2008.023 Wooden sign


March 2004: The old sign on the right replaced by the new, on the left

Wooden sign? (a mere wooden sign...?)

20th anniversary Mini-Celebration 1.

Back in the cold wet winter of 1997 the old school sign which stood on the road for many years was taken down and painted over. "Archive and Study Centre" was printed in seven sections in large letters on A4 photocopy paper using the old Atari computer and laser printer, cut up and glued to the painted board with exterior wood glue.

The Atari was the Archive's first computer, bought secondhand well before the computer wars assigned Atari to the shelves of history and Evesham Micros, from which it had originally been bought, moved from the corner of Bridge and Mill Streets in the lower side of Evesham to the Four Pools Industrial Estate on the edge (what a friendly outfit they were! servicing Ataris well after the world at large had abandoned them to obsolescence) before their final move to the new purpose built enterprise estate on the outskirts of town, from which the whole world came to know of them.

Several coats of yacht varnish over several nights while the children were in bed, and computer-printed paper became a temporary sign, designed to last perhaps a year. Bolted firmly to a post in the wake of a spate of local vandalism, the sign stood on the right hand side of the entrance drive for the next six and a half years. Replaced in March 2004 by a commercially printed metal sign, it was moved to the left of the entrance where it continued to guide people in for the next four years. Handmade, warm and reliable beyond original expectation, embodying much of the history and ethos of the Archive and Study Centre, it was finally retired, ten and a bit years after first going into temporary service, in the June of this year. 2008.

2008.021 Photograph, "Eaton Hill Therapeutic Community" taken and sent by Geraldine Curtis



Eaton Hill in Derbyshire had two children in its care at the beginning of 1948, when it opened as a children's home. From 1981 it began to develop a specifically therapeutic culture "providing a high standard of care, treatment and perseverance when working with traumatised and damaged young people who exhibit various forms of anti-social behaviour. Many have a history of failure or rejection in other community and residential placements", according to its entry in the directory of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities. It closed it doors on September 14, 2004.

The entry describes the house as "attractively furnished and decorated to give a feeling of homely warmth and comfort", and "set in three acres of parkland surrounded by woods and pasture....the physical surroundings of the house and grounds provide an environment which helps our residents feel secure and valued; a place where their fears and anxieties can be identified and resolved." It goes on to say "Together with the overall environment and therapeutic culture, we aim to give a clear and overt message about individual behaviour, group expectations, shared responsibilities, the need for warmth and self-expression, and the value of the individual - powerful factors in stimulating personal growth, enabling development towards maturity."

Geraldine Curtis teaches art to adults and piano, lives locally, and has a blog   which mentions the therapeutic community, and through which the Archive made contact. She has taken a set of photographs of Eaton Hill, and has made them available on Flickr. 

The cover of the March 2003 issue of the Joint Newsletter, number 7  (http://www.pettarchiv.org.uk/jointnewsletter/7.pdf) carries the face of Julian Maclaren-Ross, cult English author and resident for a time in Northfield Military Psychiatric Hospital, a rare witness of the Northfield Experiments from the side of the client. Inside the issue is published a short story he wrote for the Northfield patients' magazine, found among Northfield pioneer S.H. Foulkes' papers at the Wellcome Library (http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTL039939.html )

Paul Willetts, who wrote the excellent biography - "Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: The Bizarre Life of Julian Maclaren-Ross" published by Dewi Lewis Publishers in 2003 - has brought out a collection of Maclaren-Ross's "Selected Letters" (Black Spring Press, London, 2008. ISBN 978-0-948238-3). Sandwiched between a letter of 17 February 1943 ("Off to hospital Birmingham tomorrow") and 10 May 1943 when he was returned to his unit ("at a moment's notice and without seeing Major Backus [his therapist] before leaving...". Thank goodness all THAT's changed) and eventually discharged there are eighteen letters by him written from "Military Hospital/Northfields/Birmingham". There are also two extensive letters in an appendix, written by Maclaren-Ross's girlfriend Scylla Yates at the time describing her visit to Northfield and discussions with Dr. Backus.

Northfield, of course, is where the term "therapeutic community" first becomes anchored in British psychiatry, through Tom Main's famous paper in the 1946 Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic. (Haven't seen it? The ATC Administration Team still has copies of the special edition of Therapeutic Communities in which they were reprinted. 01242 620077 or post@therapeuticcommunities.org. The Archive and Study Centre has a copy of the original, picked up from a cardboard box full of ephemera in an Oxford secondhand book store, just up the road from the rail station, priced 50p, about fifteen years ago).

Personal accounts of life in a therapeutic community today are rare enough, even in a time of blogs. How special an articulate patient's comments, in letters to his publisher, written sixty five years ago, in the complex dawn of the history of therapeutic community?

"Julian Maclaren-Ross: Selected Letters", edited by Paul Willetts, published by Black Spring Press, London, at £9.95. £6.56 from Amazon.uk

2007.079


Book:  "The Strengths Way": published by Management Books (Kemble, Gloucestershire), a gift of the author, Mike Pegg.

See Mike Pegg's Strengths Way web-site and Blog

2007.078 Post-closure files related to Eaton Hill Therapeutic Community

2007.077: Twelve books from the library of Dr. David Millard, including:

Social Work Practice in Health Care: Carel Bailey Germain
Human Nature and Suffering: Paul Gilbert
Mental Health Social Work Observed: Fisher, Newton & Sainsbury
Locking up Children: Millham, Bullock, Hosie
The Social Engagement of Social Science: Ed. Eric Trist & Hugh Muney
Clinical Sociology: Glassner and Freedman
Environmental Practice in the Human Services: Neugeboren
The Social Animal: Aronson
Towards Understanding Relationships: Robert Hinde
Social Rules & Social Behaviour: Lois Meek Stoltz
Group Dynamics: Cartwright and Zander

2007.076: Papers, flyers and other materials picked up at the Association of Therapeutic Communities' 2007 Windsor Conference. Gathered and given by Teresa von Sommaruga Howard.

2007.075: CD (Library Purchase). "Benefit for Kitezh - The Children's Community"

2007.074: DVD: "ATC Windsor Conference 2007: Community of Communities Presentation". Subsequently uploaded to RadioTC International - http://www.ihwte.org.uk/index.php/V3-2S1

2007.073: DVD set (Library purchase): Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) Conference 2007

2007.072: CD: The Maxwell Jones 11th Annual Lecture. CD given by Ursula Joslin/Henderson Hospital.

2007.071: DVD: "Oppdal 2007 II". Edited digital video of Phoenix Haga, Norway, summer trip to the mountains. Given by Anthony Slater. Uploaded to RadioTC International:  http://www.ihwte.org.uk/index.php/V3S11

2007.070: Caldecott Community material, given by Robert Clark. Includes:

Accession 2007.068: The Webb House Advent Calendar, given by Steve Paddock. See: http://www.tc-of.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Webb_House_Advent_Calendar

2007.065 - The latest in a succession of accessions from Dr. Richard Crocket, beginning in 1998 with 1998.049: "3 ring binders, 1 file folder, 2 typescripts and 9 dictation audio tapes". Or, expanded:

Later accessions included 1999.039, 1999.046, 1999.060, 2000.005, 2000.024, 2000.032, 2000.042, 2001.001, 2002.090, 2003.010, and more recently a series of paintings, books, photographs and metal trunks filled with correspondence, papers, diaries and objects including tuning forks and reflex hammers used in neurological examinations - 2007.053, 2007.063, 2007.065.

The latest, very exciting, accessions have not yet been catalogued and unfortunately are not available for study.

acc. 2006.036 From Mike Pegg.

With the absence of the Newsletter over the past year or so there is a lot to catch up with here, accessions-wise.

 An accession is just anything taken into the Archive and Study Centre collections - archival records, books, DVDs... anything new to the Archive.