Edited by former staff members of St Augustine’s Hospital, Robert Hayward and Andrew Heenan, this collection of recollections provides a rare and intimate look at both the staff and patients who lived within its walls and provides a rich and textured portrait of a world that no longer exists but whose legacy continues to shape mental health nursing today.
One of the most striking aspects of Asylum Years is its ability to humanise an era that is often flattened into a one-dimensional portrayal of oppressive institutionalisation. The narratives collected within its pages do not seek to romanticise the past but rather to capture a nuanced portrayal of an institution that, like many of its time, functioned as a self-contained community, one that has left an indelible mark on those who experienced it firsthand.
At the heart of the book is a dedication to telling the stories of both the staff and the patients, the latter often rendered invisible in historical accounts. The section entitled The Forgotten’s Tales brings to the surface the lives of patients who spent decades, and in some cases their entire lives, within St Augustine’s.
Their stories are haunting, offering insights into how individuals could be born, live, and die within the same institution, largely unseen by the outside world. The descriptions of these patients’ lives highlight the complexities of asylum care, where safety and neglect, community and isolation, coexisted in uneasy tension. The book does not shy away from the troubling realities of institutional life, particularly the often mechanical nature of patient care. Patients became part of a system that functioned like a production line, their needs subordinated to institutional efficiency.
The glimpses provided into their experiences raise profound ethical questions that remain relevant today about autonomy, dignity, and the moral responsibility of mental health care providers.
