Musings on a Queen-sized bed

WOW! What a ride! I rolled over onto my back in Carol’s ‘Queen-sized’ bed, exhausted but exhilarated.

I shall have to get myself a scooter.

Carol had dropped me off at her flat (I still have a key) and gone over to her sister Janice’s. Her sister is having trouble with the man in the next flat. He has just been released into the community, and Janice says that he is standing at the door every time she goes out, and grinning and muttering to himself.

She says he is calling her obscene names, but she can’t catch what they are.
Personally, I think old Janice is paranoid. It saddens me how the working-class are so intolerant of their own kind. How depressing that the stigma (based on fear), attached to those unfortunate enough to have needed psychiatric help is till prevalent and strong in our so-called civilised society. And that mental health provision is still the Cinderella of the National Health Service.

The ‘Release into the Community Programme’ sounds fine in theory: closing the old Victorian asylums and reintegrating their occupants into the community. But so long as the populace at large continues to view those who have shown signs of mental or emotional distress as a group to be both feared and made fun of, it is never going to work.

And, let’s face it, the nutters have got to live somewhere.

Fortunately, not in my neck of the woods. Well, we have ‘Odd Billy’ but he is more of an endearing character than someone who is likely to rape your grandma. Oh yes, he is a familiar figure around the village; a short, stocky, bearded bloke who goes about in an old safari jacket, with a pair of binoculars slung round his neck. He claims to be an expert on wild birds. But he seems to spend most of his time down Foley Bottoms; a popular haunt for courting couples. Go down there any Sunday evening and you’re likely to trip over him (or Inspector Wetherby!) in the long grass.

My reverie was shattered by a sudden loud banging on the front door. I panicked. My God – not Gary. Surely he can’t have escaped again.

And then I heard the letter box metal flap go. And a shrill Nordic voice…

(to be continued)