Prudhoe Hospital in Northumberland was one of the many learning disability hospitals that were established following the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. It opened in 1914 with 146 patients. By the 1960s, almost 1500 citizens of the North East of England were incarcerated within Prudhoe’s walls. In common with other similar institutions, a physical and social environment developed at Prudhoe that allowed neglect and abuse to become commonplace despite the best efforts of the well-intentioned majority.
Over five concise chapters, authors Keilty and Woodley provide an overview of the development of learning disability hospitals, document the stories of some of the inmates and staff that spent time at Prudhoe Hospital, and attempt to explain how the system of care in this institution went so badly wrong. The ‘forgotten voices’ of the book’s title remain central to the narrative at all times. The former inmates are ‘storytellers’. Vignettes from their life stories recreate the daily routines of life at the old hospital. In the limited space of 100 pages the book manages to pack in over 60 photographs and diagrams, including 13 full-page colour images. Most of these full-page images are portraits of former inmates of Prudhoe Hospital, printed opposite a short description of that person’s life at Prudhoe and their life now. This section of the book is the most powerful. These portraits – some joyful, some contemplative – and the accompanying life stories remain with the reader long after the book has been put down, a testimony to human endurance and resilience. The authors go on to ‘explore the grey’ of institutional care. They use the testimony of staff and former inmates to demonstrate how a culture of abuse can develop inside an institution, making the provision of positive support by good staff almost impossible.
From the outset, it is clear that the authors are not interested in providing a dispassionate historical record of the closing of an institution. Both Keilty and Woodley have worked as supporters to people who once lived at Prudhoe. Their personal involvement with people who were directly affected by life in this institution makes the book, particularly the first and final chapters, read like a work of advocacy rather than a historical record. This is not a criticism; the authors make clear that the core message of this book is that the voices of those who have survived the harm done by institutions must not be forgotten and that institutional care must become a thing of the past. As Keilty and Woodley remark in the closing lines of the final chapter, the abuse scandal at Winterbourne View in 2011 was evidence that such broken systems of care still exist within institutions in the present day and that much work remains to be done.
No Going Back is valuable as a concise record of life in an institution and the impact it had on those who lived and worked there. I would particularly recommend this book to researchers and authors as an example of what accessible research outputs should look like. The friendly and engaging tone, the straightforward writing style, the layout and the use of images all serve to document an important period in the history of people with learning disabilities in a clear and appealing way. I would like to have seen the authors provide wider context by including details of the experiences at other institutions. I also feel the analysis could have benefitted from the inclusion of a broader examination of why institutional abuse occurs. However, the authors do not claim to have written a comprehensive tome on institutional care and broader analysis might well have diluted their central aim; to ensure that the voices of the storytellers of Prudhoe are not forgotten.
University of Limerick, Ireland
[email protected]
© 2014, Emma Burns
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2013.875259