Don’t Drink the Tea

Posted on 22nd October 2026

This entry is an accompaniment to my satirical That Shrinking Feeling, in which I made my feelings felt about the psychiatric profession, particularly those I encountered in Parkside Mental Hospital. Here is a more serious look at that institution, in which you will see a few of the other, lesser characters; the patients and the nurses.

I should first perhaps explain that I was eighteen at the time, by far the youngest there. Most were middle-aged or elderly; I doubt if there was anyone else much under forty. Also there were far more women than men in the admissions ward I was in; almost all the patients were there because they suffered from severe depression. Many of them were failed suicides like me. For the most part the atmosphere reflected the thoughts of the patients; it was a depressing place, and there was little conversation. But there were some characters of interest.

There was a man in his late sixties or early seventies who was in because of his depression. Once we were talking together as we made tea in the kitchen; people took turns to do this job for all the others in the common room. As I was spooning out the tea leaves he told me that ‘they’ put bromide in it, to stop ‘You know… the blokes getting too randy and trying to get off with the women, especially the nurses.’ He invited me to look more closely. Among the dark brown of the dried leaves were some small green bits, apparently tiny fragments of leaves.

I restrained myself from pointing out that since we were daily being dosed with God knows what drugs there seemed to be little point in spiking the tea; that whatever salt of bromine he thought he meant, it certainly wasn’t going to look like little green bits of leaf; and that I’d been jerking myself off daily ever since I’d arrived there (the greatest pleasure I found in that place – what a contrast in mental states!) and had invariably achieved the height of satisfaction. However I must have made some doubting comment, for he said:

‘You try offering our tea to the nurses. They never accept it. They use their own. You’ll see.’

Fascinated, I took the next opportunity that arose to try this out. ‘I’m just going to make a cup of tea,’ I said to the two nurses on duty, a young man (another Scotsman!) and a girl, a student nurse not much older than I was. ‘Would you like any?’

‘No thank you,’ the girl said quickly, giving me a bright smile. ‘We’ve got our own. We use that.’

It did make me wonder.

There was a woman who must have been in her seventies at least who had a painfully poignant tale to tell. She was small and dainty, with washed-out blue eyes. I can remember how very calm she was when she told me how, when she was a girl, a man had ‘got her into trouble’. She told me in an almost hair-raisingly matter-of-fact manner how one night she had walked out across the beach and into the sea because she had been told that drowning was a peaceful way to die.

A paranoid schizophrenic whom I only knew briefly, as she arrived not all that long before I was discharged, was… paranoid. The most remarkable example of this was when she told me one day that ‘they’ were watching her, and in order to track her movements as she walked in the extensive grounds of the hospital they had put a large number on the back of her clothing. I was only grateful she was so convinced of this that she didn’t ask me to confirm it. I also remember her telling me that the infamous Dr Reid showed his usual tact by laughingly asking her if she really expected him to believe she was serious. Interestingly, not only did she find him objectionable, she extended it to his choices. ‘Have you seen his wife?’ she asked me once in baleful tones (his wife – or at least a woman I assumed to be his wife – occasionally came to the hospital). ‘She looks like a gypsy to me.’ Note that though she was talking about her appearance, the insult was an implication that she was of loose morals. That amused me for some reason; direct insults I could understand, but this indirect approach would never have occurred to me.

One woman whose name I sadly have long since forgotten genuinely qualified for the description ‘classy’. She was elegant; practically alone among those in Parkside she took a pride in her appearance, and always looked good. She was a schizophrenic, but while I was there behaved perfectly normally. I shall call her the Lady, because that is the sort of effect she had. I suppose she was around forty – late thirties anyway – but had looks and poise. Do you know what Kelly Le Brock looks like? Well, she wasn’t as sexy-looking as that, but there were definite similarities. Her eyes not quite as large, her lips not quite as full, but the shape of her face was very much alike, particularly her cheekbones. Her hair was dark brown and long – unfashionably long for a woman of her age at that time, past her shoulders – and curly; I’m no good at naming hairstyles, and I can’t even exactly visualise it now, but think in terms of Edwardian women in white dresses and parasols and you’d be something close. Unlike most of the others she had perfect posture. I suspect she must have been sent to a Good School; she was definitely the only one there who could be described as middle-class. The best I could scrape was ‘educated working-class’, or perhaps ‘lower middle-class’; I suppose in retrospect I was the closest to her in terms of education, if not in background. She qualified for the description of languid (a wonderful word), possibly even languorous. She should have had a chaise-longue to recline on. Everything about her behaviour was relaxed and measured.

I never saw her wearing anything other than an ankle-length nightgown. Even to my untrained eye it looked expensive; it was certainly tasteful. Its appearance may or may not have been due to a costly fabric, but it looked like it. Some of the other women, the ones with more severe depression, wore nightclothes with flannel dressing gowns over the top, because they clearly lacked the energy to dress fully. But with her it was different altogether; she didn’t look as if she’d just crawled bleary-eyed out of bed and pulled on the nearest thing to hand. Rather the opposite in fact – she looked as if she was ready to slip into bed. Sexy isn’t quite the right word; classy again is what describes it.

She smoked cigarettes, but not like some teenager who is desperate to impress with their maturity, but who only succeeds in looking like someone without the mental will to resist peer-pressure. She looked like one of the 1940s film stars when she put a cigarette to her lips.

But her voice is what was remarkable. She always spoke softly, and in a measured, unhurried way. Not softly because she was timid, but because she had no need to raise her voice, which was very soothing, like the rest of her.

She always opened a conversation with me by addressing me by my name, which had a curious effect. Most people don’t use a person’s name unless they have to attract their attention in a crowd of others; certainly if I speak to someone, and they are already looking at me, I don’t use their first name – it seems superfluous. Someone once commented to me that the name Simon was dreamy: Sighmon. Now the Lady didn’t stress it like that, but remarkably this is the sort of effect her voice produced. She also gave me her full attention – she studied my face as she spoke. She would never have made it as a GP. It gave a sense of intimacy. It’s hard to describe.

She never said much about herself, but when she asked me something about myself she didn’t appear to be doing so just to make empty conversation – while I admit I was only there for a couple of months she impressed me by recalling small things I’d mentioned to her which I’d practically forgotten saying myself. I have no idea if what I said was of interest to her, but she certainly gave that impression. She asked about my brother and my sister, she expressed regret that I didn’t have a girlfriend (more on this later).

She didn’t say much or do much, but she watched others. I can remember once when a pretty student nurse was coming round I suppose I must have let my expression reveal my thoughts, for when I turned and saw the Lady she had a slight twinkle in her eye – yet a slightly sorrowful, sympathetic look too. I have no idea about her background (unless a person volunteered information about themselves you didn’t ask); I never saw anyone visit her – she remained enigmatic.

The nurses, both male and female, were great, without exception. They did all the donkey work and remained cheerful and helpful, which helped the patients far more than anything the psychiatrists ever did. Almost all of them were students; there was one girl of about twenty or so who was really sweet and pretty; the one I was talking about before. Small and delicate, straight blonde hair… OK, OK, I’ll stop. The ones who made the most impression were a group of three black Africans; Nigerians I think. They must have been a year or so older than I was. They were constantly playing pranks on each other and laughing their heads off. One of them was a particularly powerful character, by which I mean he had a powerful presence (though he had the physique to go with it too); his name was a biblical one like Isaac or something Old Testament like that. He was the sort you wouldn’t want as an enemy. He was, however, like the others, very good humoured.

One of them endeared himself to me when, in the course of a conversation, learned that I didn’t have a girlfriend. He was visibly appalled. ‘You must meet my sister,’ he said. He was obviously confident that she would be impressed by me. It was rather touching, though I couldn’t help but wonder how he intended putting it to her. It also brought to mind the image that is always presented of a British chap going out to somewhere in the Colonies, where he is invariably met on his arrival by a small boy who asks him if he wants to meet his sister.

It was never to be, however, for I left shortly after. My stay in Parkside was limited to seven weeks; I was discharged a week before my nineteenth birthday.

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NOTES

Parkside Hospital fell victim to the Conservative government’s decision to close down such hospitals and sell the buildings and land to private developers, instead introducing what was called ‘Care in the Community’. To be fair, it was a good decision in principle. The problem was the implementation, and of course paying for it. It finally closed in January 1997.

Though many of the buildings were demolished, the older parts were restored; I was fascinated to see that they had been made Grade II Listed Buildings, with the date first listed given as being 17 March 1977, which would have been about a week before I arrived there. These older buildings are now luxury apartments, including Uplands, the admissions ward where I stayed. The rear face of Uplands can be seen on Google Maps’ Street View. Unfortunately the street view doesn’t extend to the front of the building, though it has to be said that being their in March–April meant I didn’t wander the grounds too much – rather a pity, as they were beautifully kept. In fact I dug up an interesting account on a Facebook group for former members of staff there, from which I make this quotation:

It was a rainy August day in 1972. I finally found Parkside Hospital. On entering the grounds a jolly bloke was tending to the Roses. I asked for directions to reception, he pointed to the clock tower whilst telling me that there are 16 thousand Roses in these gardens. He was the first person I met in Parkside. He passed away many years ago as a relatively young man. His name, John Davenport. A lovely chap. I entered through the main door and saw a lady who bought dog food from the Pet Shop where I worked. She walked me to the Central Nursing Office. Her name Ruth Curly, Domestic Supervisor. On entering a lady Mrs Brown, directed me upstairs for my interview with Mr Frank Willoughby. He knew my Dad and told me to arrive at the office a week on Monday, with a haircut.

I can appreciate that it must have been an expensive place to run, but all the same I do feel a certain amount of regret that it was forced to close.