"Balanced and flexible intellectual property rights allow consumers to use material in ways which do not damage the interests of rightholders. They help institutions such as libraries, archives and museums, which are essential to that balance through their role as gateways for access to knowledge. The contribution of such institutions is crucial to preserve our cultural and scientific heritage and to foster research and innovation in support of the UK’s creative economy. We believe that this approach, which takes the wider interests of society into account, will also encourage citizens to trust and respect the IP system."

Tim Padfield, Chair of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance, in response to the Gower Review

"Two years ago when hostels were still a novelty in the evacuation scheme many men and women who had long wanted to work with children had their chance. Whether they are still at the work is hard to say but there seems to have been a subtle change of spirit since those early days. My impression is that in spite of the muddle and lack of equipment, the most courageous experiments were then made; e.g. many refusing to rely on punishments, others combining this with the use of self-government, etc. Indeed although this is but a personal impression of a nation sized movement, I think of that time as one in which a hostel run on "institutional" lines was a rarity. This impression is supported by the views expressed by a lecturer at a course for Hostel Wardens who had lectured in previous years and was therefore able to compare, and by others who have been working in evacuation since the beginning. Gradually this experimenting seems to have ceased, and in many ways it is a good thing that it has, for human beings cannot be discarded if an experiment of which they are the subject fails, and the experimenting was largely in inexperienced hands. But in ceasing it has taken a lot of the sincerity and awareness of difficulty out of this new branch of service. The time has surely come to replace some of it so that the experience of the war years can be effectively applied to the mal-adjusted youth that well be revealed by peace."

"Of all the living people I've known only Mr. Lyward has a similar gift. With him you can experience life as one great thing, not as a cut-up mosaic of aspects and problems."

1.1 Immediately, and not for the only time in this history, a paradox emerges. That is, in some ways there is a great deal of information available regarding this period, gathered contemporaneously or soon thereafter; yet at the same time very little is known (Clough, 1999). Remarked one pair of reviewers in their survey of child care, including residential, in the 18 years between 1948 and 1966 “it is disappointing not more is known” as a result of all the research or indeed by any other ways (Dinnage and Pringle, 1967). Kahan points out that even basic information such as which children and how many lived away from home in residential care over this entire period offers an “incomplete” picture. Statistics were either not collected or collected in different formats and at different times, often by different Departments spanning Health, Education and Welfare right up until the early 1990s (Kahan, 1993)….

 

1.2 Even less is known about the lived experiences of children in residential care across the period. Their own communications and observations were rarely sought directly, save via occasional anecdotes and a few surveys towards the end of the period….except on extremely rare occasions children in residential care do not emerge as individuals, certainly not as individuals with their own views about their care, treatment, hopes, fears, or  expectations.

 

Residential Child Care in England, 1948 – 1975: A History and Report. Richard Rollinson, Bath Consultancy, Bath, England (2006)

"Telling my story has provided a lot of healing. It was a healing tool, which led to me finding my voice. I am pleased that I found the courage to do it. I now see myself as a wise and peaceful woman. My voice is much stronger. Before I held back, on opinions, decisions, group discussions, on all sorts of issues. I no longer do this. I have stopped being a pleaser to others. I have learned to love myself and please myself. I come first in my life now. I can give greater depth to the artwork I do and I can understand my artwork more."

"In all the work being done, in all the money being spent on the shift from institutional to community-based services for people with learning disabilities, there was no real sense of history. Charred scraps of paper, containing clues to the reality of the lives of thousands, were dancing over bonfires of closing institutions. No records were being kept, no photographs of the wards, no biographies of the people, not even a home video of the bonfire...

"Clearly, what was needed was an initiative to collect and publicise the recent history of people with learning disabilities both in and out of the institutions which have been so much a feature of this century's response to those people. There was a need for a visual, documentary and oral history to be seized...."

"The author states that after so long a time the book is "still thoroughly up to date". In a sense this is right, yet the claim may not be great, for the art of pedagogy seems repeatedly to be developed, described and forgotten, so that progress as each tide comes in is impressive, although the high water line is static.

"Like Wills, a distinguished succession of practitioners - Wichern, Stelzner, Aicchorn, Homer Lane, Neill, Lyward, and others have combined a natural flair for this work with an ability to write about it. Why have their labours not made a greater impact, and their methods not caught on? Wills himself blames lack of funds and lack of understanding, so that impossibly difficult cases have to be accepted. Other possible reasons are: the ambivalence of the community, which may prefer the punitive regime; the difficulty in finding staff prepared to be sufficiently patient and sympathetic; the tendency for technical detail to displace the basic principles, so that the latter are never properly defined or recognised, and therefore repetition of the experiments is ineffective; it may be that these therapeutic communities are more like families than even their originators suppose, so that like the family they must rise and decline and be started again elsewhere; apart from sheer lack of understanding of the causes of maladjustment, the principal difficulties are the variety of problems referred, the complexity and obscurity of the treatment method, the personal involvement of the therapists, all of which factors have prevented a scientific approach."

- P.D. Scott, review of The Hawkspur Experiment by David Wills, originally published 1941, republished 1967. From The British Journal of Psychiatry (1968) 114:903

1.  We believe that the greatest gains in reforming our care system are to be made in identifying and removing whatever barriers are obstructing the development of good personal relationships, and putting in place all possible means of supporting such relationships where they occur. (Paragraph 29)

"And we kept case records of all these patients [case notes of Dunkirk survivors cared for in local mental hospitals on the directive of the Ministry of Health] which were stored at the N.A.M.H, over 30,000 by the end of the war, and very bulky papers. And of course they became a difficult problem, how to store them, and they were moved down to the country, to Farnham where we had a place. A home which we had, we used to call mentally frail old ladies, but disturbed elderly woman, and sadly after I’d left, they were thrown out. Which lost a great opportunity for somebody’s research."

 

- Alan Cohen interview with Robina Addis c. 1980. Copyright and used with the permission of WISEArchive. For more information, Click here.

"I think if you hear other people's stories you realise you're all in the same boat and you all feel the same way. If you can support each other, the more support you get from each other." - Christine Jacques