Jeanette Butler
Jeanette talks about being a patient at Brookwood

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Then one of the doctors said to me, ‘Would I like to go to F.H.?’ - Florence House. They took me over and Sister Pat Miles greeted me. She was a lovely Sister, and we went round the rooms - huge room it was which was what they called the ‘Day Room’ and then there was another quiet room and then there was the bathrooms. We went a little bit further up and then there was the dormitories. There was no closed doors at all, you could come and go as you pleased.

From there I went to work in the canteen, in the staff canteen, and I got to know Willy Joss. He was in charge of the canteen and his staff - because it was the staff canteen -and I worked there for a good while washing up, and then I served, they trusted me to serve.

Yes, it was very peaceful at Brookwood. It was a lovely place. It was like a village all on its own - you wanted really to stay in it - because it had its own club, its own bank where you went and got your pennies if you had any, just a bank for Brookwood and patients. There was a dance hall, oh yes we went to dances. Willy Joss and his wife used to get us all up dancing. It was all records. There was no bands, not as far as I can remember.

We went to Selsey Bill for a week. An ordinary guest house but it was shut to anybody but us and we used to go down to the village, to the sea front, everything, it was just like an ordinary holiday everybody else was taking. And the staff had duty off at night and somebody else would take over and they would go to the club that was opposite - they’d go over there for a couple of hours and have a drink and they smuggled me in one night. They had a band there, the Lobster Bar it was called. I forget the name of the band but they did have a band. I didn’t want to go back.