WASTED LIVES Released in 1972 - Part 3

WASTED LIVES
Released in 1972
This edition tels the stories of Lucy Baker and Phyllis Wood, who have needlessly spent the majority of their lives in mental hospitals. Also includes an interview with Dr Michael Quinn.
Oral testimony from former residents of St Catherines Mental Hospital, Doncaster. Filmed in the 1970's, we meet various people who quite literally had their lives taken away from them. Their only crime being born into an intolerant society that was quite happy to lock them away for the best years of their lives.

[@ElzevereBlock]

Is it really so different now in 2019? How many old people are left alone with nobody to talk to or anyone to see if they're ok? I'm nearly 65 now and I look around me at what is called "progress" and all I see is just the same amount of neglect but in a different way. We are so backward in England in helping our old people. No other country in the world treats them as badly as we do. Quite simply we are a nation of people who don't care about anyone or anything but ourselves. If you watch social media you will see the vanity that comes first every time and other peoples feelings last by a long way. I'm glad I'm old. I experienced the really good times and am thankful I cared for others as others cared for me. I see nothing each day now that convinces me we are making progress in how we view other people. Others who are helpless and need care but are falling by the wayside because in the list of "priorities" they are at the very bottom. How on earth can anyone say progress has been made when human beings are still sleeping on our streets? It's alright knocking down asylums but when you release people out in to the big wide world of England in 2019 there has to be a cushion whereby the vulnerable are helped and not ignored. Cared for and not abused. I'm glad I'm old now but I do sit and think about what the young have in front of them.....? It's a horrible thought!

[@pw191164]

Very poignant...take care my friend.

[@grahamedwards9634]

29/11/2019 I have seen how the UK was changing 20 years plus ago i sold up and moved to Bulgaria in a small village, by the way, I am 63 now and prefer it here, and have smoked 52 years with no problems.

[@hrhrhrhrhr2503]

Steven burn Absolutely spot on every word you said what a cold world we live in nothing matters anymore selfish spoilt it's all me me me , my God almighty this world is a horrible place no kindness no sharing no time to look out for each other terribly sad, God bless you always, 💞

[@mashamorgan]

Its really sad when Mabel starts crying ! I do hope she found peace wherever her eternal whereabouts ! RIP

[@xJanay]

I wish there was a part 4! It would be nice to see the documentary in it’s entirety. May all the women featured rest in peace.

[@Roscoe.P.Coldchain]

My auntie Vera went to work at 5am and in the Blitz and when she came home she wouldn’t speak..My gran told me the next few days a doctor came to the house and took her away in 1941..My gram said she never spoke to her mother ever again..I used to visit her in the 70s when she was in the asylum stores hall Huddersfield..We eventually got her out in 1991 after 50 years and she lived fine in the community till her death..She didn’t deserve what they did to her..I still cry about it now 😢..,Before my gran passed who was her younger sister she told me that she thinks she was attacked and raped walking to work that morning causing her to have a breakdown so they locked her away..She was such a timid but lovely woman and didn’t deserve it..

[@nickjervis8123]

In God we trust these wonderful ladies have found peace. In the name of Christ

[@jillnunnen1815]

Horrific...poor Mabel pregnant at 14, and her dad put her away...perhaps he was trying to hide his shame?

[@millyriley9615]

so very sad, and very disgusting that this happened to them and still there in 72, shame on the people responsible.bless them all, those ladys were wrongly imprisoned, as thats what it is, treated worse than criminals

[@davidshaw2944]

It was a dump I was in it

[@davidshaw2944]

Yes tablets and needles scum bags them nurses

[@ricdavid7476]

Amazing ladies

[@lindathrall5133]

ric david Alice loves to work with her embroidery and it relaxes her I had a good friend who turned beautiful items out with embroidery work

[@dazhull38]

I carn't watch this it is so very very sad god bless them all xxx

[@davidshaw2944]

You should have been there I have

[@juleerowley9706]

Bless their hearts 💕

[@mariekatherine5238]

Adults CAN learn to read and write, but it’s harder than learning as a child. Everyone who has life is worthy, not a waste. If you’re human, you’re made in God’s Image, therefore, of infinite worth. Thankfully, God doesn’t judge as man. If Mabel smokes, let her! She deserves enjoyment in at least one little unhealthy habit. If she annoys others, she can smoke in a designated area. It’s hard to believe this was in my lifetime, and not just when I was very young. Even worse conditions prevailed in the USA. I was a high school sophomore when Geraldo Rivera introduced us to the appalling conditions at Willowbrook State Hospital in NY.

[@55tranquility]

Put away for over 60 years - your while life stuck in an institution!!! For nothing, literally destroyed and turned into an absolute husk of a human. So awful, breaks my heart

[@caerleon87]

Never EVER forget though, that the final words of "there are ten thousand" etc, was a tory lie to just completely close the hospitals and abandon these people to their fate.. YES, there were some that should NOT have been there, but very very very many more that desperately needed the support that you could only get in a big hospital. I work in one of the very few left and have been assoiciated with the place for 45 years now, so i know what i am talking about. You will not find any. or maybe very very few staff that think these hospitals should have been closed. They will tell you that "care in the community" might have been suitable in very few instances, but that it went "far too far, far too fast" Despite the failings of the big hospitals, mother Theresa once said; "loneliness is the worst disease there is" In the hospitals the patients were never alone, were cared for, and above all, they were, and felt, safe... Think they would have felt safe or been "part of he community" dumped on some rough arse council estate?? [and trust me, they were just dumped] What do you think.....

[@robokill387]

"In the hospitals the patients were never alone, were cared for, and above all, they were, and felt, safe... " That's a lie. Large hospitals and other institutions were and are hotbeds of abuse, human rights violations and exploitation, it's just that we rarely heard about it because it was so easily covered up. Even today, the rates of sexual violence against patients in closed-culture institutional settings is around 50% for male patients and more or less 100% for women, the patients have no ability to report violence, abuse and rights violations because the hospital is incentivized to cover it up and have the ability to do so because of how disempowered the patients are. Even when outright violence isn't happening, the nature of institutional life is contrary to human dignity as it often infantilizes, disempowers and dehumanizes patients, they are often authoritarian places where people are expected to follow a rigid schedule, are treated like children and are subjected to punitive measures and labelled "noncompliant" or "difficult" for not being completely submissive to the institution. "or maybe very very few staff that think these hospitals should have been closed. They will tell you that "care in the community" might have been suitable in very few instances, but that it went "far too far, far too fast" " Notice how you only mention what the staff's opinions are, the opinions of the patients who actually had to live there are very different. The problem with care in the community is not that it "went too far" but that it didn't go far enough - the government and society didn't invest in services enough, trying to save money. The underlying idea is correct though, it just needs to be taken further and made more radical.

[@caerleon87]

@@robokill387 Dear me... You simply do not have a clue.. I actually work in one of the very last of the old big hospitals, so i do actually know what i am talking about

[@karensandy12]

so sad bless them all xx

[@ohmeowzer1]

Sweet ladies

[@helenhughes9420]

The hypocrisy of the parents of lucy & Mabel, when they themselves weren't fit parents. The pain these women pushed down over their lives would have been immense. Stolen lives.

[@mashamorgan]

So am I right in thinking Alice is 75 so if this was filmed around 1972 she would have been born in 1897 and was taken to an asylum around 1900-01, at poss 4 years old. Mabel was born a year before so would have been incarcerated around 1910 under the Idiots Act 1886 as the Mental Deficency Act wasnt passed until 1913 !

[@MichaelSmith-tp1pj]

The name of the Idiots Act says it all. Put them away and forget them.Its the best place for that sort.

[@ohmeowzer1]

Pretty kitty Phyllis has 🥰

[@lindathrall5133]

BEAUTIFUL EMBROIDERY WORK ON THE PART OF ALICE DOING GOOD FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO READ AND WRITE ALICE HAS TURNED TO HER EMBROIDERY WORK FOR SOLACE

[@tmac3771]

😭😭😭😭😭

[@shawnpee9911]

Wow

[@teamcougars]

She was never was taught to read or write? That’s disgraceful 😢

[@bexsta7766]

What asylum where these ladies from?

[@lindathrall5133]

The lady has a beautiful MOTORLICOUS MOTOR cat