Graham Handscomb, Professor of Education and former Senior Local Authority Officer
Turning the page
there is no live memory
of the visit … other than
a vestigial knowledge …
to this person labelled mother.
Burghill:
local byword for the insane.
Tucked away
in rolling countryside,
the hospital grounds open out
with the surprise of dislocation.
Occasionally the welfare log uses the official name:
St Mary’s Hospital,
striking an ironic chord
with the church (local to the foster home)
where – brothers both – we were choired.
Little that’s holy in Burghill:
anonymous tired wards,
medicated vacant faces,
bedlam persisting horror
of electro-convulsive therapy,
and padded cells;
‘benevolent’ constraint
for the less than compliant
… like my mother.
The log sketches the visit
in tones of professional concern:
By arrangement with Burghill Mental Hospital
I picked up the two lads and conveyed them to their mother.
‘Conveyed’ sounds anodyne enough but jars with what follows:
The meeting was certainly not a success as she appeared to scare the boys.
Hot stifling embrace that claims parental right –
She hugged them continually, demanding to be kissed.
The siblings choke and squirm
against cuddles which clinch and clasp;
enveloped by consuming fat folds,
imperious hugs which overwhelm;
the maternal stranger’s frantic need
to own,
assert,
identify,
stake possession.
The filial moment withers;
The pain of disconnect is cloaked with a shrug:
When she did not see the signs of affection
She pushed them away, saying they had been put against her.
Social worker calm proficiency gives way to alarm:
She acted in such a demented way
Best laid plans for family get-together
gothically transformed in repulsive scrabble;
I was obliged to go for a Nurse who fetched her away.
Tame reportage masking visceral struggle,
guttural protest,
primitive pleas
… for maternity denied.
Raucous dissent turns to pitiable whimper
echoing down labyrinthine corridors –
‘But I only wanted to hold my children!’
Bewildered stares now exchanged
between custodian and child,
the visit cast into sudden abandon.
Later rueful judgement closes doors:
Protecting, purging … and denying:
In my opinion it is wrong for the children to see her
I could not be a party to their visiting again.
The three figures leave, sharing unspoken trauma,
and the log adds a poignant coda:
I took the boys for a ride round the country
to help them forget what they had seen.