Buster's Fired a Wobbler eBook
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?
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?
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