I remember… Working at … an old imposing asylum – red brick and draconian. Today it still services the psychiatric profession, with an acute ward, two rehabilitation wards, and a psychiatric intensive care unit. But all this means is the industrious have installed new shiny lockable spaces into the decaying cadaver of liathon. The old hospital has its own memories and on a night shift it may share them with you .. The building itself … is an institution. Inside is labyrinth of corridors, stairs to old wards… The past is thick on the walls, white, green, and lines on the floor to help guide to the parts of the hospital you are SAFE to go to. The ceilings are high and white, very clean, and yet somehow a feeling not clean sticks on you when you wank through … Huge old radiators still creak into life powered by a huge boiler in the basement. The place appeared to have two temperatures: chilled to the bone and fever heat … Despite all the effort the place had no “human touch” … Hard, cold & hot, large and exhausting, a place where “touch” was not invited as it either meant you were being assaulted or restrained, never cuddled. One of the more subtle cruelties of the hospital was how it used perspective to really make you feel imprisoned. Apart from the obvious locked wards and imposing buildings, it gave the occupant (staff or resident) a beautiful grounds to look at. Ancient trees, field gardens, flowers, so on. Back in the day this was used for real occupational therapy, where residents would farm and maintain the grounds. The food they grew went on the table, the flowers would decorate the ward. But today’s modern and enlightened mental health … instead, residents would look upon these grounds behind secure windows and only leave once Section 17 was arranged … Due to the cold hard surfaces, there was no such thing as quiet or peaceful, only loud, alert, alarm, scream and scratch, click clack down the corridor, laugh with your mate …One day she will be knocked to flats … That makes me smile, the thought of click clackers of old matron walking through an entire floor of flats.