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LEST WE FORGET
Before hospitals like High Royds opened the majority of the
mentally ill were forced into the workhouses or prisons. The better off people could afford to send relatives into privately
run mad houses.
Although High Royds may have been an improvement on prison or the workhouse, life was still wretched
for the patients. They were committed to the hospital be law, after being certified as mad and kept in locked wards encircled
by high walls. Disease was rife in this closed community with 15% of patients dying every year. The huge grounds conceal grim
evidence of this appalling death toll – 2858 buried in the cemetery in unmarked graves and a further 1000 at Guisley
cemetery. Many of these thought to be victims of the devastating flu outbreak of 1918 with 21% of patients dying.
Staffing Across The Years
In the
early years the hospital was largely run by staff who lived on site and worked very long hours. A Medical Superintendent was
in charge with just four other doctors known as assistant medical officers, along with 170 nurses and attendants and 18 administrative
staff. Hospital records show that the working week was reduced from 87.5 hours to 79.5 hours in 1901 and an additional five
attendants were employed as a result.
The First World War ushered in a new era at the hospital although plans
for it to be taken over by the American Army as a military hospital never materialized. The working week was dropped from
77 to 48 hours with a 70% increase in staff levels. Four years later the hours went back up to 56 per week.
The
1930 Mental Health Act allowed some patients to be admitted on a voluntary basis for the first time as opposed to being certified
and forced into hospital. Patient numbers remained high however with the onset of WW11.
During this time part
of High Royds was given over to treating military casualties with 218 cases being admitted from France in 1940. The patient
population peaked to an all time high of 2,600. In the same year the Princess Royal came to the hospital to visit the troops.
Apart
from the highly qualified Directors and Doctors the hospital was never short of applications for nursing staff. However, in
the early days duties were mainly custodial and nursing skills were not called for. Even as late as 1947 only one in four
nurses had qualifications. The staff were expected to entertain the patients in this self contained environment and
so often appointments were based on sport, music, acting or singing abilities. An orchestra was formed and gave regular performances
with the cricket and football teams competing on sports day.
The introduction of the National Health Service
in 1948 transformed the hospital with new decoration and furniture and almost doubling the number of medical staff overnight.
In more recent times since the widespread use of anti-depressant drugs there has been more emphasis in treating sufferers
of mental disorders in the community rather than a locked door philosophy.
At the time of closure patient numbers
had dwindled to the hundreds with the majority being over 65 years of age
The Grounds
The extensive lawns, flowerbeds, shrubberies and airing courts
at the hospital were always immaculately maintained, most commendable when you consider it was all done by hand with no power
driven tools.
Many patients were dragooned into this work as cheap labour
for farming, general maintenance and delivering coal from the central dump to the numerous individual coal stores. Each building
had at least one store as heating throughout was predominantly by open fires. This work by the patients was considered
a sort of primitive occupational therapy.
The lawns in particular were sacrosanct. You would be in
trouble if you walked on these show pieces.
There was a beautiful lawn with a line of sycamores along
it's northern edge which is sadly now long gone. It was located where the General Stores oil store was later built. At one
time an unsightly path developed across it and the then Medical Superintendent Dr McDowell, lay in wait for the culprits saying
that whoever he caught would go 'down the road' the term for instant dismissal.
There was great hilarity amongst the staff as the perpetrator
he discovered was his own wife!
Winter
In days gone by when there was a fall of snow within minutes
of it having ceased gangs of male patients descended on the works stores to borrow shovels of which were always kept dozens,
and would begin clearance.
The activity was completed as swiftly as possible with an
air of excitement at the challenge – no doubt a diversion from the normal routine. There was also a snow plough which
was kept at home farm on site which was pulled by two shire horses.
The Annual Ball and The Patients' Fancy Dress Ball
The
annual asylum ball was held just after Christmas and was the social event of the season with some 800 dancers taking part.
Magnificent decorations took weeks to prepare and arrange, with brightly coloured festoons and tinsel draped overhead and
along the walls. Each member of staff was given a ticket which was not meant to be transferable but people from outside would
pay good money for them. The ladies had small printed programmes with a little pencil attached to their wrists and vied
with each other for the best ballgown and the most dancing partners.
The men wore a variety of dress from smart lounge
suit to dinner jacket – white tie and tails being the order of the day for the higherarchy. It was the custom for doctors
and heads of departments to entertain their own private parties in their offices at intervals throughout the evening. An impressive
supper was laid on in the male dining room during the interval. Both halves of the evening began and ended with a rendition
of the 'The Lancers'. Perfume filled the air and the rustle and twirling of every shade of taffeta and satin was a sight indeed.
Celebrations carried on until 1am. A glorious occasion enjoyed by all – so much in fact that many staff were a little
late for duty the following day.
The Harvest Festival
Harvest Festival
too was quite an occasion. On normal Sundays the services were held in the ballroom just in front of the balcony using choir
stalls, a harmonium powerful enough to cope with 600 lusty voices, a lectern and a pulpit all portable. These were set up
in front of the balcony arches which gave it the semblance of a church, but as yet there was no altar. At Harvest Festival
the whole area was transformed with an enormous display provided jointly by the farm bailiff and the head gardener with huge
palm trees borrowed from the centre, branches of apple trees laden with crabapples, every conceivable fruit, flower, and vegetable.
A magnificent Harvest Sheaf made in bread by the baker was the show stopping centre-piece.
The Farm
The land around High Royds Hospital was originally farmed by tenant farmers, and each farm had stone walls around it's
fields to denote the boundaries of the farm. The were called Home Farm, Odda, Thorpe and Norcroft. The land was owned by Mr
Fawkes, and when High Royds Hospital was developed it was government funded although the land still belonged to Mr Fawkes.
The walls around the small farms were taken down and used to build the boundary to the hospital. At that time the clock tower
had a fancy top like a pagoda built in wood but that was taken down a long time ago.
High Royds farm covered
630 acres of land and eleven men were farming them. Certain patients were allowed to help and they lived in a building near
Holme Farm. There were cowmen and ploughmen, pigmen and stockmen, horsemen and stablemen and they all worked on different
areas of High Royds. The pigs and milk were at Holme Farm, rearing stock at Norcroft, older stock at Odda ands dried off cows
at Thorpe until they came into milk again. They used to buy Ayreshire Heifers, two year olds, they would come down from Scotland
to the railway station in Menston and would be unloaded and walked up Cleasby Road along to Holme Farm.
The hospital
did have its own railway which came off a spur from the main line and under the tunnel that goes under the main road, but
cows couldn't come that way because there wasn't an unloading place for them to get off. At Holme Farm the milk produced was
cooled down, put in churns and sent for use at the hospital. From 70 – 80 cows there would be about 1600 pints which
was used to feed the patients and staff. There was a slaughterhouse too, mostly pigs, again for the hospital meals and some
was sold to a local butcher.
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| High Royds Railway Bridge |
In 1939 there were eleven or twelve shire horses in the stables which did the majority of the work with just one tractor.
A great deal of time was spent shoveling coal to fill the hoppers. This was to run the giant boilers for heating the
water. The hospital also had its own generators for electricity.
At Thorpe they grew potatoes, turnips, sugarbeet,
mangolds and corn in the fields. The hospital also had its own fire and the farm men who were on duty at night got paid extra.
Two men would have to sit on top of the clock tower all night and watch for fires, and during the war years, enemy aircraft.
A typical Day in the 1970's
Patients would get up between six and seven in the morning, some of them would make the beds for which they received
a small reward, and then breakfast which would be followed by various activities.
Those that could would go to the industrial workshops to do work such as packing bulbs or catalogues, making suspenders,
all types of activities.
That was the early days of occupational therapy, literally – keeping the patients' mind occupied. Although there
may have been an element of exploitation, the patients themselves got a great deal from it, because they had the status of
being able to work and got a small amount of money for doing it.
They would spend all morning at the workshop then come back for lunch. They then returned to work in the afternoon came
back for tea and would spend their evenings watching television, playing bingo, going to the weekly dance or filmshow and
staff allowing, an outing at the weekend.
For those who weren't able to go to the workshops, activities were very limited. Some of the patients worked on the wards
like making beds, cleaning, serving meals, kitchen duties and so on.
The routine tended to be very regimented. For example, all false teeth were collected in at night. This is because patients
that had been there twenty or even fifty years in some cases, had not had an opportunity to develop in the way that most people
in society would have a regarding social and life skills such as hygiene.
So weekly baths and regular changes of clothes had to be ensured by the staff
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