Broadmoor alerts

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Broadmoor Hospital is one of three NHS high security psychiatric hospitals in the UK. We live half a mile away from it. It houses about 230 men, aged eighteen and above. Not all the inmates are criminals. Some are hospitalised under the Mental Health Act because of mental illness or personality disorders which, untreated, could lead to them harming themselves or others.

In 1952, following a breakout by a dangerous individual who then murdered a young girl, a network of thirteen sirens was established to warn residents of nearby towns and villages in case of further escapes.

The sirens used to be sounded every Monday morning at 10.00 and could be heard across a radius of two miles. People would set their clocks by them. One Monday, when they went off, people realised their timepieces were slow. They muttered and reset their watches only to discover later that an escape had been effected, just moments before the alarm was due to be tested.

If the sirens sounded while children were at school, the doors were locked and the children retained until their parents or carers could come to collect them. Once, an inmate escaped and was so terrified by the noise and freedom that he went into a police station and gave himself up. Another time, the escapee hid in a local resident’s shed.

Overall, there have been few escapes.

In 2018, the wailing sirens were decommissioned, to be replaced by a digital alert system, which can relay through television, social media, and messaging services. The hospital, now in new premises, relies on double perimeter fencing, more than three hundred cameras and special coordination with Thames Valley Police.

Occasionally, we meet some of the staff when we’re out with the dogs. They are tough, interesting individuals with many a tale to tell. Broadmoor is not a workplace for the inattentive or faint of heart.

My daughter-in-law’s mother was a psychiatric social worker who used to visit Broadmoor from time to time.

I miss the sirens.

Home improvements

 Gus, Bertie and Jenna waiting to retrieve.

Frodo hoping to retrieve biscuits.

Dogs listen and understand more than their humans realise. This was splendidly demonstrated early last week when we had to go out for a few hours.

 For several years we have been discussing refurbishing our staircase. We considered removing the entire staircase but then settled on replacing the metal bars that remind us of our proximity to Broadmoor, the well-known high security psychiatric hospital.

We have pored over banisters and spindles, newel posts and caps, hand rails and fittings, imagining how lovely they will look and what an improvement they will make.

The late, great Dominie Dalmatian was the first dog to start helping us with our home improvements.  When she wasn’t chewing Cariadd’s collar she nibbled the bottom stair. She was a gentle girl, not given to drawing attention to herself, and always anxious to please so her efforts were minor, barely noticeable.

 Buddy Liver Spots was the next Dalmatian to attempt home improvement. His efforts were more conspicuous than Dominie’s but the stair carpet remained untouched. Frodo the Faller, the last of the Dalmatians (thus far) has never been interested in d-i-y, his energies and efforts being concentrated on truly edible items, though he did ingest one of the brass fittings from the cooker hob – only to be expected as it probably held the hint of a ghost of a trace of a smell of food.

Jenna Labrador attempted a little carpentry in her youth, but it was her younger brother Gus who showed prowess and a sense of design. By the time he had grown out of puppyhood the carpet was frayed but still intact on the notched bottom stair tread. Then Bertie Labrador, our golden boy, joined the family. He has demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for interior design and is fully au fait with our plans. Thus, when we returned home last Tuesday, we were greeted by Gus and Bertie, ecstatic to show what they had achieved in our absence. (Jenna and Frodo were in another part of the house and so had no part in the proceedings.)

I have no doubt Bertie was the instigator as he has shown much more interest in completing the job. Indeed, the next day I discovered him removing the last piece of underlay – what a helpful boy! He has the soul of an artist and when not engaged in adapting parts of the house, he likes to whittle, removing kindling from the log basket to shape into small sculptures. To the untutored eye these diminutive masterpieces resemble match sticks. 

Deprived of wood he takes lumps of coal and spreads them across the floor in pleasing patterns. We expect him to exhibit at the Tate Modern one day. A display of Bertie’s coals would take far less room than ‘The Bricks.’

Broadmoor

Image courtesy of Daily Mail and Wikimedia Commons

Many of you will already know that Barry and I live in a village in Berkshire. Crowthorne is not an attractive, chocolate box spot with thatched roofs and roses round the door, but more of a place you travel through to reach somewhere else. Since the bypass was built about twenty years ago most people don't even have to go anywhere near it now. I say that we live in the village but that is rather misleading for although our postal address is Crowthorne, geographically we live in Wokingham Without. (Without what, you may ask.)
Crowthorne is known mainly for two institutions – Wellington College, originally a boys' independent school but now co-educational. Fees are around £30,000 per annum. At the other end of the village, on the edge of the forest, is Broadmoor Hospital, the best-known of England's three high-security psychiatric hospitals. It houses 260 men and costs about £100,000 per patient per annum. During the First World War part of the hospital was used as a prisoner of war camp for German soldiers who were mentally ill. It was known as Crowthorne War Hospital.

Image courtesy of Sun and Wikimedia Commons

In 1952 one of the inmates escaped and murdered a local five-year-old girl. Local residents called for a warning method to alert the community to escapes and a system of warning sirens was established. These are based on the air-raid sirens so familiar during the Second World War and are tested for two minutes every Monday morning at 10:00. The two-note wail is then followed by a single tone 'all clear' for another two minutes. Every school within hearing of the siren has procedures to follow if the alarm warns of an escape. Basically, the schools lock all doors and windows and children are not allowed to leave except into the care of a known adult. It only happened once when I was teaching, in 1991, and it was not a pleasant experience.
Escapes are rare - the last serious one, in 1991, was of a child rapist. Road blocks were set up and vehicles were checked. At the time, Barry was just starting out for a run with the dogs. On the track entering the forest police had strung a tape on the understanding, presumably, that no-one would think to go either side of it. They stopped Barry and showed him a photo of the escapee and said, 'If you see him, run back here and tell us'. They had no intention of going into the trees!
Barry didn't see the escapee but he was recaptured two days later.
Many years ago a patient escaped but was so frightened by the unfamiliarity of the outside world that he gave himself up very soon.
It is thought but not proven that Jack the Ripper, who murdered prostitutes in the London of the 1880s, was Thomas Cutbush. He was a main suspect in the murders, which ceased after his arrest. He was committed to Broadmoor after being declared insane and died there in 1903.
Another murderer who was in Broadmoor for a time was Robert Maudsley. He was the inspiration for Hannibal Lecter. Current patients include the Yorkshire Ripper and the Stockwell Strangler.
One of the most interesting inmates was W C Minor, a retired American army surgeon. He was not considered a danger and so was allowed to buy books from London. Through his association with booksellers he learnt of the call for entries to what would become the Oxford English Dictionary. He sent thousands of contributions to the editor, Dr James Murray, who became very interested in his prolific correspondent and subsequently visited him in Broadmoor.
The hospital provides employment for many local people. It is often said, rather unkindly, that the nurses are more frightening than the patients! | must say that the ones we've met, walking their dogs, are friendly and have a great sense of humour. That must help in a job that could be soul-destroying. It's hard to find humanity in men who have committed such heinous crimes but, as the Quakers say, we must strive to find 'that of God' in every man.

Winston’s late July blog 2010

Winston here . . . p'rrrrr, p'rrrrr . . .
It's quite cold today and there's no sun so I don't think I'll be lying around in the conservatory. I'll stay in the sitting room with everyone else. It's a full house here again don'tcha know. Gillian and Paul and the children come to stay at the weekend. Natch, Tia and Foxy come with them. Gillian and all came up to a weeding but they all got dressed up in their best clothes and went out for a couple of hours and didn't even go out in the garden. I'm only a cat but even I can see that there are things out there that shouldn't be allowed to grow. Anyway, they all come back and got back into their ordinary clothes but they still didn't go outside, just sat down and had something to eat and watched the Tooduh Prance. I'm not much of a television watcher, not like Monty was, but all I could see was lots of men riding bicycles in great big groups. Sometimes some of them raced ahead and then others passed them but no-one seemed to win. The Humans liked it, though.
A bit later Paul and Gillian and the children put their best clothes on again and went out for an evening deception and they didn't come back till the next morning. Then they all went back to their own home, but they left Tia and Foxy here so I s'pose it's holidays again. On Monday Mr Human went off in his car all loaded up with all-skins and safely harmlesses. He was going to meet Gillian and the children at the boat. Paul had to work. I've never seen the boat but Mr H and everyone likes it, 'cept for Mrs H. She's all on her own now, 'cept there are six dogs in the house as well as me, so she's not lonely or looking for something to do. Mr H keeps phoning her to find out what the wind's doing. Well, I'd tell him to just look out of the window, but Mrs H gets the laptop and looks up something called the Met Office and tells him where the wind is and how fast it's going. Mr H could do it himself on the boat but he likes to keep her busy don'tcha know.
Yesterday Mrs H took Tia to see Nadia-the-Vet. She had some knotted string called snitches that had to be cut off her. It was holding her together after her operation but all the bits have joined up together again now so she don't need it no more. She had a huge cut, much bigger than Buddy's, and she had more fur cut away than him too even though he's a lot larger than her. Anyway, she must not go out 'cos there's fluid under the cut and it's got to disappear on its own, so she's got to be really quiet and have lots of rest. It hasn't stopped her grumbling at Buddy so I don't think she understands what being quiet means. She was upset when Mrs H took Frodo and Jenna and Foxy and Gus out for a walk but she had Buddy and me for company even though we was in a different room.
Buddy's doing really well after his big operation in June – he was a very poorly boy then and I thought he was a goner. He wears a harness so that the Humans can help him up steps and things if he gets stuck. He don't like them helping him up onto the settee even when he's whingeing. If they help him he turns round and gets straight off again and then climbs up on his own. He's awkward! He's ever so much brighter now and strong, too. He should be, 'cos he gets three or four meals a day – the rest of us only gets two. It's a bit of a palaver going downstairs in the mornings 'cos he don't see very well, specially when it's dark, so Mrs H holds onto his harness with one hand and the banister with the other and guides him down. He sounds like a steam engine 'cos he uses his nose to work out where he is. The other morning he went sideways and Frodo, who was a bit wobbly that day, fell down behind him and then got stuck between the poles* on the stairs. His head and front legs was on the stairs and his back legs was dangling in space. Buddy had fallen flat on the floor with his legs stretched either side - Mrs H said 'like a starfish' - and he couldn't get up and Mrs H didn't know which one to help first. Buddy was desperate to go out for a pee and she was worried Frodo would do his falling bit. Anyway, she yelled for Mr H to give her a hand. He was still in bed – well, it was just before dawn, so it was quite early. They was none the worse for it and Frodo didn't do any falling. I'm glad I'm a cat – I can leap out of the way real quick. The dogs trip over each other – clumsy things.
Since I've been on short rations, or what Mrs H calls 'a controlled diet', I'm always hungry, specially in the morning but I've still got my lovely tiger tummy. She won't feed us at 4:00 am or 5:00 am– I don't know why – so when she does show signs of serving out the food, me and Frodo makes lots of noise just so she don't suddenly forget. Then we all go to sleep for several hours and leave her in peace. I don't know what she does then. I 'spect she sleeps too! **
Time for a bit more shut-eye. Be good!
TTFN
*Mrs H's note: the poles run from stair tread to ceiling and are a feature of the houses in this area. We are in the process of replacing them. There used to be poles outside every front door, too, but most people have removed them. It's my belief the architects of this housing project were influenced by the proximity of the large institution whose inmates have to be kept securely locked in! No, I'm not referring to the public school but the place at the other end of the village that we all call, quite incorrectly but perfectly accurately the 'Hospital for the Criminally Insane', though, to be fair, not all the 'residents' are murderers and rapists and arsonists – just most of them!
**Mrs H's note: Huh! Chance would be a fine thing!

The Dog Days of My Life: #10 - Dominie

Dominie at 5 months

We travelled from Berkshire to Devon to meet Dominie. She was sixteen weeks old and had gone to a friend of the breeder but was returned when her new owner became too ill to cope with her. As we arrived at Joan Atkinson's home in deepest Devon we were greeted with deep barks from two dogs and a large puppy. We thought the puppy could not be the one we had come to see as she was so big but we were wrong. She and her parents came bowling into the room and fell on us for cuddles. They were true ambassadors for the Dalmatian breed and were big, splendid dogs. We drove home with our new large black-spotted puppy, Bethan keeping her company in the back of the car.

If a dog could be said to be disgusted Cariadd was just that. She reacted to Dominie as Whisky had to Biddy so many years before. There was no unpleasantness – Cariadd simply tried to ignore her. In fact, if she had really not wanted anything to do with her she could have moved away from her but she allowed Dominie to lie close to her and chew her collar – which was still round her neck – every day. She had a number of collars while Dominie was growing up but would not play with her. I'm sure if she had been a Jack Russell-sized dog matters would have been rather different – Cariadd was always under the misapprehension that she was very small and she preferred the company of little dogs. Though Cariadd wouldn't play with her she didn't mind Dominie chewing her logs!

Dominie had not learnt to coordinate her limbs and fell into our garden pond at least once a day for a couple of weeks after we brought her home. Out walking with her the thunderous sound of her huge paws pounding the forest floor was quite remarkable. If the ground didn't quite shake it certainly reverberated. Over time as she developed and regularly ran with Barry she became a graceful and powerful athlete.

Dominie has never been a brave dog; she is easily spooked by things or events seen or imagined. A log where one has never been before on a familiar path or a Forest Ranger's vehicle are quite enough to make her stand stock still and stare very hard. On some occasions she has refused point blank to travel further along a path she doesn't like the look of. It's an odd feeling when this happens and makes me wonder about extra-sensory perception but as the other dogs are happy to proceed I think there is little to justify such an interpretation. Most of our walks pass through forest land adjacent to the large grounds of a well-known high security psychiatric hospital (formerly known as a Criminal Lunatic Asylum) and it would be easy but wrong (probably) to suggest that occasionally Dominie senses malevolence.

When she was two years old we thought she would appreciate a playful companion as Cariadd was still steadfastly refusing to play with her. They ran and swam, ate and slept together but playtime was not on Cariadd's agenda, at least not with another dog. She played with us! We began the search and tracked down a litter in Devon which had one liver-spotted puppy. Coincidentally his mother was Dominie's half-sister. Gareth named him Buddy and Bethan decided she would like to train him for the show ring. When we took Buddy indoors, his beautiful green eyes glowing, the expression on Dominie's face was one of love at first sight. Dominie had been spayed but we had always thought she would have been a wonderful mother and so she proved. In fact she was much more indulgent than his own dam would have been, allowing him to chew her neck raw and any other part he fancied. She played so gently with him. Cariadd maintained her dignified position as top dog, grumbling at the two youngsters if they became too boisterous around her. Dominie mothering Buddy who was learning to cope with a soft lead
Many people who have not met Dominie before are a little afraid because she looks very stern with her black eye make-up and big ears but they soon realise that she is as soft as butter and incredibly friendly. She loves to meet and greet humans and dogs alike and those she knows she hails with a gorgeous warbling chirrup. These days she is handicapped by hind legs that don't work properly so requires wheels to help her along on our walks. Dominie stops for a sniff

She needs a helping hand on the slopes

Yo ho heave-ho!

It is sad to see this once tremendous athlete so physically reduced but her spirit is strong and she is alert and interested in everything in her domain. She is most insistent that she will accompany us when we go out with the dogs and wants to be in the midst of events indoors. Thus when we are in the kitchen being domestic she whines and squeaks until we help her off her bed and follow her stuttering progress. The legs work for a little while and then she collapses gracefully, content that she has company and there's always the chance of a titbit or two. She remains at the head of the hierarchy. She is fifteen years old now and we know that soon she will be travelling on. She has given us so much joy and laughter and if ever a dog could be said to be kind, then that is the correct description for our gentle old girl.