The Forgotten Heroes

It was the kick in the backside that threw Douglas Mortimer off his balance. His knees buckled, his Zimmer frame flew over his head, he fell down on the shining floor and a loud thump reverberated around the ward. He immediately pulled his knees upwards; he covered his head with his hands. He was 76 years old, short and frail. A survivor of the Second World War. He is now a resident in a large Mental Institution, Top Hill hospital.

‘You silly old fool, get up!’ shouted John Pilkinson.

‘Oh, John! You’re funny,’ said care assistant Jenny Moore laughingly.

The nurse in charge, Sister Flavel looked on and began to laugh with Jenny Moore. Their laughter drowned the song of Annie Lennox ‘I travel the seven seas’ from the ward’s wireless. My name is Dev Menon, I have been a registered psychiatric nurse for fourteen years. When I saw John Pilkinson kick Douglas Mortimer, something happened to me.

‘You must not assault patients!’ I shouted.

I walked calmly towards John Pilkinson and tapped him on his shoulder.  As he turned around to face me I punched him in his face and as he went down I kicked him for good measure. He fell down and began to cry. Of course, it did not really happen. I had one of those mysterious out of body experiences. Instead, I rushed towards Douglas Mortimer to help him.

‘Dougy, are you hurt?’ I asked caringly.

He looked up, when he saw me, he put his hands down and he gave me his arms. I lifted him and put him in a wheel chair. Other elderly residents continued making their way to the toilet as if nothing had happened. John Pilkinson was a second-year student in psychiatric nursing, his father worked at Top Hill hospital as the gardener, his mother as the kitchen helper, his sister was the domestic supervisor, his uncle a charge nurse, his cousin was married to Sister Flavel. He was 19 years old, short and slender, his hair was always greasy and wildly long. His shirt and trousers were always crumpled as if he had slept in them. He was known around the hospital as the only male nurse who refused to wear the hospital uniform – the white coat. He told his ward’s manager, Mr Frank Johnson, the father of Sister Flavel, ‘I am a nurse, not a lollipop man.’ Mr Johnson knew better than to make waves.

It was a sunny morning, the sun shone brightly through the window, the garden looked rosy and the daffodils were blooming. The birds were still singing their monotonous tunes. Primrose, the ward’s domestic staff was singing her usual songs, ‘Summertime and the living is easy’.  She came from Jamaica and had been working at Top Hill for over thirty years. She was mopping the dormitory and spraying the air spray. There was a whiff of the fragrance that filtered through the lounge where Aaron Levene, a former Rabbi, was sitting among other war heroes. He was looking at Primrose with sad eyes and repeated the same words over and over again,

‘Babouska! Babouska!’

Primrose smiled at him.

‘Me not your Babouska (mother).’

Suddenly, John Pilkinson shouted across the lounge

‘Chalkie! I want my eggs poached this morning!’

‘Ok,’ said Primrose.

Top Hill was built during the Second World War to care for the casualties of the war. A place fit for war heroes! Douglas Mortimer like the other 29 resident war heroes began his day, the same way as yesterday, and the same as the day before yesterday, and he will carry on until the day he dies. From the dormitory to the dining room, then to the toilet and to the communal lounge where he waits for his next meal and then in the evening back to his dormitory. The lounge is the place where they spend their whole life. After breakfast, some are already asleep, others are holding daily newspapers upside-down pretending to read. Alfie Baker, another war hero, would always read the paper to his friend, Henry Carter.

‘The miners are striking,’ said Alfie Baker.

‘Again, they just had their long march.’ Replied Carter.

‘No, Henry! Not the 1929 Jarrow march, this year’s strike, we are in 1984.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really? How time flies.’

Primrose strolled towards the ward’s kitchen, Levene saw her from his chair, ‘Babouska! Babouska!’ he shouted. John Pilkinson heard him.

‘Shut-up! You fat-lipped Jew! Or I’ll give you a gas shower,’ he barked.

Jenny Moore giggled. Sister Flavel came towards me, she smiled perfunctorily.

‘Hold the fort, we are going to our breakfast.’

As she left the lounge, I switched off the ward’s radio. It was peaceful and soothing but my mind was raging like a waterfall. I knew that something was happening to me. I knew that I had to make a decision, the kind that will change my life. Primrose came back from the kitchen, she was never invited to join the nursing staffs for breakfast or for any ward’s socialising for that matter. A domestic is a domestic, no two ways about it; black or white. She looked around, sat down next to me. ‘You are not their maid, you know,’ I said casually.

‘Me no mind,’ I retire next year anyway.’

‘Why don’t you report him for calling you a racist name?’

She laughed a kind of forceful laughter which hid her bitterness.

‘What’s the point? Nobody cares in this place. Once I got my pension, I am off back home for good. I got meself a layer of suntanned.’ She said laughingly.

‘I am thinking to report him for kicking Dougy.’

I looked at her, she stopped laughing, she got up, looked furtively and sat down again.

‘Don’t be daft now. Just think what you doing man! Just do your time and got your pension then go back home, just don’t get old in this country.

‘How did you put up with them so long?’

‘Just being D and D, daft and dumb. Just remember what happened to Peter Cummings’.

She got up again and strolled to the dormitory. The residents were already snoring.

Peter Cumming came down from the North of England, he was 24 years old. He was the very first staff nurse to promoted Charge Nurse at Top Hill hospital. At first the staff nurses were with the senior managers who had appointed an outsider. When they found out that Peter Cumming was a double qualified nurse with registration for mental and general nursing and more importantly he was also a second year student studying part time for a degree in nursing at a prestigious university in London. They realised that they had been beaten by a better man. He brought his young wife with him and settled down in the hospital’s married quarters.  He was not like others nurses who were attracted by the perks of the accommodation; he was born to be a nurse.

Within weeks on the job, he began to notice Sid Royle, the other charge nurse of the opposite shift. Sid was running a superstore on the ward. He would order goods from the hospital’s store for sixty residents instead of the usual thirty. Then he would sell the extra goods such as tea, coffee, sugar, butter, cereals, shirts, shoes, skirts, you got the picture. He got away with his dishonesty because the store manager is also his brother-in-law. Peter Cumming noticed the coming and going of the regular customers, from the hospital’s baker, the domestic, the electricians, the gardeners and even the managers. They became impervious to Peter’s presence. Sid used the profit to pay his gambling debt and to have his weekly parties for the managers to enjoy themselves. Weeks went by; Peter Cumming decided to put a stop to all of Sid’s thieving. He wrote his complaint to the Divisional Nursing Manager.

By the time he went back to work the very next day, he began to receive the backlash. He was immediately transferred to another ward, not as a charge nurse, but as a staff nurse. He spent his whole shift making beds on his own, then when he finished, he was sent to another ward to bath some of the patients. The trade union had already sent the instruction to avoid him at all cost, Peter Cumming had his breakfast alone, he sometimes sat among the residents. When he told his wife of his action, she immediately left him and promptly went back north. He moved into the single quarter of Nurses’ accommodation. In his hour of need and support, he was left alone to fight his battle. One fine day, he hung himself.

– You can’t beat the system even if its rotten to the core. Who am I anyway, just a blackman doing a blackman’s job. Oh, to hell with what is happening to me; like all feelings it would just be a fleeting pang of conscience. Anyway who is Douglas Mortimer, a nobody, just a forgotten soldier. Nobody really cares, he had never received any visits from his relatives, he had ever got a Christmas card from anybody. When he dies, they will come to find out what has been left for them in his pension account. Why is it that I have never seen a police officer making an inquiry about an assault? Then again, nobody dares to complain. The word around the hospital is, ‘Remember Peter Cumming,’ see what happens to somebody daft or brave enough to make waves. Just don’t rock the boat. Why is it that I have never seen the government’s inspector, the so-called Commissioner for Mental Patients? Are they not supposed to inspect the hospital? There is no need for any inspection. Just look at the site where they built Top Hill hospital, an isolated area which is far, far, away from the view of the public. It is a question of out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

Why should I blow the whistle and who will come to my rescue? Well one thing for sure not Peter Cumming. Shakespeare is right when he said ‘Thus conscience makes coward of us’.

‘The key! The key!’ shouted sister Flavel.

I looked at her, it took me minutes to register her voice,

‘Sorry, I was miles away’ I said sheepishly.

It was a momentous day when the government decided to close all the large mental institution. In 1990, Top Hill was closed, the residents were transferred to live in the community. On the final day, the staff wept, they knew that the party was over for good.