Old Song Reworked

Today I have for you, dear readers a song; sung to the tune of Fiddler’s Dram – “Day Trip to Bangor (Didn’t We Have a Lovely Time)”

 

Didn’t we have a loverly time the day we went to Greylands?

A beautiful day

 

Police dragged me away

 

 

 

Thank God we hid the baby

You know

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They kept me three days

Safely locked doors always

 

 

 

 

Therapy started Monday maybe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singing along

 

But silence the song

As the loons danced round.

 

 

 

A doctor was there

 

He was really quite fair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I was there he couldn’t imagine

 

So home?

 

But his licence he’d lost

 

 

 

 

 

Cos that was the cost

 

Of travelling across the ocean

 

 

Told the nurse no pill

 

 

 

She’s really not ill

Like the loons dancin’ round!

 

Didn’t we have a loverly time the day we went to Greylands?

A beautiful day

Police dragged me away

Thank God we hid the baby

You know

They kept me three days

Safely locked doors always

 

 

Therapy started Monday maybe.

Singing along

But silence the song

As the loons danced round.

 

 

 

I got kind of sad

When an inmate went mad

And kicked in a glass window

You know

Nurses patted my head

‘Take a pill, go to bed’

Prowling patients made me say no

‘You’ll do as we say

Or never get away’

While the loons dance round.

 

Didn’t we have a loverly time the day we went to Greylands?

A beautiful day

Police dragged me away

Thank God we hid the baby

 

You know

They kept me three days

 

Safely locked doors always

Therapy started Monday maybe.

 

 

Singing along

But silence the song

 

As the loons danced round.

 

 

Monday afternoon

It was really quite soon

I finally saw the real doctor

He said

‘I could go right away

 

But complaints meant I’d stay

So did I really want to speak up.

And if I chose wrong

ECT the new song

 

And with the loons dance round.’

 

 

 

Didn’t we have a loverly time the day we went to Greylands?

A beautiful day

Police dragged me away

Thank God we hid the baby

You know

They kept me three days

Safely locked doors always

Therapy started Monday maybe.

Singing along

But silence the song

And the loons danced round.

 

 

 

 

Greylands is a psychiatric hospital in Western Australia.  I was committed by two nurses with my symptoms, Gavin’s and some just made up.  They tried to take 9 month old Cat but didn’t have the right chair so the police didn’t let them.  Although there were schedules for therapy on every wall there was no therapy as the funding had been cut.  The Closed Ward had a locked entrance and exit but no lockable doors within; toilets or bedrooms for example.  Male and female adults were kept together, you could be committed for 3 days without seeing a qualified doctor and that could extend; as in my case, when because of the weekend the doctor on Monday was over stretched.

Although my case was serious enough to see me committed I was not serious enough to get on the wait list for the original therapy I applied for.

As was explained to me:

‘What can you do; Funding cuts!’

And as was also explained to me by the consultant psychiatrist:

‘Obsessive concern with missing property and complaining about issues of justice would seem to indicate a deeper mental problem that would result in you being kept here.  Do you want to complain or do you want to go home?’

I like my home!

And ECT is; to those fortunate enough never to have been offered a chance to try it, Electric Convulsive Therapy.  Doesn’t it sound therapeutic?

Thankfully No ECT for me, I achieved this level of out of my mind with pure hard work and natural talent.