN Newsletter January 2002
    SUN Newsletter April 2002
    SUN Newsletter May 2002
    SUN Newsletter June 2002
    SUN Newsletter November 2002
    SUN Newsletter December 2002: Pete Shaughnessy issue.
    SUN Newsletter February 2003

    The Advocacy 2000 project worked from 1999 to 2002 in Scotland. (website preserved). Its report Principles and standards in Independent Advocacy organisations and groups was published in January 2002. It was succeded by the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance in September 2002.

    January 1999 First meeting of the "Critical Psychiatry Network" (The 'Bradford' group of psychiatrists), many of whose members have taken an interest in the user/survivor movement. Link to its website - See Asylum 1999 - 27.4.2001 - 26.4.2002 - 13.6.2003

    3.2.1999 Internet archive of Kirsti Reeves' Resources and Information for People who self-injure. Internal evidence suggests Kirsti may have begun her site on 23.11.1997.

    February 1999 Patient advocacy Council Report CR74 from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, London. offline. Membership of the Working Party: Philip Graham (Chair) - Edna Conlan, United Kingdom Advocacy Network (UKAN) - Brian McGinnis, MENCAP - Victoria Thomas, Royal College of Psychiatrists' Research Unit - Christina Young, UKAN. Working Party administered by: Ms Deborah Hart, Royal College of Psychiatrists. This was a review of the 1989 policy - See UKAN

    Southwark Mind Newsletter

    February 1999 Issue twelve. Photo of Smiley at Cuckoo Club Christmas Party on the cover.

    March 1999 Issue thirteen "Reclaim Bedlam Presents... Round One of Stop Compulsory Treatment Orders. March on SANE!"

    July 1999 Issue seventeen "Mad pride - The first concert"

    October 1999 Issue twenty "Mad pride celebrates and evening of survivors Punk Rock" ... "PLUS: SIMBA takes off..."

    November 1999 Issue 21 "Southwark Mind 'Coping and Caring' Conference targets suicide issues and launches a memorial monument"

    9.3.1999 to 19.3.1999 Survivors' Poetry "Fresher than Green, Brighter than Orange". An exhibition of poems by Irish women at Diorama Foyer. (source)

    Fresher than Green, Brighter than Orange- an anthology of poetry by Irish women living in London in 1999, edited by Eamer O'Keeffe and Lisa Boardman was published by Survivors Poetry Press. The writers were Eamer O'Keeffe - Ann Rossiter - Carolyn O'Connell - Kathleen O'Sullivan - Siúbhan McNally - Ann Dalton - Julie McNamara - Roismáire McGill - Anne Ireton - Carolyn O'Connell Ireland index

    17.3.1999 Memorandum and articles of association for Leeds Survivor Led Crisis Services aiming at "providing sanctuary and support, as a complement and as an alternative, to statutory services for people in acute mental health crisis and those experiencing emotional or mental distress". Charity number 1075160. This set up "Dial House". website - archive - case study

    1999 Reclaim Bedlam becoming Mad Pride. See 15.3.1999 and 20.6.1999 - Also Mad Pride box

    Monday 15.3.1999 Reclaim Bedlam march on SANE offices: External link "Over one hundred user/survivors of the mental health system gathered.. at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and marched to the headquarters of the office of SANE nearby. Under the Reclaim Bedlam campaigning banner, this was the first of a number of actions planned to fight the Government's proposals to introduce new legislation set to contain compulsory treatment (drugs) for people living in the community."

    14.3.1999 and 15.3.1999. Second Big Alternative Conference organised by Strategies for Living. "Rabbi Julia Neuberger will introduce the second day, which we hope will attract more professionals this year, as we are keen to start spreading our messages to a wider audience" (Newsletter October 1998)

    May 1999 "Strategies for Living On-line" by "Julia B." (Julia Blazdell) who designed the (low graphics) website. "why not don an anorak, go to your local library (or whereever there's a computer with internet asscess) and type in the following address: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk:80/s4lhpage.htm You'll be amazed what's out there! (The Advocate May 1999).

    June 1999

    Naked Songs and Rhythms of Hope "An illustrated collection of poems from 1974 to 1999 by Frank Bangay" "Launched at Mad Pride Benefits in June and at the Union Chapel, Compton Ave, London N1 at 8pm on Saturday 11th September."

    Sunday 20.6.1999 Mad Pride "first ever gig" - (archive - archive index) - "Frank Bangay, veteran of Campaign Aganst Psychiatric Oppression and survivor poet read from his latest book"

    The Mad Pride gig (20.6.1999) was held at the Foundry in Old Street, Shoreditch. The Mad Pride website archive corrected - begins 4.11.1999 - Last updated 22.9.1999. A website established earlier by Peter Shaughnessy at
    http://bedlamreclaimed.is-crazy.com/
    appears to be lost

    June 1999 Bill Warwick died at home 13 Broxton Avenue, West Kirby. His ashes were spread at Landican Cemetery, Wirral, in July 1999. 1.7.1999 Janet Cresswell, in Broadmoor, "had a visit from staff" "somebody had phoned to say that Bill Warwick had died. It was kind of whoever it was who called as I had wondered what had happened o him. He was in the last war so he must have been heading for 80. He was still banned from visiting me but seemed to be connected with User groups up north and battled on." Later Janet "had a letter from a friend of his who explained that Bill often indulged in fasting, twenty days was usual, to cleanse his body of impurities. He overdid it on this last occasion lasting out sixty days except for sipping carrot and apple juice and nobody realising he was starving. He was 77 and wouldn't have a doctor over the front door" (letters from Janet to Joan Hughes 2.7.1999 and 12.7.1999.

    September 1999 outsider poems by John Zammit, David Kessel, and David Amery

    1999 Recovery: an alien concept by Ron Coleman. Gloucester: Handsell. 116 pages. See recovery movement

    September 1999 Birmingham Conference "Recovery. An Alien Concept" organised by Handsell Publishing. This was the second Annual Conference of Handsell Publishing. The speakers list included Loren Mosher (USA), Phil Barker, Michaela Amering (Austria), Piers Allott, Ron Coleman, Phil Thomas, Marius Romme, Sondra Escher, Steve Crane, Lucy Johnstone, Ian Parker, Terence McLaughlin, Fran Silverti (USA), Mike Smith, Andy Gilbert, Errol Francis. The speakers' list reflected the interest of a variety of professionals in this "process of recovery from severe and enduring mental health problems".

    30.9.1999: Department of Health, London, A National Service Framework for Mental Health

    "The National Service Framework for Mental Health is an attempt to set national standards for services for people of working age who experience mental illness. Service users were involved in setting these standards and the document identifies service users as key players in the development and evaluation of health care. Specifically, the document states that:

    a) Service users need to be involved in developing services in order to make them more acceptable and culturally sensitive.

    b) Performance of psychiatric services needs to be assessed at a national and local level by the experience of users and carers including those from Black and ethnic minority groups.

    c) Service users and carers should be involved in planning, providing and evaluating training for all health care professionals." (Mike Crawford, March 2001)

    November 1999 Green Paper: Reform of the Mental Health Act 1983. Proposals for consultation (1999). London: The Stationery Office.

    30.9.1999 National Voices Forum Conference on Self-Management of Schizophrenia, London. External link to report.

    SIMBA: let the tiger
roar     October 1999 Issue one of The Voice of SIMBA: let the tiger roar... "The Newsletter of SIMBA (Share In Maudsley Black Action), the Black Patient/User/Survivor group in the Maudsley Hospital"

    12.10.1999 Earliest archive of
     MindFreedom.org
    At this time, Mindfreedom.org was the website project of Support Coalition International. See Dendron for origins.
    The title MindFreedom International was adoted for all parts on 1.8.2005
    Current website of MindFreedom International

    Ireland index

    Martha McCleeland - Paddy McGowan and others "came together and thought about how we were going to develop the process of peer advocacy on an island wide basis." They decided on a conference and. in preparation, Paddy Masterson and Paddy McGowan "travelled the country on a two-week basis calling with health boards all across the Republic of Ireland. Talking with survivors, talking to health board staff and mental health employees."

    The Irish Advocacy Network (IAN) was formed from the first user run user led conference in Derry in November 1999, a three day conference, "VOICES", organized by Mind Yourself in Derry, Northern Ireland. Gave "service users a collective voice for the first time". Approximately 270 people attended, mostly mental health service users (survivors). Survivors met alone for the first two days of the conference, allowing people "time and space to tell their own stories".

    "The Steering Committee was elected democratically for the conference, a management committee of 12 individuals, 6 from the north, 6 from the south, 7 women and 5 men. Out of that beginning the Network was born."

    The Irish Advocacy Network was formed at the conference (source). Paddy McGowan was elected chair of the network.

    For three years it was "about getting out there, meeting the people, talking to survivors..." "we had no understanding of where we were going to draw finances from." See September 2002 - December 2002 - October 2003

    2000

    "Since 2000, Rethink has worked collaboratively with the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London to deliver anti-discrimination training to professional audiences. People with experience of mental illness deliver the training alongside Rethink staff."

    Graham Estop was the National Voices Forum's worker from 2000 to 2004.

    During 2001 and 2002 I received numerous flyers on "Victim to Victor workshops" being run by Action Consultancy and Training. (probably in with Hearing Voices Network. It was BIG business. Conferences were held on Working with Voices, Working to Recovery, Working with People diagnosed as having a personaility Disorder, Working with Self-harm, Working through Sexual Abuse, Suicide Risk & Management, PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope), Person Centred Planning and Tools for Change. Conferences were held in London, Cardiff, Gloucester,Manchester, Leicester, Hull,Leeds, Gloucester, Liverpool, Southhampton, Sheffield, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Exeter...!!. (Anne Plumb email 3.9.2009)

    Taking Over the Asylum - Empowerment and Mental Health by Marian Barnes and Ric Bowl. (external link) -

    Terence McLaughlin's PhD thesis Psychology and mental health politics: A critical history of the Hearing Voices Movement at Manchester Metropolitan University was examined by Marius Romme in 2000

    Pathways, Barriers and Aspirations: The Mental Health System in Birmingham from a Service User Perspective was commissioned from Suresearch in 2000.

    2000 Local Authority Health Overview and Scrutiny Committees (OSCs) were established following the Local Government Act 2000

    January 2000 Liz Sayce From psychiatric patient to citizen - Organised around four models for inclusion: "brain disease" - "individual growth" - "libertarian" - "disability inclusion" - (Google books preview) - [See review by Riley Olstead - offline]

    January 2000 Alison Faulkner and Sarah Layzell Strategies for Living: A Report of User-led Research into People's Strategies for Living with Mental Distress, Mental Health Foundation.

    Jeff Walker: "in January 2000 I was actually admitted to a psychiatric unit suffering from very severe acute and chronic depression. I was in hospital for about three weeks then I was ill at home for about another six months, I had another hospital admission, was ill at home again and then in January 2001..."

    Sam Shakes chapter "Managing Madness": Saturday 1.1.2000 3.30am: still listening to music and dancing alone. I've drank loads. And feel 'happy?' ... 8.45am: woke up feeling very miserable. Wednesday 5.1.2000 10.30am: delivered the Patients' Perspective talk at City University. Friday 7.1.2000 5.30pm I travelled all the way to Ponders End campus - to be away from home, at the time Trevor suggested we meet. 11.30pm: felt something crawling in my head - an insect, but when I tried to brush it away, 'there was nothing there?'

    7.1.2000 Yahoo group UKSurvivors founded by Mark Roberts as "Survivors watching UK Mental Health Act"

    "UKsurvivors came along in a New Labour Mental Health 'Horizon' period .. Hope was all. No-one can divorce UKsurvivors from the disappointing politics of the times in which it has been constructed and formed by its posters. Instead of serious meaningful reform, from 2000 to 2009, which positively touched individuals lives, the system is still failing many." "Harry H. Towers" on UKsurvivors 16.7.2009

    February 2000 Little Wing, Dundee, established

    February 2000 Mary Nettle wrote her story for the SUN website. She was, at this time, "among many other things, chair of Mindlink ... a Mental Health Act Commissioner". She said that she had learnt to manage her illness by listening to colleagues in the user movement. "I feel valued and hope that in a small way I am enabling others to gain the benefits of speaking up and speaking out. It feels good to have turned a negative into a positive".

    23.2.2000 Debate: "Policing the Mind: is compulsory community treatment ever justified?" Topic discussed by Tom Burns, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatry's 1993 Community Treatment Order working party - Cliff Prior, Chief Executive of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship whose "largest ever survey of user and carer views on mental health law" led to the "Better Act Now! campaign" - Frank Holloway, who "has a long- standing interest in the history and social policy of community care" - Peter Campbell, "a Mental Health System Survivor and has been sectioned many times. Since 1980 he has been involved in service users' campaigns to improve the position of people with a mental illness." Debate chaired by George Szmukler, the Medical Director at the Maudsley Hospital - See See May 2000 document

    Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation (THACMHO) decided to formally establish itself as a voluntary sector organisation. Launched at Bow Road Methodist Church in February 2000. "Rose Wilson, Cashain David, Marcia McLeod and Mandisha Cordray Smith the African and Caribbean mental health workers who supported us were honoured". A leaflet was produced in May.
    Sidney Millin joined THACMHO in 2000. He was elected Chairperson in 2002, in place of the first Chair, Gloria Marcano. Sidney served as Chair for five years. In 2007 he stepped down so that he could apply for the Development Worker post. Hazel Roach became Chair.

    2.3.2000 Meeting of Survivor Groups at Friends House - Led to Statement on the Mental Health Green Paper by Meeting of National Mental Health User/Survivor Groups. 23.3.2000 Organisations represented at the meeting: Cymrar (Advocacy in Wales) - Ect-Anon - African Caribbean User/Survivor Forum - National Voices Network - United Kingdom Advocacy Network - All Wales User Network - Manic Depression Fellowship - Mad Pride - Reclaim Bedlam - Association of Survivor Workers. Not present, but supporting the statement: Survivors Speak Out and National Self Harm Network.

    Friday 17.3.2000 Article "Talking Sense" by Matt Seaton in Evening Standard Magazine "Sick of being ghettoised as knife-weilding loners, London's mentally ill are proclaiming their innocence and taking to the streets in the most radical protest since the sixties civil rights movement. On the eve of their mass lobby of Parliament Matt Seaton talks to some of the activists who are proud to be mad" [Archives from 3.10.2000)

    23.3.2000 SIMBA performed at the third Big Alternative Conferance orgamised by Strategies for Living

    Report from Jim Walsh - Irish Advocacy Network

    SIMBA: let the tiger
roar
    The first speaker was introduced: she immediately broke into an African tribal dance in time to an African chant which she taught us to sing! She then contrasted her rich Afro-Caribbean culture with our Western one. In her culture, a mentally ill person remains part of a supportive community (including an extended family). The medicine woman will prepare an individualised prescription for her, prepared according to ancient traditional rituals, and will provide counseling and advice.

    In contrast, in our Western society, she says, "someone who is supposedly not functioning the way they should, we shut them away from their friends and family and all that is familiar".

    Hair dressing is central to African Culture. It is an intimate thing, and only done by your family or close friends. She told us how a black Caribbean woman in a mental hospital became very angry with a nurse who tried to comb her hair. The nurse did not understand until it was explained that she was violating her culture and personal space. Also a Caribbean mental patient refused to eat hospital food. Food in her culture needs to be eaten in a place of comfort, cooked by friends in a special way - not in a hostile environment where she does not fit in as a black person. As a Caribbean, she regarded the hospital cooks as accomplices in her oppression.

    SIMBA: let the tiger
roar     Premila Trivedi (left) - Paulette and her children, Shanice and Aaron - and (back row) Linden Falkener, Gary and Lionel. SIMBA was the "most exciting and useful" thing that had happened to Premila over the past year. She thought of "transparencies, statistics and charts", but the group thought it would be "so much more powerful to do it through prose and poetry"

    This was the first public appearance. They performed on Ward ES3 on 1.5.2000 and later to the Board of the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

    31.3.2000 End of consultation on the Green Paper on a new Mental Health Act.

    East Lothian Involvement Group ("Our voice on mental health services") became an independent group on 1.4.2000. With funding from Disability Scotland it acquired up-to-date computer equipment and internet access and established a website. The website was established after 1.4.2000 and before Thursday 2.11.2000 when ELIG had a Bonfire Night/Fireworks celebration from 6:30pm. The ELIG Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday 20 December 2000. The website probably remained unaltered from 2000 to 16.4.2004 when it was archived by the international archive. It was still the same on 22.11.2008 this website created a one page copy of its content, without the overlaying advertisements of the original Lycos site.

    A new website was established in (late) 2008

    14.4.2000 Meeting that set up what became Suresearch: a network of Service Users in Research and Education. - "We all left the first meeting thinking about a possible name for the network and Tony [Glynn] was the one who brought Suresearch - to the second meeting and it was agreed." [email from Ann Davis 17.8.2009] - External link to the Suresearch web, which was developed by Dee Partridge in 2006. In the autumn of 2009, Rachel Bentley began work on the important task of arranging Suresearch records in a way that would make them accessible. This was completed by the spring of 2010. go to the Centre of
Excellence in Interdisciplinary
Mental Health at Birmingham University
    See Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health at Birmingham University
    See Pathways, Barriers and Aspirations 2000 - Also 2002/2003 - From 2006, Suresearch has met at the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health at Birmingham University.

    20.4.2000 Constitution of Edinburgh Users Forum. See website - The address for EUF is c/o CAPS

    29.5.2000 Launch of In or Out of the Picture? (Are you feeling, or being made to feel, out of the picture?"), a promotional leaflet by members of Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation. The publication of a Tower Hamlets history in September opened up an historical perspective on being left out of the picture

    In 1999, THACMHO proposed an assessment of the mental health needs of African and Caribbean peoples in Newham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets, in preparation for the formation of the East London and City NHS Mental Health trust in April 2000.

    Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture   June 2000 Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture edited by Ted Curtis, Robert Dellar, Esther Leslie and Ben Watson; designed by Julie Hathaway ; cover art by Keith Mallinson; animations by Cat Monstersmith ; Mad Pride logo by Penny Mount ... Published: London (Box 26, 136-138 Kingsland High Street, Hackney, E8-7SN): Spare Change Books. 224 pages: illustrated, including portraits: index. ISBN: 095257442X

    July 2000 National Health Service Plan: - (External link to download summary) - (External link to download full plan)

    "For many service users and carers, the NHS Plan (2000) offered the first opportunity to play a key role in the design, delivery, planning, monitoring and evaluation of health services. A Patient and Public Involvement Forum has been set up for every NHS trust and primary care Trust in England, to allow local people to play an active role in decision making." (Mental Health and Social Exclusion, June 2004, page 44)

    July 2000 David Armes "Enablement and Exploitation: The Contradictory Potential of Community Care Policy for Mental Health Service Users". Unpublished Paper presented to the Social Policy Association 33rd Annual Conference.

    7.7.2000 "Biggest Mental Health Lobby Ever" (Asylum 2000 volume 2) mentions attempt to give statue of Winston Churchill a giant depot injection

    Friday 7.7.2000 Sch News front page "Mad for it" on Mental Health Green Paper (Reform of the Mental Health Act) and Mad Pride festival in Clissold Park July 15th, 1pm-9pm

    SIMBA: let the tiger
roar     August 2000 Issue two of The Voice of SIMBA: let the tiger roar...

    15.8.2000 First archive of the wellcoolstuff website. [I think this is here to help date the controversy of what David Crepaz-Keay linked to from his psychotic.org.uk website]

    Monday 28.8.2000 23 big issues affecting People with a Mental Illness or Disorder identifed by the Consumer Forum at TheMHS at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

    1.7.2000 The Hamlets and the Tower: 1000 Years of Tower Hamlets' History by David Rich of Tower Hamlets Library and Archives, a 34 page booklet published by the council. David Rich also worked for many years on an online history. These gave Tower Hamlets an identity, but they left members of Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation feeling "Out of the Picture". Where were people of African descent before Windrush docked down river at Tilbury? Inspiration came from an anthology of 18th century black writers published in 1996, five of whom had lived in what is now Tower Hamlets.

    September 2000 Birmingham Conference "Moving Beyond Maintenance - Making Recovery a Reality in Mental Health Services" organised by Handsell Publishing. This was the third Annual Conference of Handsell Publishing

    4.10.2000 NEWS: 1st National Conference of Survivor Workers - by Rose Snow, Conference co-ordinator - The Mechanics Institute, Manchester 28 February 2001

    5.10.2000 National Voices Forum and Hearing Voices Network Conference on Self-Management of Schizophrenia, Manchester. External link to report. Possibly about here that Issue One of Perceptions - The Magazine of the National Voices Forum was issued.

    7.10.2000 An Article by Carol Jenkin, founder of Buddies

    The user movement in England research, proposed autumn 2000, was published as On Our Own Terms (summary The Mental Health Service User Movement in England) in May and June 2003.

    2.11.2000 Diana Rose "The user movement in England. 2000. Position paper. background to proposed research on the user movement", meant to be read as background to a Research Proposal on the user movement in England which had been submitted to Matt Muijen the Chief Executive of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health. He provided the money for the study. The position paper, although containing personal reflections, was said to have "arguments ... based on shared experience, literature written by members of the movement and preliminary discussions with the contemporary chairpersons of two, rather different, local user groups in London."

    "Diana Rose set up the project, including a steering group of some key figures in the user movement, before she left to set up SURE at the Institute of Psychiatry." (Angela Sweeney)

    The "User Survey Steering Group" members listed in 2003 are: Diana Rose - Andrew Hughes - Jim Read - Peter Campbell - Angela Linton-Abulu - Hilary Hawking - Hanif Bobat - Rachel Perkins - Jacqui Sealey - Carol Jenkin - Dominic Makuvachuma Walker - Premila Trevidi

    Diana Rose says "we got agreement from the Chief Executive of SCMH... that the Steering Group, and not he, would have final say over the content of the report. To me it is amazing that we got that concession and it would not happen today. So my position paper was also prescient - things have continued to move away from a user-led focus at least in research". (email from Diana Rose 31.3.2010)

    Anne Plumb was interviewed over the phone by Diana, in connection with this research. This probably explains why Anne had a copy of Diana's Position Paper - The only one we know of that survived. (email from Anne Plumb 18.3.2010)

    There was some overlap between the User Survey Steering Group and the research team for this project. The acknowledgments to On Our Own Terms thanks (in order) the steering group - the Sainsbury Centre (and its Services Research team) - individuals who were interviewed etc - and concludes "The research team were: Jan Wallcraft and Angela Sweeney (SCMH); Hilary Hawkin, Robert Jones, Andrew Hughes, Carol Jenkin and Hanif Bobat (sessional interviewers and consultants on data analysis). Carolyn Farr and Jennifer Findlay provided excellent administrative support. Diana Rose originated the project, did the earlier work to set it up and remained available for guidance throughout."


    November 2000 The Hertfordshire Mind Network established ViewPoint "to enable people who use mental health services to get involved in the planning and delivery of these services". It had its first Annual Meeting on 23.11.2004 - website - an archive - website checked 2017


    November 2000 Southwark Mind Newsletter Issue 33. "The Cuckoo Club presents a firework party"


    18.12.2000 Rosemary Moore (Surrey) launched Mental Magazine UK (a website) in memory of her mother Bettina Moore. (archive). Site updates continued until 2003.

    2001

    In England, the first years of the twenty first century were marked by a major set back to the voluntary (unpaid) users' movement with the abolition of Community Health Councils, which had often provided a base and resources for users. (See 11.5.2001 - 25.6.2002 - 2003). This was accompanied, however, by statutory requirements for user consultation and the establishment of a new structure of consultation. (See 11.5.2001). It also saw the expansion of the structure for purchasing advice from user groups. In New Zealand, Mary O'Hagan was appointed as a Mental Health Commissioner. In England, users carried out the most extensive survey of "The user movement in England". Mad Pride provided new perceptions of the movement, presented in opposition to the growth of involvement in establishment activities.

    The first reprint of Mad Pride: A Celebration of Mad Culture was by Handsell Publishing (not Spare Change Books). No address given, but "Visit the Handsell website at http://www.keepwell-uk.com - archives . The reprint is a reduced size: 8.2" x 5.7" instead of 9.1" x 6.1". The reprint also has a red, instead of a black, border. The spine design is different and the print used on the back cover is different. Amendments are made to the copyright page to accommodate the changes in publishing history. Otherwise, the book appears the same.

    Nathalie with Sheila Beskine at Survivors History 30.3.2011   'You can heal your life' was the title of the presentation by Nathalie Fonnesu in 2010.

    She spoke of her journey of recovery since being diagnosed with bi polar disorder in 2001. She turned from medication to complementary therapies, educated herself about her condition, learnt to identify triggers and learnt coping strategies.

    "I learnt about myself, accepted who I am, the way I am and accepted my condition, that it was part of me,"


    2001: Service User Research Enterprise (SURE) launched. - website -

    "Dr Diana Rose is Europe's first Senior Lecturer in User-led Research. She is a social scientist and a mental health service user. Before joining the Institute of Psychiatry, she pioneered user-focused research for seven years at a London based charity ."

    2001 "Some reflections on epistemology in relation to user-led research", a paper Diana Rose, was discussed at a Survivor Researcher Network meeting, held at the Mental Health Foundation. (David Armes 2009)

    2001 Start of Jan Wallcraft's research on the mental health service user/survivor movement. Diana Rose had already began work on the survey of the mental health service users movement and had circulated a "Position paper. Background to proposed research on the user movement" in November 2000.

    "Diana Rose set up the project, including a steering group of some key figures in the user movement, before she left to set up SURE at the IoP. I [Angela Sweeney] was then employed on a three month contract to 'hold' and set up the project whilst Jan was finishing off a contract elsewhere. Jan then joined and really got the project going, and I left during the analysis and write up stages after around 13 months on the project. Jim Read was then brought on board as a consultant (I think) to help with the write up." (email from Angela Sweeney 9.3.2010)

    Adam James (2001), Raising our Voices: History of the Voice Hearing Movement. Handsell, United Kingdom

    Making a Scene, a service user led and managed drama group, established in the Eastleigh/Southampton area. External link to website.

    Hackney Patients Council Report for the First Five Years by Andy Martin, Lai Yuen Lung and Tariq Qathafi

    Jeff Walker: "in January 2001 I had a final hospital admission where I was sent home well again, I started to get a bit better then. My recovery started in about January 2001 to the point where in June 2001 I started volunteering for Bristol MIND." See Bristol index

    16.1.2001 First international archive of the ECT Anon website. It remains essentially the same. Present website. The people and locations cited are Keighley, West Yorkshire (Pat Butterfield?) - Una Parker, Pontefract, West Yorkshire and J. Campbell, Sheffield. South Yorkshire.

    23.1.2001 Users' Voices - The perspectives of mental health service users on community and hospital care by Diana Rose. A review of the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health's work in user-focused monitoring

    January 2001 Vicky Nicholls Doing Research Ourselves A Report of the Strategies for Living Research Support Project

    February 2001 Sharon Matthew Research Project into Users Groups and Empowerment Supported by the Strategies for Living Project - Mental Health Foundation

    February 2001 Dale Ashman (in Cumbria) received a MIND "Real Lives, Real People" Award, funded by the Millennium Commission to establish Borderline UK as a national user-led network of people with a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) diagnosis. Dale had started Borderline UK in 2000 as a personal web site. - First archive 8.3.2001 - Borderline UK adopted its first formal constitution in 2003 -
    website BorderlineUK website
    Borderline Personaliy Disorder is a type of Personality Disorder called Borderline because it was believed to be on the border of psychosis and neurosis. Download Borderline Personality Disorder leaflet.

    12.2.2001 voicesforum.org.uk registered to "Graham Estop, National Voices Forum". Email from Graham 24.3.2014: I originally set up the Voices Forum website at Access Space in Sheffield. Chris Barchard came to Sheffield a few months ago to modernise the site (now http://www.perceptionsforum.org.uk". This was with the help of Access Space following the sad death of Zyra. He stayed with me on his visit here.

    28.2.2001 First UK Survivor Workers' conference held in Manchester. 200 survivor workers attend. Report written by Rose Snow published in 2002. (On Our Own Terms 2003 Table 4) - Report in Asylum. Participants included David Crepaz-Keay, Deputy Director Mental Health Media - Angela Linton-Abulu, Chair Black Women's Mental Health Project - Rachel Perkins, Clinical Director Pathfinder Trust - Peter Campbell - Alan Leader

    March 2001 Issue one of aaina - a mental health advocacy newsletter - published in India. First editor Jayasree Kalathil . Later, Bhargavi Davar.

    March 2001 "The role of users of psychiatric services in service development - influence not power" by Peter Campbell, and "Involving users in the development of psychiatric services - no longer an option" by Mike Crawford published in the Psychiatric Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (available online)

    March 2001 Strategies for Living Newsletter Issue 12. Includes "Simba roars - A personal perspective from Premila Trivedi".

    1.3.2001 Making Waves (Nottingham) website first archived. First useful copy 2.2.2006. "Making Waves consists of people with a range of experiences of mental distress. It was developed from a project called Service Users Monitoring Service (SUMS), set up to deliver User Focussed Monitoring in 2000, and became a not for profit limited company in January 2003. Making Waves aims to use people's experiences to transform mental health services, and develop new and innovative ways of supporting people experiencing mental distress. The organisation has extensive experience of providing service evaluation of mental health services and contributing to the development and evaluation of courses including those offered within the School of Nursing at Nottingham University. Making Waves has moved on from simple UFM to be much more engaged in research, and education and training."

    14.3.2001 Fourth Big Alternative Conference organised by Strategies for Living - London Voluntary Sector Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA.

    26.4.2001 National Voices Forum website first archived. First recoverable copy of home page is isssue five, uploaded 26.7.2001

    27.4.2001 Critical Psychiatry Sheffield conference

    11.5.2001 Health and Social Care Act 2001: The NHS is required to consult and involve service users under Section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001. The bill for this Act had sought to abolished Community Health Councils and established successor organisations, but this part was delayed until after the General Election. One or other Act extended Overview and Scrutiny Committees remit to healthcare

    The Working Like Crazy UK Jaunt 2001

    29.5.2001 - 3.5.2001 Northern Ireland - Ballmena, Londonderry, and Belfast

    2.6.2001-4.6.2001 Edinburgh

    5.6.2001 Hull

    7.6.2011 and 8.6.2011 Brighton/Hove

    Working Like Crazy is an acclaimed Canadian film (Skyworks/National Film Board of Canada) which documents the compelling stories of people in Toronto who have been labelled "unemployable", but who now work for firms run by mental health service users.

    After over a year of planning, five people involved in the businesses and in making the film are coming to the UK. Over two weeks in four sites

    They will

  • show the film in a number of venues, to varied audiences
  • participate in discussions on issues the film raises, and
  • make links with UK folk with kindred interests and commitments.

    The group are:

  • Diana Capponi (Coordinator of Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses),
  • Laurie Hall (formerly Director, A-Way Couriers, currently Business Development Consultant, OCAB),
  • Patricia Fowler (Provincial Project Office Coordinator, OCAB),
  • Laura Sky (independent film maker) and
  • Kathryn Church (independent researcher and writer).

    Diana, Laurie, Patricia and Laura will start the Jaunt in Belfast and then join Kathryn in Edinburgh. The five will go on to Hull and Brighton.

    Working Like Crazy is about alternatives to conventional thinking about mental health and illness, community development, and prospects for people living with mental health problems and forging new ways to regain control of their lives.

    Canadian audiences have responded warmly to Working Like Crazy. It has also been previewed widely in the UK by service users, social firms workers, health and social service providers, and policy makers. Their comments demonstrate the film's value for stimulating thought, feeling and debate about issues as pressing here as they are in Canada: community economic development, social inclusion, and development of frameworks and resources to support people with mental health problems in living communities.

    I will be happy to provide fuller information on the Edinburgh events to anyone interested. I can also provide fuller information on the Hull and Northern Ireland events. Tessa Parkes, co-organiser of the Brighton/Hove events is preparing additional information for list members who may be interested in events there. David Glenister is co-organising Hull events; and Mary Chambers and Carol Kelly the Northern Ireland events.

    Stephen Tilley (BA, PhD, RMN)
    Senior Lecturer
    Department of Nursing Studies
    The University of Edinburgh
    40 George Square
    Edinburgh EH8 9LL

  • In June 2001 the Management Committee of Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation (THACMHO) agreed to set up a sub-committee to develop a programme for Black History Month in October 2001. There had been an educational visit to Liverpool in March and on 23.8.2001 members attended the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition in Liverpool.
    In 2004/2005, when
    Power Writers was published, the members of the Black History Committee were: Harry Cumberbatch, Sidney Millin, Philip Morgan, Beverley Clarke, Sadie Parkes, Jennifer Jones, Ruth Riviere, Jean Hall, and Fabian Tompsett.

    6.6.2001 First internet archive of the Camden Mental Health Consortium website

    Friday 29.6.2001 Unexpected death of Mary Barnes, aged 78, in Scotland.

    30.6.2001 Independent on Sunday launched campaign against proposed Mental Health Bill. (Asylum 2002)

    July 2001: International Mad Pride Month)

    9.7.2001 to 13.7.2001
    Royal College of Psychiatrists Annual Meeting in London

    9.7.2001 "Day of Action" - (Asylum 2002, volume 1)

    Saturday 14.7.2001 "Psychology Politics Resistance: Asylum in the 21st Century" (4th annual meeting of PPR) (external link to report) - See also Asylum 2001

    23.7.2001 Archive of On the Side

    23.7.2001 East Berkshire Mind Limited (04257529) Registered Address: 2nd Floor 33 Blagrave Street, Reading, RG1 1PW incorporated. Principal trading address: Building A, Trinity Court, Wokingham Road, Bracknell, RG42 1PL. Founded by Mrs Margaret Irene Smith and Ms Ruth Fawcett. 5-9 people are employed at some time. Steve Gillard was appointed Research and Development Manager and Slough User Led Consultation was established in 2002, Accounts were filed to 2009. 2.2.2010: To stop running Sunrise Club. Formally dissolved 1.9.2014

    July 2001 HAVOCA (Help for Adult Victims of Child Abuse) founded by Jamie Harms, "a fellow survivor of childhood abuse". The first archive of its web site was on 19.8.2011. In 2003 it included a large section on "psychiatric disorders". One section of this has the following colection of links:

    The James Nayler Foundation

    Survivors Speak Out

    Mad Pride

    Mind

    The Mental Health Foundation

    Advocacy and Community On-line Resource Network, or A.C.O.R.N

    UKAN

    National Schizophrenia Fellowship

    Survivors Poetry [No web page - Same address as Survivors Speak Out]

    The Royal College of Psychiatrists

    14.8.2001 News Release: User-Led Research is the way forward for improved services, says the Mental Health Foundation

    September 2001 Getting Involved in Research - a Guide for Consumers by Consumers in NHS Research said that levels of involvement are on a continuum from consultation, through collaboration to consumer control. Often the actual level of involvement lies somewhere on a line between them. It may be important however to be clear about the level at which you are being involved.
    In consultation consumers are asked for their views, which are taken into account but may or may not be used. In collaboration consumers are active partners in the research process, sharing some of the responsibilities. They are seen as sharing control with professionals and their say is given equal weight. User control is where consumers lead the research, often inviting professionals in as consultants. Consumers may be trained.

    September? 2001 Sheffield Conference "Start on Success. Recovery in Action." organised by Handsell Publishing. This was the fourth Annual Conference of Handsell Publishing

    Tower Hamlets African and Caribbean Mental Health Organisation (THACMHO) was a member of the Development Forum responsible Black History Month events in Tower Hamlets.

    On 6.10.2001 and 20.10.2001 THACMHO organised a history walk and exhibition concentrating on sites associated with five African writers who had contact within the East London area now known as Tower Hamlets during the latter part of the 18th century.

    On 12.10.2001 Dorothy Kuya gave a talk and slide presentation on how the Atlantic Slave Trade made Britain Great, focusing on the Liverpool experience.

    SIMBA: let the tiger
roar     Autumn 2001 SIMBA and The Lorrimore partnership - See 13.6.2007 archive

    SIMBA and The Lorrimore entered into a partnership/mentoring arrangement. The main objective of which was to facilitate SIMBA's continued development as an independent black user group. The Lorrimore supported SIMBA by undertaking key financial, advisory and support roles.

    In March 2004 SIMBA had to vacate the Jane Field Room, at the Maudsley. SIMBA's funding was due to cease in March 2005. The Lorrimore already helped to administer SIMBA's bank account, bookkeeping, payment of salaries, provision of supervision, and provided office space. The SIMBA Co-ordinators consulted with some of the SIMBA members about being incorporated into a larger organisation and, in general, they were agreeable to this so long as they maintained the autonomy and integrity of their existing work. In April 2005, SIMBA officially became part of The Lorrimore.

    6.10.2001 Distress Awareness Training Agency (DATA) website. See Survivors History archive. The website was simplified to a single page about November 2004.

    Ireland index 13.11.2001 First Internet Archive of Schizophrenia Ireland website. The first with significant content is 4.2.2002.

    "Relatives Support Groups. Schizophrenia Ireland branches and support groups have meetings once a month where parents and relatives can talk about the problems they have coping with schizophrenia in the family. Information and support are available for all. The groups also arrange for psychiatrists and others to come and give talks from time to time. 31 groups meet in various locations throughout the country. Many of the support groups also arrange social activities for those relatives and friends who have schizophrenia."

    "Groups for people with schizophrenia: PHRENZ Groups are mutual support groups for people who have schizophrenia or similar illnesses. PHRENZ Groups currently meet in Dublin, Mayo, Kerry, Cork, Ennis, Galway and Longford. In addition to the support meetings, additional social activities are arranged for Sunday afternoons and various times during the week, but does depend on the Group. Focus of the groups are structured discussion, and are facilitated by Schizophrenia Ireland. staff. All groups welcome new members."

    22.7.2001 World Federation for Mental Health congress held Vancouver, Canada, with the theme "Respecting Diversity in Mental Health in a Changing World" - Mad Pride march

    27.11.2001 Jack McConnell, new First Minister of Scotland. He promoted Malcolm Chisholm to Minister for Health and Community Care (previously deputy).
    "Malcolm Chisholm was invited to numerous Edinburgh User Forum meetings mainly around the Crisis Centre agenda. So when he then became the minister for Health and Community Care he was very sympathetic to the case that was being made by the mental health service user movement" Keith Maloney CAPS2010 p.94).

    December 2001 Edition of Mental Notes welcoming Mary O'Hagan as a member of the New Zealand Mental Health Commission.

    December 2001 Jeff Walker first employed by Bristol MIND. "Before that I was a volunteer with the organisation and before that I was actually a Bristol MIND service user." He became Director of Bristol Mind, but was made redundant in the spring of 2008. His period is regarded as constructive for service users, in particular because of the way Mind resources were shared with service user groups. See his own statement - Bristol index

     Ireland index Nutters With Attitude - A Benefit CD for Mad Pride - was released in the autumn of 2001.

    The review by Lizzie Walker, postgraduate student, Centre for Disability Studies, Leeds University, preserves the sociological language of the time: "affirmative model" - "contentious" - "oppositional habitus" - "consumerism" and "flawed consumers", for example. Review of Disability Studies, Volume 4, No. 1 - offline copy)

    2002

    "Rethink's media volunteers: Since 2002, Rethink has trained and supported people directly affected by severe mental illness to speak about experiences in the media. In 2007, 37 people told their story in the media through Rethink's media team."