A million A

report

latch-key

kids?

in a recent issue of the ed-

ucational magazine Where says that there may be as many as one million 'latch-key kids' during the school

I1EIIIS

holidays. This figure has been calculated from the results of a survey involv-

ing 10,000 families which was caracross the country. Surprisingly enough the figure is even higher than during the termtime. Apparently working mothers ried out

their children unattended often during the holidays than in termtime. However, children seem to be equally at risk whether they are left locked indoors or are left with a latch-key round their neck to play in the street. Forty-six per cent of pedestrian casualties in 1969 were children and, in the same year, around 10,000 children were admitted to hospital after accidents in the home. leave

more

The last straw The screaming of jet engines overhead can be the last straw if a person is already on the verge of a mental illness maintains Dr Colin Herridge, a consultant psychiatrist working in south west London. He believes that aircraft noise can affect people in three different ways_ The most obvious way is in

preventing people from getting a good night's sleep with consequent tiredness, irritability, depression or whatever. Secondly, he believes that the 'scream' of the jet engines evokes a primeval fear in people, its noise evoking images of distress or pain. Thirdly, the fact that, near the airport, aircraft are either taking off or landing makes people tense as these are the most likely times for crashes to occur. In one area of his survey, near Heathrow, 26 people were admitted to psychiatric hospitals when the

statistical expectation was only 18.6 and in a quieter area the admittance was

17

against

an

expected figure

of 24. Dr Herridge himself has not been

totally unaffected by aircraft noise. At his out-patient clinic at Hounslow he finds that every two minutes? during peak periods?he has to sus-

pend consultation for 10 seconds; and this noise and enforced interruption have made him more irritable towards his patients and have made both him and his patients more

aggressive.

A haven for families Visiting

a

(the

most

prison is,

can

play together.

One of the biggest advantages of the Centre is that children can be left to play under supervision while wives visit their husbands, giving them a chance to talk to each other

without interruption. After the visit is

over

the wives

return to the Centre for a cup of tea and, if they feel like it, they can

can

and

talk over their problems. Rested refreshed they are almost

certainly in journey

a better state to face home and wait till the

next visit. The success of the Centre can be judged from the fact that over 100

more

often than not, a great physical strain. Frequently the prison is some distance from home and a long

journey sometimes involving

popular visiting day),

manned by a group of young married women. The Centre is housed in a former off-licence, rented at a cut-price rate from Allied Breweries. The large room was fitted out by a prison working party and now provides a cheerful setting where wives can get hot drinks and where the children

the

prisoners'

husband in

al changes of bus and/or train can be made doubly difficult by having to take the children along. Add to all this the mental strain of a marriage in a crisis situation and trying to sort things out while keeping your children under some sort of control and the whole thing becomes a nightmare exercise. In the Caledonian Road in North London some help with these problems is now being offered to wives who are visiting their husbands in Pentonville Prison. Since the beginning of the year, the Wives and Families Centre has been open every afternoon and all day Saturday

sever-

families use the Centre every week. One can only hope that this will encourage other groups of people to follow the lead near the prisons which do not have this service at the

moment.

There seem to be an increasing of play schemes run by

number

local authorities and voluntary bodies during the school holidays but it appears that they are only catering for a small proportion of the child-

Although it would presorganisational difficulties, perhaps we need more projects which

ren

at risk.

ent

even more localised than at present operating on a street-bystreet basis.

are

?

Drugs

for every mood

A world where man is master of his emotions?that is the prediction of an American psychiatrist, Dr. Louis West. Dr. West believes that the development of drugs is such that before long we shall be able to eliminate the everyday emotions which

most of us consider undesirable? envy, greed, worry, fear, sadness. In other words we shall be able to control our emotional life by drugs. As Dr. West says: 'All emotions will be available in bottles. Our whole technology is dedicated to the proposition that everybody is entitled to feel as he wants to.' But he is not alone in predicting a society where drugs are a predominating factor. A group of British doctors and chemists, in a recent report to the Office of Health Economics, forecast that by 1990 all of us?children included?will be

relying

on

drugs

to

regulate

our

emotional ups and downs.

25

Those who pour scorn on these

prophecies would do well to look at the fact that, for example, drug consumption has risen by over 50% in the last ten years. Three thousand

million tablets?sedatives, tranquillisers and so on are prescribed annually in this country. Add to this the number of people using alcohol or tobacco as an 'alternative drug' and the picture is even

gloomier?

an

iture of ?2178 million

annual expendon alcohol and

?1720 on tobacco. Before we are overtaken by a 'drug-controlled' society perhaps we should be looking more closely at the effects of long term drug-taking and asking ourselves whether we really are on the way to creating a Utopia.

Can't read, can't write Although we know that there are a number of people in society who, would be generally speaking, termed illiterate, there are no exact statistics available. 'Illiteracy' is a term which is hard to define. What standards of reading, writing and

spelling do

we

demand of

someone

before we

classify them

as

'literate'?

a bar to skilled jobs one of those questioned were in

gether

What about the person who can read but not write? What about the count-

third

less numbers who just can't spell? A recent survey carried out for the National Association for Remedial Education brought to light some interesting facts about this problem. The survey involved 1,126 students taking reading courses and their teachers. One of the most interesting points was that less than half the students were of 'low intelligence', and of the remaining 55 per cent, 5 per cent were 'clearly of superior intelligence', and 50 per cent were at least of average intelligence. In this connection it is perhaps also significant that one in five of the students had played truant when at school. Clearly there are certain faults in the present education system and the Association has certain recommendations to make such as ensuring the availability of a trained remedial teacher in each school and better community facilities for adult illiterates. Apparently illiteracy is not alto-

does appear to be an

skilled

or

semi-skilled jobs, but it

impediment to satisfactory emotional life. Among women in the 21-30 age group only 29 out of 89 questioned a

married. This is 32 per cent a national average for this age group of 70 per cent. Less was known of how the men fared in this respect though one male student did mention that he had been deserted by his literate were

compared with

wife.

Nearly half of those involved in the survey were between the ages of 15 and 20, but this probably does not

reflect a

higher proportion of particular age group. Older illiterates are generally shyer about admitting to their handiilliteracy

among that

cap and to some extent will have learned to live with it if they have not already taken steps to remedy

the situation.

An association for therapeutic communities More and more of our psychiatric hospitals are becoming interested

in

the therapeutic community ap-

proach

and meetings have been held at various hospitals during the last two years to discuss and ex-

change ideas. On 1st July of

this year a meeting at Littlemore Hospital, Oxford, to set up an Association of Therapeutic Communities. This will provide a forum for exchanging ideas at meetings and through pubwas

held

lications. The Association would also promote research and eventually establish a training prog-

involving

pregnancy,

miscarriage

and childbirth. Four more of the

patients were psychopathic, suffering severe personality disorders and all coming from highly disturbed family backgrounds. These were women

classified

as

who had all suffered extreme emotional deprivation in childhood and who were now attempting to compensate by their search for affec-

apathy

in the

and 39 per cent of the patients said the doctors did not tell them enough

nearly as many (31 per cent) they didn't see the doctors often enough. and

'group'

those which

of

patients

were

Dr. d'Orban classified baby stealers'. All four

The report includes a copy of the used. Hopefully other use it to obtain the

techniques.

of these women had used the

questionnaire hospitals will

A newsletter is to be circulated to members and interested units and

snatching

views of their

ramme

for

therapeutic community

to send in material asked to contact Ruby Mungoat Fulbourn' Hospital, Cam-

people wishing are van

bridge. Applications

for

membership of the Association are being received by Joanna Holmes at the Psychiatric Unit, Shrodells Wing, Vicarage Road, Watford, and a further meeting has provisionally been arranged at Claybury Hospital for mid-

'manipulative

as an

babyattempted solution

to a crisis situation. The most common factor in this group seems to be the presenting of the stolen as the women's own baby following a miscarriage. Although the report does not make any specific recommenda-

child

tions, the evidence from these case histories alone is a strong case for

looking again at the baby-snatchers.

way the

law

treats

Canvassing patients' baby-

many wild theories about the reasons for baby-snatching were

Although

circulating at the time of the Pauline Jones case, very little documented research was available. Now Dr. P. T. d'Orban a prison medical officer, has produced a report, based on interviews with 13 patients over a

4-year period The most interesting fact that emerged from his findings was that no single personality type is to be found among baby-snatchers?the people he interviewed fell into four categories. Two of his patients were of subnormal intelligence. Although both had a history of delinquency, they were placid by nature and had simply taken the babies to play with, doing so entirely on impulse and having no idea of the implications of their act. Three of

the

women

showed

schizophrenic tendencies and had received in-patient treatment for schizophrenia prior to the babysnatching episode. In the case of two women their baby-snatching was related to delusional episodes

patients. Psychiatric Hospitals Viewed by Their Patients published by the King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, 14 Palace Court, London W2 4HT. Price ?1.

Britain's hidden drinkers Statistics about the number of alcoholics in the community vary widely;

October.

The mind of the snatcher

long-stay patient.

Lack of doctor-patient communication was the other major difficulty,

said

tion. The last

there was not enough to do. In fact the short-stay patients were more critical than those who had stayed longer and boredom in the shortstay patient probably becomes

views

Although official organisations of all types are continually pronouncing on conditions in psychiatric hospitals, it isn't often that patients are consulted for their views. The King's Fund has now produced a report on a survey involving 2,148 patients in nine psychiatric hospitals. For those who might be sceptical of the validity of such a survey let it be said straightaway that of all the patients who completed the questionnaires only 2 per cent failed to give 'rational answers' and only 3 per cent did not complete the questionnaire before handing it in. (This is probably a higher 'success rate' than that for most of the national consumer surveys carried out in this

country.) Contrary to popular reports the majority of patients seem reasonably satisfied with their physical conditions; overcrowding was not a major complaint although 28 per cent of the patients complained about noise. Radio and television seemed to be the main bug-bear, annoying those who did not want to listen to either. Twenty-five per cent felt that there was insufficient privacy.

The other major complaint was about the lack of activities. Thirtysix per cent of the patients said

are obviously many people drinking problems who never seek advice and help and there is, furthermore, the difficulty of deciding at what point a person changes from being a 'heavy drinker' to an

there with

'alcoholic'. Now a survey carried out by a GP in one Manchester practice has revealed that in some urban areas there may be as many as 50 people with drinking problems out of a total of 3,000. Over a period of 12 months, cer-

tain adult patients attending surgery were asked to fill in a questionnaire. The 546

people

whose answers were

all considered to be in some way 'at risk'; this meant either certain mental or physical disorders, problems in the home or at work, people with criminal histories and those prone to accidents. Of the 546 patients involved in the survey, 15-30 were estimated to be heavy drinkers, 14-27 could be termed 'problem drinkers', and between 18 and 25 'alcohol addicts.' Dr Rodney Wilkins, in whose group practice the survey was carried out, feels that as the stigma atstudied

tached

were

to

alcoholism

fades

more

people will consult their doctors about drinking problems; hopefully, before it is too late, before jobs are lost, family life disrupted and marriages break up. 2#