Abstract
The speakers here all live in Oak View, a hostel for people with mental problems, in Moseley, Birmingham. As the locally notorious Palm Court Hotel, it was one of many profitable private dumping grounds for ex-patients of the asylums closed down under the policy of Community Care. Some older residents have lived there nearly 30 years.
With up to 70 residents, Oak View is now considered too big and institutional. Everyone, even the mentally ill, is thought better off living closer to the norm, the nuclear household. Oak View has its problems. But it works well for people too mentally frail to live alone, or not sociable enough to cope within a smaller group. Inside it, a person can both hide and have company. A fundamentally benign place, it tolerates eccentricity of all kinds.
Mental illness is not romantic here. There are no suicidal poets. Most residents have wretched histories, feel social rejects; some not only look but smell odd. In a few cases they make no apparent sense. But the psychiatrist RD Laing pointed out that if you really listen to the so-called mad, sense always emerges. After seven weeks living in Oak View I can confirm that. Some told their stories coherently, if obsessively. Some did not. But the stories came across anyhow. Without exception they confirmed that being mentally ill is horrible — and not as far from the rest of us as we hope. This may be the reason why such voices are rarely, if ever, heard.