Mental health and survivors' movements and context

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. It will also preserve historical material in digital form, on this site, for easy access, and in printed and other forms.

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.

1845

Alleged Lunatics Friend Society

1870

Archie Meek, who first suggested a union of mental patients to Thomas Ritchie, was born about 1870

1873

Lunacy Law Reform Association

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

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"

1894

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

1908

A Mind that Found Itself

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

1913 Charlotte Mew had written Ken, but it could not be published because magazine editors "believed in the segregation of the feeble-minded"

1916 Charlotte Mew On the Asylum Road published

1923

Mary Barnes born - Died 29.6.2001

1924

Eric Irwin born in Belfast - See Fish Pamphlet - 1956 - 1960 - 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 - Before Christmas 1987 - Mike Lawson's poem -

1928 Joan Hughes born. See - her autobiography - preservation of archives - Movements in the 1970s -

About 1928: Thomas Ritchie, founder of SUMP, born

1930

Robin Farquharson born (died 1973). See 1968- 21.3.1973 - Bitman - 6.4.1973 - 4.7.1973

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

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

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)

1941

About 1941 Lewis Mantus born - 1973 - 1988

1945

Peter Beresford born - - See SUN website

1946 The Association of Parents of Backward Children formed

17.9.1946 Anne Plumb born. See Anne Plumb Collection - Edale - 1988 - Distress Awareness Training Agency

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

1948

25.5.1948 Mike Lawson born. External link to Testimonies Project - PROMPT Fund Raising - Mind 1985 - What They Teach in Song - We're not Mad - We're Angry - narrative poem - Vice-Chair Mind 1988 -1994 - an archive of his website - See SUN website

21.4.1948 Valerie Argent born - See also preservation of archives -

7.12.1948 Jan Wallcraft born

1949

About 1949 Peter Lindley born in Yorkshire - External link to profile

1950

Peter Lehmann born - external link

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

Between 1950 and 1953: Mary Nettle born. See SUN website - Edale

1951

Frank Bangay born Wandsworth 1951 - In his early twenties he 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. At the end of the 1970s, he collaborated with musicians in the fighting Pigeons Band. In 1979: he first read PROMPT booklets.

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

3.2.1952 Birth of Tony Glynn (died 5.3.2008) External link to staff profile at Birmingham University

David (John) Hill born. See 1983 - Mind 1985 - Director Mind in Camden - London Alliance for Mental Health Action (October 1987) - 19.11.1988 - 20.6.1989

1953

About 1953 Andrew Hughes born - Founder of Distress Awareness Training Agency May 1988 - Survivors United Network 1999-2002 - worked on On Our Own Terms in 2003 -

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

1956 Lorraine Bell born. Frank Bangay believes that Lorraine was at the Brighton Congress in July 1985, as was David Hill, but not Peter Campbell. 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 -

1957

United Kingdom Consumer's Association (publisher's of "Which?") founded.

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". External website. The organisation started in Ireland in 1967 external link to website - history

Veronica Dewan born 1957

1958

Only hands and feet of patients allowed to be shown on first British television programme about mental illness.

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'"

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).

1962

14.9.1962 Birth of Peter Shaughnessy - Southwark Mind 1997 - Suicide 14.12.2002

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

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."

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".

1964

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

Robert Dellar born Watford. - 1987 onwards working for local Mind associations - 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 -

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

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.

1966

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

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

1967

Recovery Groups in Ireland began.

Release national drug helpline established in London. 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.

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.

1968

The first edition of Drop Out by Robin Farquharson was published in 1968. Its cover had this cartoon of Robin. In the preface, 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.

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.

May 1968 Paris student rising

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.

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 (1944-10.11.2004) in Bitman 8, September 1973

1969

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.

July 1969 People Not Psychiatry

6.8.1969 Helen Spandler born. See 1974 - July 1990 - Asylum 1992 - Spring 2006 - 2008 - 29.5.2008 - Literature Review Notes - Helen Spandler Literature

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. In European countries other than Scotland and England, the patients movement appears to have been generated by psychiatrists (often 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.

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". Organisations include the Clientenbond - "de Cliëntenbond in de geestelijke gezondheidszorg" (Customer/client association/union in the mental health care system), formed 11.1.1971, and De Gekkenkrant - [See external link to history: Geschiedenis van de Cliëntenbond]

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

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) 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)

May 1970 The Phobics Society established

September 1970 to November 1970 Peter Campbell a patient in Murray Royal Hospital, Perth, Scotland - See Testimonies - September 1983: activist - November 1985: Spoke at MIND conference, his life begins a rapid change from obscurity to privilege - 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 - September 1987: holding the Edale Conference together - November 1991: Survivors Poetry - Summer 1992: (Survivors Speak Out funding) - 28.2.2001: UK Survivor Workers' conference Manchester - 2003: On Our Own Terms - 14.1.2005: Survivors History Group - 17.5.2006: Diamond Champion

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

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.

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)

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]

Tuesday 27.9.1971 Politics of Psychology Conference. London School of Economics

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)

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

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.

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".

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

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

SUMP (Scottish Union of Mental Patients).
Tommie 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

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.]

7.11.1972 to 19.12.1972 trial (and imprisonment) in Germany of doctors Wolfgang and Ursel Huber of the SPK.

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

Madness Network News first published

1973

De Gekkenkrant (Variuosly translated Crazy Parson's Newspaper - The Fool's Paper and Mad Magazine) started in Holland. It closed itself down on 21.2.1981

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

Spring [April] 1973 Mind Out Quarterly Mind magazine started with Denise Wynne 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 Mind Out report on the Mental Patients Union

June COPE: Community Organisation for Psychiatric Emergencies

Fresnes Conference June 1973: Cahiers pour la Folie - Groupe d'information sur le Asiles - Association contre la repression medico-policiere - Rommittee gegen die Isolationsfolten - Des prisonniere de droit commun, 12 - Mental Patients Union

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

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.

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."

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

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

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.

7.11. 1973 to 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

1974 Franco Basaglia founded "Psichiatria Democratica"

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.

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 July 1985 - November 2004 - May 2006 - 2007

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

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.

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 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.

October 1975 A Directory of the Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs

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.

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

1976

Peter Thompson founded The Matthew Trust

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.

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.

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."

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 Open Mind 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.

May 1982 A meeting in Brussels of the 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). 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

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

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]

Tuesday 2.11.1982 Launch of Channel 4 (UK Television) to cater for minority interests not met by the mainstream channels. Naturally, special interest groups lobbied for programmes. One of those groups was Mind in Camden, which produced Psychiatric Oppression to make its case. This led, eventually, to We're Not Mad We're Angry

1983

1983 Coventry Crisis Intervention Team set up

The Phoenix Patients' Collective

Ted Curtis born

February/March 1983 First edition of Open Mind, the replacement for Mind Out.

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

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

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

David Hill in the USA
book/s

September 1983, Peter Campbell moved to Cricklewood 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. David Hill made a promotional video called "Psychiatric Oppression" to try to interest Channel 4 in doing a programme. The VHS video cassette begins with quote in text by Dr David Hill [Black and White], the rest is in colour. The contributors include Eric Irwin, Frank Bangay, Peter Ross, Steven Ticktin, Peter Campbell, Lary Gostin, Dee Kraiij, Mary Barnes, Michael Meacher, Joe Bioder and R.D. Laing. (See Glasgow University catalogue)

"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)

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.

1984

Summer 1984 Hackney Mental Health Action Group formed

August 1984 Women and Mental Health group meeting in Hackney

September 1984 Mind Annual Conference, Royal Festival Hall, London: Possibly the first with a user presentation (By members of Glasgow Link clubs)

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

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?"

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

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 - Ivy Buckland from the centre was the first Survivors Speak Out Treasurer. Rick Hennelly, a social worker at the centre was very active in the formation of Survivors Speak Out

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"

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".

March 1985 PROMPT changed its name to CAPO

July 1985 World Congress of Mental Health in Brighton.
Speaking from Experience - a video about user involvement compiled and presented by Thurstine Basset

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.

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. Psychiatric Underground was their first album in 19 and Straight Outta Rampton

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.

28-29.11.1985 Mind Annual Conference From Patients to People

1986

Spring? 1986 Ealing Mental Health Action Group

Camden Mental Health Consortium (CMHC) was founded in 1986 (before the summer Asylum). The group is still active and describes 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."

Probably 1986 that David Hill became director at Mind in Camden. "He is certainly signing himself as director in early 1987" (Peter Campbell)

1986

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 was of about twenty people - much larger numbers came to later ones. Users of a Chesterfield day centre were bused down, picking up people from Nottingham on the way. [Interview 11 in Contesting Psychiatry] - Helen Smith from the King's Fund Centre remained an ally, and the Kings 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)"

January 1986: Start of Nottingham Patients Council Support Group. This group led to the establishment of the Nottingham Advocacy Group in 1987 - [See advocacy] - NAGhistory.pdf - External Link to A History of the Nottingham Advocacy Group compiled by Marian Barnes (2007). 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 meetings starting 9.5.1986 at Hackney Psychiatric Day Hospital under the umbrella of the City and Hackney Community Health Council, Mental Health Working Group. 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. A newsletter in Spring 1987 reported on the development of this Patients Committee. The organisation called Hackney Patients Council dates from 1994.

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)

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 - A Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry sought to be "the freest possible non-partisan forum for anyone in any way involved in mental health work" The first issue had substantial material on or including the Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression. The second included some opposite points of view

Saturday 17.5.1986 HMHAG (Hackney Mental Health Action Group) public meeting: Psychiatric Treatment: Are Drugs Really Necessary? Homerton Library.

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]

November 1986 Wouther 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 there 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 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)"

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. 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

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)

Breakdown Mind distributed tape of a radio programme. Produced by Peter Simmons and Mark Halliley. Capital Radio PLC. 1986. Cover illustration: Phill Ellinston. Thurstine Basset's collection.

1986 What They Teach In Song - Poetry About Psychiatric Experience - The first? CAPO collection.

1987

In 1987 Mary O'Hagan set up Psychiatric Survivors, in Auckland, New Zealand, after reading On Our Own by Judi Chamberlin.

Stichting Weerklank (Foundation Resonance). See Wikipedia on the Hearing Voices Movement - See below 1988

Althea and David Brandon Consumers as Colleagues Mind. 34 page pamphlet. Thurstine Basset's collection

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, "Self-advocacy movement in the UK, User Representation, Citizen Advocacy, Staff as Advocates" - Judi Chamberlin, "The Case for Separatism. Ex-Patient Organising in the United States - 30 pages - Anne Plumb collection. - COPAC lists copies in several libraries

From 1987, Robert Dellar was working for "various Mind affiliations". (Mad Pride 2000, p.211)

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.

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"

Edale Conference and Edale Charter

September 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 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". (Two decades of change conference