Part 1. How did that happen?
Rejected by Maidstone College of Art, I’d reconciled myself to the next best thing: History of Art and French at Bristol University, on the basis that if you can’t join them, write about them in French. If I’m honest, I wasn’t confident about my potential as an artist or indeed as a linguist. I was never going to challenge the bio of yet-to-be-discovered Maidstone alumnus Tracey Emin and I could never master the French subjunctive. In 1977, on the evening of our A Level results, I was in the Duke of Edinburgh, which stood opposite Oakwood Hospital’s perimeter wall, celebrating with my friend Noel over a few pints of Shepherd Neame and a game of bar billiards. Unexpectedly and in unusually high spirits, his dad burst through the door and announced that our headmaster (MA DPhil – MAD Phil – first name Philip and Lord Longford lookalike) had phoned recommending that Noel return to school and prepare for the Oxbridge entrance exam. This proved to be a turning point for both of us. He went on to study at Oxford and I bottled out of Bristol. How did that happen?
I’ve never had a plan. Once I’d learned to read I didn’t stop until I was eleven. I read everything in front of me, from Capt WE Johns, HG Wells, Isaac Asimov and the The Daily Telegraph. Back issues of The Readers Digest, Woman’s Realm, Ray Bradbury, Dennnis Wheatley and The Sunday Express. It was random. At eleven I went to the Grammar School and reading became homework. Random suited me better than order. I didn’t know where this was heading but Mr Newcombe (English) wrote in my first school report that I should go to university. He seemed to have a plan but it felt unintelligibly long-term to a twelve year old. By the Fifth Form things seemed to be following someone else’s plan when Mr Harvey (Maths) described me as ‘insouciant’, a word wasted on my parents. He obviously hadn’t done his homework on them. Or maybe he was a master of reverse psychology. I proved him wrong (maybe he proved himself right) and got a B, still treasured as a minor triumph in my life. I went into the Sixth Form, where things were slightly less ordered and rediscovered the joy of reading. The rest is history. Actually, sociology (see Part 2).
Once I’d ditched the idea of becoming a francophile art historian, my hiatus needed filling. For no obvious reason that I can remember, I took up a post as a Nursing Assistant at Oakwood Hospital. The place was physically almost invisible, hidden behind high walls. The very grand admin block could be seen at the end of a long drive from the main gates and parts of a two-storey ward block could be seen from either the Tonbridge Road or the top deck of the Banky Meadow bus going down Queen’s Road (evidence, I’m afraid, of my low-level hooligan nights at Maidstone United’s Athletic Ground). The hospital’s resemblance to a prison was no coincidence as it was designed by John Whichcord, the architect of Maidstone prison. A fine early example of BOGOF. Opened as the Kent County Lunatic Asylum in 1833, it has now mostly disappeared with the exception of some Grade II listed buildings that have been converted into apartments. The stigma has disappeared too, to be replaced by a few coveted addresses.
I was sent to work on a male ‘psychogeriatric’ ward. Much of the hospital was devoted to caring for this group of patients. The terms senile and pre-senile dementia were still commonly used, although it was around this time in the late 1970s that the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease started to gain currency. There was no induction programme for me, no formal training, definitely no mandatory training and no expectation that I might need to know more than how to wash, dress and feed our patients, give them medication, or strip and make beds and run errands. Risk assessment, manual handling, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and advance directives were unknown concepts from a future universe and the only documentation I saw was the bath book. No doubt there was some form of nursing record, just as there was probably a psychiatrist somewhere, but I never saw either of them. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors? Don’t be silly. A pink tablet seemed to be given most frequently. I later realised this was Haloperidol and the primary cause of the restless agitation displayed by many of the patients. The management of iatrogenic restlessness was the Buxton Chair, later outlawed, as was Haloperidol (or at least it should be).
But this is now and that was then. In the absence of precognition and with an open mind, I didn’t ask any questions. Six months later, I thought I might like a career in the helping professions and found a course in Applied Social Science that included the option to qualify as a…social worker. How did that not happen?
Odi et amo 
More please.