Once our patients were moved to our
new unit River House at Bethlem Royal Hospital the site was
demolished. Demolition of the site took 18 months and included most
of the site other than the water tower and the church.
Many staff who still work at SLaM today trained and worked at
the hospital. We interviewed a number of them to mark the closure
in SLaM News the Trust's newsletter. This included an Interview
with Cliff Meredith who still works at the Trust.
"It was 14 February 1960 when I
first arrived at Cane Hill. There were eight inches of snow on the
top of our car that day. My dad had got the job as Chief Fire
Officer, with a house on the site and Cane Hill became my back
garden."
"In 1960 the land was still farmed
with a dairy and the hospital was nearly self-sufficient for food
and milk. I was 12 when I started working there. I used to buy the
Evening Standard and take it round to each ward, selling copies to
the patients."
"Our house backed onto the mortuary,
and I used to be woken up by the generators switching on and off
and remember feeling really scared. In 1977 I began my
electrician's apprenticeship together with my brother and we both
got jobs at the hospital. We provided an out-of-hours service. If
we had a Jewish body in the mortuary a small light had to be
switched on all the time. I can remember being called in the middle
of the night because it had blown. It was a priority that it was
changed, so I had to go in there in the middle of the night. I can
remember making my brother come with me. It's funny how it didn't
bother him but there was just something about it that I didn't
like."
"Many significant events in my life
happened at Cane Hill. I met my wife here, we had our engagement
party and a few years later my children were christened here. As
the site was gradually wound down I was asked to stay on until the
end. I can remember Christmas 1991, nearly all the services had
left and my brother had tragically died. Putting the Christmas
lights up at the front of the hospital was something we had done
together every year. It wasn't the same. All of a sudden the place
had a very strange feel about it. By the following year there were
four of us left, most of the beds were emptied out and sent to
eastern Europe and from then on it was our job to make the place
secure."
"People said they used to hear
sounds, thought the place was haunted, but if you think about the
number of pipes running under the place, a labyrinth of tunnels,
it's only natural that the building would make noise. The final day
came in March 1992, it was a Friday lunchtime, when we hung our
coats in our lockers, put the washing up on the side and locked up.
That was it, Cane Hill closed. The site was taken over by a
security management company; sadly it wasn't secure enough to keep
the numerous arsonists and vandals out."
"A bit later I had a call from Ray
Smith, manager of the SASS unit, offering me a job as a handy man.
I was back. In July 2005 I was honoured to attend the Queens Garden
Party, as recognition of my service to the NHS and celebrated 30
years service last November."
"I walk round the site from time to
time and think back to how it used to be. It's sad that it's ended
up like this. There are a lot of memories and ghosts here for me,
and as you can imagine I won't ever forget this place, it's a part
of me."
