Recollections Begin

Part of my reasoning to start this blog was to share some memories, a feat I have spectacularly underachieved at so far.

So, where to begin? I would start at the beginning, but that would be too time consuming and frankly, boring. I would start my recollections from when I started work... but to honest a plastic factory is a plastic factory and bundling plastic pipes into long hessian sacks was as boring as it sounds.

Nope, I will transport you to a time in the summer of 1975 and my attempt to get a job at a Mental Hospital. After visiting a relative there, I had dated a girl who worked as a cadet nurse and she had inspired me to devote myself to the support and care of others worse off than me. Actually she told me it was a doddle and they would pay me to go to college.

So I ended up in front of a double door that was fully 20 feet high and 10 feet wide [What the fuck went through here ??? ] Inside the first sight was a clock that went backwards and a marble bust of someone who looked extremely constipated. That fact that the receptionist spoke from behind a screen gave the impression for a moment that the voice was coming from the constipated bust figure. I should have left then.......

In the following 32 years I have met, befriended, nursed, annoyed, argued with and enjoyed more characters than I would ever meet in an office ... Had some of the funniest moments of my life, and some of the worst it has to be said.....

An early recollection was the sports dept. Wards of patients would come to the main hall and participate in remedial exercises.... Swinging arms in time and shaking legs, sitting and standing, standing on one leg etc. all in time to the music, which was invariably 1st world war vintage. Surreal is the term that comes to mind now. Another task was to take the more able bodied on walks etc. with staff off the wards. On one occasion we attempted to play rounders on the cricket pitch... ignoring advice from older students not to be daft !! we lost 2 patients that morning, one running off in full pelt trying to shoot rabbits with his imaginary gun. We found him knee deep in the stream/river trying to tickle imaginary trout. The other hid in the inside of the cricket roller to sleep..... frightening the life out of the poor sods who went to move it an hour later to get at the boiler room door. At this time of my life I was 17, seriously stupid and gifted with a degree of optimism for life that would see me get into all manner of scrapes & near misses .... I wouldn't trade those memories in for a King's Ransom.

The hospital is long gone but memories linger [and I am sure, with time, distort] and I will attempt to recall some of the more memorable ones here [after verifying the accuracy with others] ..... Oh and checking the laws on slander and libel :o)))