she pushed herself away from the wall she felt something shift under her weight. Turning to face the wall she put both of her hands on it and pushed. The rich panelled wood wall gave way under the push and opened up onto another room; a room that was hidden; a room that someone wanted to keep secret…
27
Stepping into the room she was surprised to find when she turned the light on that it was some sort of library-come-study. All around the walls there were shelves upon shelves of books and files. It reminded her of the library in Beauty and the Beast, her favourite film as she was growing up. It was amazing and she envied anyone who had a library like this. She loved to read and could be engrossed in a book for hours at a time, her favourite sort being the modern genre of romantic comedy. Lisa wandered around the edge of the room looking at the rows and rows of books on their dusty shelves. Most of the books were about medicine and psychology, of course. Some of the books were so old that their bindings which would at one time have been sturdy and hard were now loose and falling to pieces.
She took a file from one of the higher shelves and got covered with thick dust as it slid from its resting place. What made her choose that particular file, she didn’t know - it looked exactly the same as all the others. On the cover it read in big, black bold print “ Gerald Jenkins ”. She opened the cover to the first page and read the first few lines; “ Admitted on 27 th July 1955. Suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and hallucinations. Attacked a nurse and fractured her jaw on the 30 th of August 1955 because he believed “voices in his head told him to“. Had a relatively new procedure of “shock therapy” performed on the 09 th of January 1956. First practice of “shock therapy” at this hospital. Given this because he had attacked two more members of staff and five fellow patients after hearing voices which told him to do so”
At this Lisa closed the folder not wanting to read any further for fear of what it might say. She went to place the file back on the shelf but decided not to, for she was compelled to read a bit more. As she turned the yellow pages they rustled like dry leaves. She stopped on the page that was sub-titled “ Patients history ” and began reading.
Gerald Jenkins was born in 1927 in Rotherham. His father was a butcher who owned his own shop and his mother was a midwife. When he was born his mother had suffered a long, agonising birth that finally ended in a forceps delivery which had caused her to lose an enormous amount of blood. She survived only long enough to hold her baby and to name him, and then she tragically died. His father had done his best for him until he was five when he began showing signs of violence when he killed the family cat by putting it through a mangle and was always in trouble at school for fighting. His father had put him into the care system. He was eventually adopted by an elderly couple who lived on the outskirts of Rotherham. He seemed to settle with them until he was fourteen and the elderly lady died of a massive stroke. Gerald then began to rebel and get into all sorts of trouble. He began drinking and running away for days at a time. He was arrested in 1949 for assault on a young woman. He had attacked her at knife point, taken her bag and then he had broken her nose. He was taken to court and subjected to tests by a psychiatrist and was found to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He said the young woman whom he assaulted had bullied him at school; the woman had never met him before in her life and had never gone to the school he went to. It was said it would be immoral to convict him and put him in prison, so he was sent to her grandfather’s psychiatric hospital under the orders to keep him until 1960 until he would be re-assessed. He was indeed assessed again in 1960 and was found to be progressively worse, so he was detained in the care of the
27
Stepping into the room she was surprised to find when she turned the light on that it was some sort of library-come-study. All around the walls there were shelves upon shelves of books and files. It reminded her of the library in Beauty and the Beast, her favourite film as she was growing up. It was amazing and she envied anyone who had a library like this. She loved to read and could be engrossed in a book for hours at a time, her favourite sort being the modern genre of romantic comedy. Lisa wandered around the edge of the room looking at the rows and rows of books on their dusty shelves. Most of the books were about medicine and psychology, of course. Some of the books were so old that their bindings which would at one time have been sturdy and hard were now loose and falling to pieces.
She took a file from one of the higher shelves and got covered with thick dust as it slid from its resting place. What made her choose that particular file, she didn’t know - it looked exactly the same as all the others. On the cover it read in big, black bold print “ Gerald Jenkins ”. She opened the cover to the first page and read the first few lines; “ Admitted on 27 th July 1955. Suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and hallucinations. Attacked a nurse and fractured her jaw on the 30 th of August 1955 because he believed “voices in his head told him to“. Had a relatively new procedure of “shock therapy” performed on the 09 th of January 1956. First practice of “shock therapy” at this hospital. Given this because he had attacked two more members of staff and five fellow patients after hearing voices which told him to do so”
At this Lisa closed the folder not wanting to read any further for fear of what it might say. She went to place the file back on the shelf but decided not to, for she was compelled to read a bit more. As she turned the yellow pages they rustled like dry leaves. She stopped on the page that was sub-titled “ Patients history ” and began reading.
Gerald Jenkins was born in 1927 in Rotherham. His father was a butcher who owned his own shop and his mother was a midwife. When he was born his mother had suffered a long, agonising birth that finally ended in a forceps delivery which had caused her to lose an enormous amount of blood. She survived only long enough to hold her baby and to name him, and then she tragically died. His father had done his best for him until he was five when he began showing signs of violence when he killed the family cat by putting it through a mangle and was always in trouble at school for fighting. His father had put him into the care system. He was eventually adopted by an elderly couple who lived on the outskirts of Rotherham. He seemed to settle with them until he was fourteen and the elderly lady died of a massive stroke. Gerald then began to rebel and get into all sorts of trouble. He began drinking and running away for days at a time. He was arrested in 1949 for assault on a young woman. He had attacked her at knife point, taken her bag and then he had broken her nose. He was taken to court and subjected to tests by a psychiatrist and was found to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He said the young woman whom he assaulted had bullied him at school; the woman had never met him before in her life and had never gone to the school he went to. It was said it would be immoral to convict him and put him in prison, so he was sent to her grandfather’s psychiatric hospital under the orders to keep him until 1960 until he would be re-assessed. He was indeed assessed again in 1960 and was found to be progressively worse, so he was detained in the care of the
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