Image via highroydshospital.com
"I remember nights when we were young
/ They weren't very good they were rubbish
Running round Highroyds isn't fun
/ Just teenagers testing their courage" [1]
I.
Exactly 134 years ago today - the 8th of October, 1888 - High Royds Hospital was opened on the 300-acre estate that had been purchased three years earlier just south of the village of Menston, in West Yorkshire, approximately 11 miles from Leeds.
The large stone complex, designed by J. Vickers Edwards in the High Gothic style that many Victorian architects favoured, was built to house those individuals who had the misfortune to be both poor and insane - as indicated by its original name of the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
High Royds was intended to be a self-contained and self-sufficient community; there were in-house butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers and there was also a cobbler's workshop, a dairy, and a farm-cum-market garden.
Patients were expected - if able - to earn their own keep by providing labour, either on the farm, in the kitchens, or in the laundry room. They were also encouraged to learn various handicrafts, such as basket weaving, or make use of the extensive library.
In other words, it was the sort of place that Michel Foucault writes of in Madness and Civilization, his classic study of insanity in the Age of Reason [2]. And it was to become the sort of place that depraved sexual predator Jimmy Saville loved to visit [3].
The administration building, which is now Grade II listed, features a beautiful Italian mosaic floor in the main corridor, intricately decorated with the white Yorkshire Rose and - somewhat macabrely - black daisies [4].
II.
Some of you might be asking at this point what any of this has to do with me ...
Well, it just so happens, that I spent some time at High Royds in 1984 - not as a patient (fortunately), but as a visitor to my quasi-girlfriend Lorrie Millington [5], who was, unfortunately, confined there for two-and-a-half months.
Anyway, for those who are interested, here are excerpts from several diary entries written at the time:
Monday 30 January, 1984
Received a letter from Lorrie. It turns out the reason I hadn't heard from or seen her around town lately is because she's been banged up in a mental hospital for the past three weeks! Happily, she says she's recovering, but still has to take a lot of pills (for epilepsy and various other things).
In the evening, I telephoned the hospital - High Royds - and asked to speak to her. After some initial confusion - it turns out her surname is Gatford, not Millington - they put her on the line. It was great to hear her voice and she sounded well. I think she was happy to hear from me, too; asked if I would visit her tomorrow and I agreed. I do hope she's going to be okay and can get out of the hospital soon. Very much looking forward to seeing her.
Tuesday 31 January, 1984
Having agreed to get to the hospital at 6-ish, I was obliged to skip yet another lecture.
Bought some tulips for Lorrie en route; no idea if that's appropriate when visiting a patient in an asylum, but surely no one can object to flowers -? They might make you sneeze if you're allergic to pollen, I suppose, but unlikely to trigger a psychotic episode (though, having said that, one thinks of Vincent and his sunflowers). Just to be on the safe side, also got her some chocolates (After Eights).
The 731 bus took me straight to High Royds. Forbidding place - it took me ten minutes to find the entrance (and another five minutes to find the courage to pass through it). Couldn't help wondering how easy it would be to escape if ever confined in such an institution. Inside there were patients and staff wandering around - not sure who made me feel the most uneasy.
Found Lorrie - and she looked well, though very different with her natural hair colour. She didn't approve of the fact I'd recently dyed my hair orange, but she did appreciate the flowers and chocolates. Drank tea and chatted for three hours. She has such a lovely voice and soft accent; find it very sexy. Funny enough, she was probably more coherent than I've ever known her. Maybe we should all have a stay at a happy house! Kissed her goodbye and agreed to visit again soon.
Thursday 2 February, 1984
Back to High Royds. Found Lorrie sitting with Keith, one of the people she shares a house with [6]. He's okay, but a bit quiet and uninspiring; always dressed in all black and likes indie music. Don't think he appreciated my being there, but fuck 'im, as they say; he's not her boyfriend after all ...?
Lorrie looked good, but was far more manic this evening. Before leaving, she insisted that I take some photos of her - and made Keith take one of me and her together. As well as the pics, I also took a greatest hits album by Rolf Harris that was lying around the recreation room. When I got home, sat playing that until after midnight ... 'Two Little Boys', 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down', 'Jake the Peg', etc. Not sure these are the kind of songs that assist with mental well being, so convinced myself I had done a good thing by stealing it from the hospital.
Tuesday 7 February, 1984
On an absolutely freezing evening, made my way once more to High Royds. Keith was there again, but soon left. I respect the fact that he visits Lorrie regularly (maybe he is her boyfriend).
Lorrie was in a bad mood, but insisted on going to a disco event that was being held for patients. That was certainly an experience - literally a lunatics ball! Deeply disturbing, although it made Lorrie laugh when someone came up to me and made violent stabbing gestures in my direction with both fists. A member of staff assured me that he was only doing the monster mash!
Back on the ward, Lorrie was much more loving. She's desperate to leave the hospital now and I don't blame her. But I'm not confident they'll discharge her at the end of this week as she hopes; experience has taught me to never trust what doctors say. Went home feeling depressed and - as much as I want to continue seeing and supporting Miss Millington - not sure I can face going back to High Royds [7].
High Royds Hospital (2 Feb 1984)
Notes
[1] These lines form the first verse of the song 'Highroyds' by the Kaiser Chiefs, an indie rock band from Leeds. The track can be found on the album Yours Truly, Angry Mob, (B-Unique Records, 2007). Three members of the group - Nick Hodgson, Nick Baines
and Simon Rix - used to attend a school that was opposite High Royds Hospital. The lyrics, written by Ricky Wilson and Andrew White,
are © Universal Music Publishing Group. Click here to play.
[2] This work - translated into an abridged English edition by Richard Howard in 1964 - was originally published as Folie et Déraison: Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique in 1961.
Foucault traces the rise of the modern asylum in which those designated as crazy are confined under the
supervision of medical professionals, so as to be studied and subjected to therapeutic procedures in an attempt to cure them of their illness
(whilst also protecting the society from which they were removed).
Although seemingly more enlightened and compassionate in the clinical treatment
of insane people, Foucault shows how the modern mental hospital nevertheless remained
as cruel and controlling as any other institution established and run on similar lines - be it a boarding school, a workhouse, or a prison.
[3] The official report into the Saville case reveals that he did in fact commit an act of sexual assault at High Royds Hospital in the 1980s, during a fancy dress fun run. It has also been alleged that he groped patients and members of staff on other occasions.
[4] These fleurs du mal provided inspiration for the title of Tony Harrison's 1993 screenplay Black Daisies for the Bride - a beautiful but disturbing work using verse and song to examine the lives of three women coping with Alzheimer's. The work was filmed in High Royds (dir. Peter Symes) and shown on BBC Two in 1994: click here to watch on YouTube via the High Royds Hospital digital archive.
[5] I have written of Lorraine Millington (aka Lori Gatford) several times on Torpedo the Ark; see here, for example, or, more recently, here.
[6] Keith Gregory went on to become the bass guitarist in The Wedding Present, a band he formed with vocalist and guitarist Dave Gedge in 1985 and who I tried (unsuccessfully) to get signed to Charisma Records (I was informed their jangly guitar sound was passé ... the band, however, went on to have 18 Top 40 hits).
[7] As a matter of fact, I made three more visits to see Lorrie at the hospital - Tuesday 14 February, Thursday 1 March, and Thursday 15 March - before she was finally discharged on Monday 19th of March, 1984.
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High Royds Hospital
(as I still see it in my nightmares)
Afternote: Readers might be interested to know that, following numerous complaints about conditions at the hospital, High Royds was eventually deemed unfit for purpose (i.e., no longer able to provide proper care); this was acknowledged by the chief executive of Leeds Mental Health in 1999. After services were transferred to other hospitals, High Royds closed in 2003. It has since been converted into a residential development called Chevin Park.
