Geoff Burrell's Blog

Raspy Crickets, if threatened, make a noise by rubbing their abdomens against their legs. Unfortunately many care recipients are unable to make a noise when they feel threatened; can't even complain.

In 1989 I made some noise on their behalf when Penguin (UK) published my novel. 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler - A week in a psychiatric hospital', which shone a light on the hidden lives of the seriously mentally ill, the demented, the institutionalised who were housed inside a type of mental hospital that's since become extinct. 30 years on, I still take some small comfort from knowing I played a part in helping to change the system forever. https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07YLFSCGR

In the light of the appalling findings that brought about, or have been revealed by, our three current Australian Royal Commissions @RCMentalHealth @RoyalAged @DRC_AU , which can no doubt be replicated around the globe, maybe it's time you got out there and made some noise on behalf of the recipients of such sub-standard care, such open abuse, such blatant exploitation? I'm not asking you to rub your abdomen against your legs, not even to write a novel, but you could ask yourself, 'What can I do to make a positive difference?' Then you could do it.

@RCMentalHealth @DRC_AU @RoyalAged
The two Australian Royal Commissions currently inquiring into Disability and Aged Care, and the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health, appear to me to share many commonalities, particularly in regard to their subjects hidden lives! I had to deal with the latter issue whilst trying to depict life inside the closed doors of a 1980s mental hospital operating from a large old institution originally built as a "county lunatic asylum". In the end I wrote a 'faction', a fictional novel based on fact, in order to be able to tell the truth, to vividly depict what life was like behind those closed doors. See: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

I wonder if, once again, we need to use fiction to make the truth more visible, more understandable. It seems to me that there is a general failure on the part of concerned professionals, carers, advocates and users of these services to make the wider community understand what life at the start of the 21st Century is really like for the frail aged, the disabled, the mentally ill? There is also a general failure on the part of the community to even show an interest in the welfare of these care recipients. Perhaps three book prizes per annum, one each for the best rendition of each of those different lives - disabled/aged/mentally ill - would be more effective in focusing public opinion upon the abuse, neglect and exploitation of some of our most vulnerable citizens?

I never think of myself as a writer, sounds far too grand doesn't it? A writer is someone like Michael Connelly, someone who has a list of books as long as their arm in the front of their latest bestseller, someone who makes a living from their work.

Though, having said that, it's true I have written a novel. Not only that, it was a novel that had something very important to say about the human condition, about how we care for people who are mentally ill. It's a message which is equally important today, maybe more so. My novel was published originally by Penguin, a top London publisher, which isn’t nothing is it? And Rogers, Coleridge and White, an eminent London literary agency, believed in the work, chose to represent me. The BBC even took out a 3-year option on the rights to my book, commissioned a writer to come up with a script, which he did, though it was never produced. Not my favourite Auntie then?

So maybe I am a writer after all? Not a commercially successful one perhaps, certainly not one with a yacht or a New York penthouse. But successful perhaps in standing up for those vulnerable people without a voice, for adding my own voice to the loud chorus of the deinstitutionalisation movement, of helping to see an end to those dreadful old mental hospitals that were originally built as 'lunatic asylums' in the 19th Century and which, over 150 years later, were still being used to accommodate people who were seriously mentally ill. That’s the sort of thing writers are supposed to do, isn’t it, to write about stuff that's important?

Writer or not, when I was working as a Registered Mental Health Nurse I wrote a book called ‘Buster’s Fired a Wobbler – A week in a psychiatric hospital’. 30 years after its original publication it’s now available again, this time as an eBook. Am I a writer? You can read the book and let me know. I’d be interested to hear what you think.

You might only be a small cog in a big wheel but you can still improve people's lives, change things for the better.

I made my contribution to the deinstitutionalisation movement of the time by writing a novel depicting life in a psychiatric hospital in the 1980s through the eyes of a student mental health nurse.

Now those grim old Victorian era institutions don't exist anymore. Read the book and find out why they had to go.

AU
Amazon: www.amazon.com/s?field-isbn=978192599...
Apple: http://itunes.apple.com/au/book/isbn9...
Google: books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN978192...
Kobo: www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?...

UK
Google: https://books.google.co.uk/books?vid=...
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/uk/en/ebook/bust...
Apple: https://books.apple.com/…/busters-fir...…
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Busters-Fire...…

AUTHOR PAGES
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...
https://www.facebook.com/Geoff-Burrel...
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07YLFSCGR

When you are caught up in the mental health system, in whatever role, progress can seem glacial. Sometimes it’s necessary to look back over your shoulder to understand the progress that has been made.

See UK links:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Busters-Fire...
https://books.apple.com/book/busters-...
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/uk/en/ebook/bust...

See AU links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07YL7ZY8Z
Apple: https://books.apple.com/au/book/buste...
Google: https://play.google.com/store/books/d...
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/bust...

30 years ago, whilst I was still a Registered Mental Health Nurse working in the UK, I wrote a book based on my experiences. The book was written as a fiction which, ironically, turned out to be the only way I could tell the true story of life in the dreadful old psychiatric hospitals of the time. The book was published by Penguin (UK) in 1989 and optioned by the BBC.

The book follows Buster, a student nurse, as he exposes the reader to the appalling standards of care provided in a large, shabby psychiatric hospital that was built in the Victorian era as a “lunatic asylum”. There were over 100 of these hospitals spread across the UK when I wrote the book. Today, these institutions have all been decommissioned, demolished or re-purposed for other uses.

Jump forward 30 years and, thanks to the wonders of technology, I’m able to re-publish a 30th anniversary eBook edition of 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler - A week in a psychiatric hospital', which you can find by clicking on the following links:

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07YL7ZY8Z
https://books.apple.com/au/book/buste...
https://play.google.com/store/books/d...
https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/bust...

The 30th anniversary eBook edition of 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler - A week in a psychiatric hospital' will be published tomorrow - the 1st October 2019 - and be available on all your favourite platforms.

First published by Penguin (UK) in 1989 the book eviscerated the standard of psychiatric hospital care provided in the UK at that time, much of it in large, shabby, Victorian era lunatic asylums, of which there were over 100 spread across the country. Today, these institutions have all been decommissioned, demolished or re-purposed for other uses. There are none that now operate in the way described in this book.

The run up to World Mental Health Day on October 10th 2019 seems an appropriate time for all of us to reflect on what was once considered an 'acceptable' standard of mental health care. We should certainly celebrate the progress that has been made in the 30 years since 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler' was first published, but we should also use the book as a catalyst to re-examine the current provision of mental health care services around the world. Ask yourself, if Buster and his fellow students were starting out today as student mental health nurses, what kind of world would they experience, what would they wish to improve?

Reviews:

"Burrell uses fictional characters and encapsulates events...to create a hospital which could be anywhere in Britain...Sunday Times, 19th November 1989

"In a factional account of his several years' experience working in British mental hospitals...Geoff Burrell gives the system a pasting." Sunday Herald, 4 December 1990

"Harrowing, amusing - and highly readable." Book Review, Hartlepool Mail, 9 November 1989.

“Nevertheless Burrell’s ‘factional’ account rings true and the overall picture is a terrible one.” Behaviour Change, Vol 10, No. 4, 1993

An eBook version of 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler' will be available on Apple, Amazon,
Kobo, EBSCO and Google Books from the 1st October 2019. The book's content is the same as in the original Penguin 1989 version, but the cover is different and some content has been added to the author and publishing details.

The book itself is a factional account of events that took place over several years in the 1980s during which I trained, nursed in, or visited a number of different NHS hospitals catering for the mentally ill. In 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler' these experiences are necessarily compressed into a short period of time, using fictional characters and descriptive detail throughout.

I was spurred on to republish ‘Buster’s Fired a Wobbler’ by a couple of coincidental events. Firstly, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the book’s first publication by Penguin (UK). When I wrote ‘Buster’s Fired a Wobbler’ it was a very different world. At that time there were over 100 large mental hospitals operating in the UK that had originally been built as ‘lunatic asylums’ in the Victorian era. Today, nearly all of these institutions have been demolished or converted to other uses.

Secondly, the two Australian Royal Commissions, one into Aged Care and one into Disability Care, and the State Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, highlights the fact that a ‘total institution’ of the type described in this book, where the staff and service providers can ride roughshod over patient’s rights knowing that they are unlikely to ever be held accountable for their own acts or omissions, can also exist in many other types of care settings.

As one small part of the de-institutionalisation movement of the time, ‘Buster’s Fired a Wobbler’ was yet another nail in the coffin of the lunatic asylum. Today, it serves to remind us that real change can be achieved if enough people join together to make common cause.

I'd be interested to hear what those whose lives or work bring them into contact with the aged care, disability or mental health facilities of today, make of the enclosed world of the 'total institution' described in 'Buster's Fired a Wobbler'. Does it seem appallingly different, as might have been expected after an interval of 30 years, or is it uncomfortably familiar?