When I [started] having my fits, I was young, ever so young. You know, I was living with my mum and dad; I had a lot of tablets when I grew up and I wasn’t able to self-care.

When I was maybe, 13, I went to the epilepsy colony school in Surrey where they teach. And I was, um, there until I was 16. There were these people who had bibs and used to wet themselves and then these other ones who had to wear helmets on their heads so when they fell they landed on the pad at the back otherwise they injured their heads.

When I left school I couldn’t have a job, because if I wanted to work in the laundry or to be a hairdresser and that, well, you’ve got to be trained to be a hairdresser and then you left that [training] and started a job. Then the minute you started, you might start on doing someone’s hair and then suddenly you might have a fit ’cos when I use to have my fits, I didn’t know I’d had it until I came round, you see.

So I left there [school and] I went to St Augustine’s* Hospital. I was there for quite a while and then went to St Robert’s*. I was in Harold Ward* and I was the youngest, the others were a lot older than me. And what they did there, they got me every morning to get up, put the old ladies on the commode, wash them, dress them and that. Then I got this fear about what I did, I didn’t feel so good. I use to walk out on to the [fire] escape so that I could feel better.

Then they found out I was missing. What they did, they put me in a van and I didn’t know where I was going. But when I got there, um, what it was was Rampton Hospital. Rampton was a big place, the sort of place where they keep people under control. I was there for quite a while [about 15 years]. You didn’t go out; you didn’t seem to go outdoors; you were always in the ward, even to have lunch. You weren’t allowed to have a bottled drink ’cos if you got in a temper, you might get angry you see, you might do something with it [the bottle].
If you did anything bad, they took you off that ward and they put you somewhere else, where you had a room and you slept on two rugs; there wasn’t a bed. So you got some fresh air they would take you outside and you had to have one staff [member] on one side and one on the other.

From Rampton, I went to many hospitals, I had fits and I had to be under care. Then the doctors and nurses thought they could help me have a different kind of life by me going to a hostel. I started going down and trying meals there, and that. And then they [the doctors and nurses] said: ‘How did you get on?’ And I said: ‘It’s all right.’ So they moved me there and I had to live with one lady who ran the place; got on with her quite well. Then she had to leave because, um, she had a bad leg.

Then two people took over, a husband and a wife, and they sort of changed it, [it became] a different place. They use to let the boys stay up until three o’clock in the morning. The boys would make a meal and as they were rather tired they use to chuck their food things in the sink, thinking as I was the one that got up early that I could wash them up for them and that sort of thing. I couldn’t get on with it very well, sometimes it upset me. As I couldn’t get on with the boys I wanted to try and get a place where there were more people I could get on with.

First I had a person come down and he had a chat with me. And then he began to be my social worker. And they put me up on Giddeon Ward, St Robert’s. You see he came up to St Robert’s now and again and then he said: ‘Well, next week I’m taking you down to look round a hostel.’ I came down here [to the Together care home] to have a look at the hostel and a talk. Then he said: ‘You’re going to go down and try your meals out, and that.’

Well, when I first came here, you had to come here for four weeks trial. Then you see after four weeks, they had a talk and they said: ‘What we’ll do, we’ll put another two weeks on and see how you get on in those two weeks.’ They came back in two weeks, and I had got on a bit better, a bit more used to it. At the other hostel, the only thing we did was our rooms; we didn’t do the cleaning because the staff did the kitchen, and the hoovering, and that. When I moved here they had a rota of what you had to do each week and they had a job to get me to do my mine.

Then I began to, um, go to different places like to Arthritis Care, Catherine* Lane, a get-together group, the drop-in and that. We have a lot of freedom. Then Reg* [another Together resident] said to me: ‘Would you like to come on the park to feed the ducks?’ So I went to the park and fed the ducks but I didn’t think it was going to happen. Then suddenly after that, he kept asking me: ‘Would you like to come and walk in the park?’ And after that he got me to go with him. I began to get friends with him, of course now, you see, he’s my partner. We go around together.

Also when I came here, I used to have meals made at first, then they said: ‘Would you like to do self-catering.’ At first one of the staff took me to the supermarket and he got me a lot of things, see, like bags of potatoes, and all that. Well, you see, what I found out is, sometimes I go to Mind and I have lunch there and, well, when I get back I don’t need anything else. Them things left over, they go stale. What I do now when I’m short of things, I just write it down (milk or sugar or yoghurt), go up there [to the shop] and get it, you see.

I do quite a lot of things, it takes things off me mind, and now I haven’t had me fits for a while. I go to get me prescription, I tell the staff when I’m getting short of tablets, when I need some [more]. There is one thing, I use to travel on my own. But I got cataracts in one eye and, you see, um, I had to wait for the operation, and my other eye went a bit bad.

I get on with the staff here, if you’re upset, it’s easy to go to them and have a word. I’m happy here.

* Names have been changed.