Speaker Ken Senior

Inspired by his Granddaughter who couldn't find holiday employment and by the speaker from MIND last week Ken decided to talk about his employment whilst a student. He said that he started off with a milkman doing deliveries. He then became as a butcher’s delivery boy taking orders out on his bicycle. This was difficult at times when it was raining as the names written on the wax wrapping paper would wash off in the rain.

During the holidays he got three different jobs. The first was at a company owned by his friend’s father who had a unit by the airport. The company refurbished war items. Ken’s job was to take out the webbing inside steel helmets. They were then sand blasted and repainted in green before new webbing was installed. The job was very repetitive and boring.

His second job was at Pool Paper Mill. They made huge sheets of compressed paper up to 2 inch thick that were used in transformers for insulation. Initially he worked in shipping and then when the plant was shut for the summer holidays in maintenance. Again, the job was boring but gave him an insight to life outside education.

His third job was by far the most interesting at High Royds Psychiatric Hospital which was originally opened in 1888 as the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. It was a self-sufficient organisation with its own library, surgery, dispensary, butchery, dairies, bakery, shop, upholsters and cobbler’s workshops and a large estate partly devoted to agriculture and market gardening. The hospital had its own railway connecting to Wharfedale line. The railway closed 1951. There were 36 wards male, female and even children. For recreation there was a ballroom, social club, sports fields, bowling green, tennis courts, and cricket field. The facilities became outdated and High Royds closed in 2003. It is said that In the 1980s there were several reports of sexual abuse by Jimmy Saville.

On his first day there Ken was given a white coat and a bunch of keys. His induction consisted of an instruction to lock all the doors behind him and that was it. He was told he was now Assistant Nurse Senior. His first job was on Ward 1 which was the sick ward where he learned to make a bed. His main memory from that ward was of a Lithuania patient who laid naked on the bed and refused to get out of it.

There was a padded cell on the ward, but he only saw it used once. He worked the day shift so only saw lunch never breakfast or dinner. The kitchens sent the food to the wards on trollies. Every Friday lunch was fish and chips and Ken was appalled to see that the nurses stole the best fish and chips before serving the patients.

After lunch medication was dispensed. One patient refused to take his medication and as punishment was put in a straightjacket and then in the padded cell. The next day the patient was back on the ward as normal. One day selected patients were given Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Firstly, the patient was given anaesthetic to put them to sleep and then given electric shock to the head. Initially the patient’s body became rigid. Then it relaxed but this was followed by a shiver starting at toes which moved up the body until it was in full convulsions.

As he was a temporary holiday cover Ken was moved around to cover for missing staff. One time he went to ward 8 which was long term ward where patients didn't ever get released. One patient dined alone in his room. He was known as Killer who if he ate with the other patients stole their food. Killer came out of his room when asked by the nurse who then hit him hard in the stomach to show him who was in charge. Such incidents were rare but even good nurses were dismissive, and some goaded the patients. One patient, an ex-rugby player complained of bells in his head and wouldn't speak to anyone because of them.

There were lighter moments such as taking 15 patients on a bus excursion around North Yorkshire. Another was a Civil Defence exercise pretending that a nuclear bomb had landed on Pudsey. Ken was told to answer the phone “Papa, Papa Mike 5 Alpha”. When the phone rang, he duly gave the code and the other chap said "what the bloody are you talking about just tell John I'll give him a lift home". As soon as he put the phone down it rang again so he said hello only to be told off for not giving the correct code. During the exercise there were people in the grounds pretending to be hurt by the nuclear fallout. One lady would not give up screaming and when told she could stop it turned out that she was not pretending but had been stung by a wasp.

Ken only worked there for 6 weeks but the memories have been permanently etched on his mind. He gave two positive examples of his time there. One was 6 months later when he caught a crowded bus from Bradford to Otley. He was the last man standing at the back on the bottom floor and a former patient right at the front of the bus called out Mr Senior please come up here and have my seat and talk to me which he did. A second was of John on ward 12. John had been professional flyweight boxer and had won a prestigious fight in America. On his return to England, he was beaten up and robbed of his winnings on Liverpool Docks. The beating was so bad that he was permanently committed to the hospital When Ken told him that he was leaving he gave Ken a hand rolled cigarette which was one of his only worldly goods.