Dr Hills Casebook blog 4

The fourth instalment of Robert Fairclough’s blog about the Change Minds project which unites history, mental health, creative writing and theatre.

Now on my fourth meeting with the Dr. Hill’s Casebook team, I’m getting to know them better with every passing week.

 Tess had existed in “a very depressed bubble” before the project came along, and socialising, even through Zoom, has been one of the best aspects of the Casebook for her. David’s mother had been in a mental hospital, so he consequently has a lot of empathy with the patients’ confinement in the Norfolk County Asylum. Richard Johnson, the head researcher, described Dr. Hill’s Casebook as “exhilarating… like another dose of medication”, and I was surprised that he’d been in the army; I was equally surprised when he admitted that he “didn’t know what he’d have done” without the Casebook.

 Joining us this week was a new member, Gina, who’d been a member of the Change Minds course, the forerunner to Dr. Hill’s Casebook. She has a real “passion for mental health, particularly the history of it.”

 That’s why we’re here but, as I’ve said before, the social side is part of why we’re here too. Consider the topics we discussed this week, ranging from a good-natured consideration of “toilet tidies” (and, indeed, toilets), to how cultural and creative therapies will become the “day hospitals of the future”, to the hope that our finished play will be video recorded so it’ll be more widely accessible, something everyone was passionate to see happen.

 We’re now into the phase of the project where rehearsals based on Asylum patients we’ve researched are taking place. Phil, who’d been to one of the recent sessions to take photographs, was particularly impressed by what he’d seen, commenting that it “changed the way you look at things” and that the actors were creating “really powerful stuff.” Bel, the writer, made the important point that “words are nothing without the performers”, and the feedback she gets from us is very important, as researchers, writers and actors don’t normally have this level of “shared involvement”.

 And, as Gina reminded us, by embracing the past in such a comprehensively detailed way, Dr. Hill’s Casebook is highlighting the failings of the present. While the patients at the Norfolk County Asylum were “a family” and “had a home”, today there was largely nowhere for the mentally distressed to go, as Gina pointed out: “Half of Hellesdon hospital is boarded up, and we’ve got people sleeping on the streets who are mentally ill.”

 Hearing that makes you realise just how important Dr. Hill’s Casebook is.

'Robert Fairclough writes on a variety of subjects, including mental health and popular culture (sometimes both at once). He has written six books, contributes to magazines and websites, and writes regular blogs for The Restoration Trust. He can be contacted on robmay1964@outlook.com, and his website can be viewed at www.robfairclough.co.uk '