History on the Edge

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Factual: History

Professor Iain Hutchison

Anita Anand uncovers hidden stories from recent British history.

Anita Anand goes on the trail of stories from the recent past which have somehow fallen through the cracks of mainstream history.

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History on the Edge: Lennox Castle Hospital

Lennox Castle Hospital

BBC Radio 4 - History on the Edge, Lennox Castle Hospital

Anita Anand treks to the ruins of Scotland’s 1930s Lennox Castle Hospital to uncover a dark chapter in the history of care for the learning-disabled.

Anita Anand goes on the trail of another story from the recent past that’s fallen through the cracks of mainstream history. In this episode, she travels to Scotland to uncover a dark chapter in the history of care. 

Lennox Castle Hospital was set up near Glasgow in the 1930s as a forward-thinking institution for the care of those with learning and other disabilities, but the victims of the hospital’s savage regime also included teenagers involved in petty larceny and young women who’d given birth outside marriage and had been labelled as prostitutes. As Anita discovers, patients were subjected to a strict and dehumanising regime, and to physical punishment for challenging behaviour or trying to escape. 

With oral Historian Howard Mitchell as her guide, Anita takes a steep walk through the Campsie Fells to the ruined Lennox Castle whose remote location, Mitchell says, helped keep its patients shut away from mainstream society. 

Howard has recorded many interviews with those who lived and worked at the hospital and even presented a series on the hospital’s history for the Open University. But, having worked as a nurse at Lennox Castle in the 1970s, the historian is also an invaluable first-hand witness, with insider knowledge of the brutality inflicted on the patients.  

Today, many of the custodians of memory are either no longer with us or unable to be interviewed. But after the hospital closed in 2002, former ‘patients’ and families shared their memories for the Lennox Castle Stories Project and these are featured in this episode of History on the Edge.  There is also the story of Patrick, who as a teenager was admitted to Lennox Castle because of his challenging behaviour and who spent years there, until his father successfully fought for him to be returned to mainstream society. 

Anita also speaks to Dr Sam Smith, who helped re-settle Patrick and others and has since founded an organisation helping those with disabilities and challenges live in the outside world.  

Producer: Sara Parker
Executive Producer: Simon Elmes
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4.

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