Psychiatry and me: The New Asylum

The BFOR Blog Tour

Throughout August and into September 2019 the UK based Books for Older Readers (#BFOR) Group is having a blog tour, visiting the pages of some of its members and taking a peek at articles and book reviews, or extracts from work done by or suitable to bring to the attention of members.

The group comprises both readers and authors, and the BFOR web page can be found here, while the Facebook group is here. Check them out.

Today it is my turn to post an article that might be of interest, and I have chosen to provide an introduction for readers to my lifetime association with Psychiatry, and my forthcoming free-verse poetry collection – The New Asylum – a memoir of psychiatry. For me, this story includes aspects of inheritance, and parent child relationships, each leading to a lifelong commitment to and association with the field.

Psychiatry and me

My parents and the mental asylum

My personal association with psychiatry goes back over 60 years, now, and spans almost as long as I’ve been alive.

It began around 1958 when my parents and my paternal grandparents arrived in Australia as new immigrants seeking a second chance in life, away from communist ruled Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia). On arrival in Australia, they were sponsored to live and work in a small rural town in north east Victoria, called Beechworth, and my mother quickly obtained work in the local Mayday Hills Mental Asylum, as those institutions were then termed.

She was employed to work as an untrained member of the nursing staff, known as a Ward Assistant, and she learned to speak English from fellow staff members hailing from various parts of Europe, and from the patients in her care. A peculiar case of blind leading blind, and the language of insanity serving as a template for the spoken word.

My father initially found work in local sawmills as he had some skills in milling timber. Sawmill work is hard physical work though, and is subjected to exposure from the elements and fluctuating demand. He considered himself fortunate to get a job a couple of years later working as a junior Kitchen Hand in the main kitchen of the institution. The kitchen catered for around 800 (and up to 1,000) patients at that time, and for the staff that worked within the Asylum. These included doctors and nurses and allied health staff, carpenters, market gardeners and herdsmen, tailors, hairdressers and engineers. 

It was a complete village and entirely walled off from the community outside by a massive Ha-Ha wall.

Mayday Hills Ha-Ha Wall remnant c. 2019

Mayday Hills Mental Asylum Ha-Ha Wall remnant c. 2019

 

Myself and the Mental Asylum

As a child I visited one or other of my parents at work on a frequent basis.

I would generally visit my father in and around down-time in the kitchen. Between the flurries of activity required for preparation and serving of the three daily meals, and the clean up afterwards, there was considerable free time through a 10 hour shift.

The men from the kitchen (and they were almost exclusively men, at that time) had access to a massive full sized billiard table that I could barely see above. I was in awe of that table for a long time.

I would visit my mother on the wards where she worked, and generally this would be on a weekend because the Charge Nurse didn’t work on weekends, and only if she was working in a ward considered ‘safe enough’ for me to unofficially visit.

Some of the wards were decidedly ‘not safe’ for a young fellow. Mum sometimes told me of supervising patient meals when she was still inexperienced. She would stand  in the doorway of the dining room and watch food and crockery fly through the air, unable to do anything to stop it.

A thing I did love as a child was collecting sets of picture cards. These came in many of the breakfast cereal packets at that time, and I had special ways of acquiring large numbers of these. I won’t reveal my methods here, but I can say that they involved a particular arrangement that I had with a certain Mr Kelly, who was the Asylum’s Chief Storekeeper.

 

Mayday Hills Mental Asylum General Store c 2019

The New Asylum – a memoir of psychiatry

I have many stories to tell about my childhood adventures in psychiatry, and my later journey – an inheritance bequeathed by my parents, I sometimes think – as a Student Nurse, then a qualified Psychiatric Nurse working in acute settings, a manager of such services, and ultimately back again, as an older generation nurse, working with a few folk who have acquired long term or lifelong disabilities as a result of their psychiatric illnesses.

I’m looking forward to sharing these stories with you in my forthcoming collection – The New Asylum – a memoir of psychiatry.

This is an often confronting collection that seems particularly apt at the present time, now that the era of Asylums – the loony bins – is behind us, and the seemingly endless chaos of contemporary psychiatric treatment and service provision is all around.

The style of this book is similar to that of Small Town Kid (see below), and anyone who has enjoyed reading those adventures is likely to also enjoy following the Kid into a lifetime spent working and experiencing public psychiatry.

A firm release date is pending, but I’m planning for early November 2019.

Keep Informed by Newsletter

Sign up for my Newsletter at the top of this page, and I’ll make sure that you receive all announcements and any other news news of The New Asylum – a memoir of psychiatry and my other books. 

Other publications

Devil In The Wind (May, 2019)

Devil In The Wind captures the voices of victims and survivors of the catastrophic Black Saturday bushfires that took place in Victoria (Australia) in 2009. See the full blurb here.

Amazon US; AU; UK

Booktopia

Book Depository

Barnes and Noble

 

Small Town Kid (Dec. 2018)

Small Town Kid is a free verse poetry memoir of growing in rural Victoria (Australia) in the 1960s and 70s. See the full blurb here.

Amazon US; AU;  UK

Booktopia

Book Depository

Barnes and Noble

New Asylum – front cover

31/07/2019

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by to offer thoughts and comments on th ecover choices for The New Asylum that I had posted here.

I was delighted and a little astounded at the wonderful response, and it has helped me to make cover decisions based on renewed thought about the mood and tone of the contents of poetry collection.

I’ll keep you informed of prograss as it happens. Meanwhile don’t hesitate to keep in touch by following this page, signing up to my newsletter or simply getting in touch through contact forms wherever our paths may cross.

Cheers,

Frank

Random Readings from the Archives

This page features some random recordings of individual poems. Some are taken from sets of work done in the past, such as Tuesday Night at Emile’s (originally from the’Book of Evenings’ collection, and a small correction which came out of ‘Memoir of a Dog’. Both these collections are currently out of print.

Hope you enjoy your visit.

Random recordings from the archives

an evening at the swampy

a small correction

carmen and cisco

tuesday night at emile’s

learning to twirl

Studio Quality Accompanied Recordings

This page features recordings of a number of mythologically themed poems, inspired by reading from and listening to Joseph Campbell.

Produced and accompanied by Leanne Murphy.

Studio and accompanied recording.

not I at all

the day craft

maketh the man

a long night to sunrise

Beechworth Library 08/09/2018

This page features audio recordings of a reading done at the local library in my home-town of Beechworth in September, 2018.

Live – reading to an audience.

Beechworth Library 8th September, 2018 (Part 1)

Part 1 of a live reading performance by Frank Prem at Beechworth Library.

Set List:

01. Two weeks (01:04)
02. Driven Bunny-anas (02:19)
03. Whispering Corn (03:50)
04. the good earth (04:28)
05. Telephone and Tabby (06:21)
06. Carmen and Cisco (08:37)
07. Lights Out (09:26)
08. Sweet Maureen (12:47)
09. On a New Year’s Eve (13:25)
10. Materinski Jezik – the mother tongue (14:52)
11. you know mums cooking? (16:31)
12. April Moon (17:58)
13. Ready (20:19)

Beechworth Library 8th September, 2018 (Part 2)

Part 2 of a live poetry reading performance by Frank Prem at Beechworth Library.

Set List:

01. Losing Sleep about Perfection (00:45)
02. way poem 5: the five steps to wheaten pecks (02:35)
03. way poem 3: to a higher place (04:40)
04. way poem 9: poor saturations/low sats (06:31)
05. drawing an idea (08:53)
06. the hermits of reading (10:40)
07. necessary preparations (12:24)
08. surviving the devil (14.38)
09. the strength of a truckie (17:37)
10. evidence to the commission of enquiry #8 all in the ark for awhile (18:50)
11. don decides (20:11)
12. arthur and alice: feature on ford street (22:10)

Beechworth Library 22/09/2018

This page features audio recordings of a reading done at the local library in my home-town of Beechworth in September, 2018.

Live – reading to an audience.

Beechworth Library 22nd September, 2018 (Part 1)

Part 1 of a live reading performance by Frank Prem at Beechworth Library.

Set List:

01. Ned Kelly and me (00:14)
02. a Husqy roar (03:28)
03. Half moon at the Trapdoor (05:06)
04. nightman (05:39)
05. rabbit-o (07:11)
06. McAlpine’s cherries (08:05)
07. witchy wire (10:34)
08. single male shopper (12:06)
09. zlata’s daughter (15:19)
10. writing in the moon (18:25)
11. the girl who had her red shoes on

Beechworth Library 22nd September, 2018 (Part 2)

Part 2 of a live poetry reading performance by Frank Prem at Beechworth Library.

Set List:

01. a small correction (00:39)
02. otherwise known as (a long way from home) (04:56)
03. first breakfast (06:08)
04. the smell of stockings (07:23)
05. sunday lunch with the ladies (08:42)
06. student daze – to pharmacy for tubes (10:18)
07. student daze – token economy (11:06)
08. student daze – where the air (11:47)
09. student daze – famous flying choppers (12:21)
10. kick starting the morning (13:10)
11. not a lot, anymore (14.08)
12. furball and freddie (15:28)
13. the public poet (19:33)

Small Town Kid Review – Peggy’s Book Club

There have been a number of recent reviews of Small Town Kid, which have truly touched me, and brought a warmth to my heart.

Tom Williams is a UK based author who agreed to read Small Town Kid a little reluctantly. His review is here: http://tomwilliamsauthor.co.uk/small-…

I came across Peggy Bright’s review by accident this morning, and she took my breath away. An author can’t ask for more than this. Thank you so much, Peggy.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2898013258?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1