Sunshine and Shadow

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 180, 20 October 1927, Page 15

Sunshine and Shadow

“Cigarette Day” at Avondale Comforts for Mentai Patients

Clang! The closing of the big door, and the consequent rattle of the key ill its lock, was not precisely the most comfortable of noises. Clankety-clank! Again, the buncfi of keys rattled, ominously as the party of three, carrying cigarettes from the Red Cross Society, in conjunction with the Returned Soldiers' Association to soldier patients in Avondale Mental Hospital, passed through the next door. It was visitors’ day. Down the long, carefully polished corridors, a barred door at each end. relatives sat with their* loved ones. Grotesque figures in ill-fitting clothes. There were newspapers and books l'or some. Others were enjoying homemade delicacies, spread upon their knees on linen serviettes. The clothing of these patients, invariably several sizes too big, was in somewhat striking contrast, methought, to that of a dapper little figure who met us iu the garden. A bowler, correct as to size and angle—it must always be admitted that there are bowlers and BOWLERS —surmounted the neatly pressed serge of the professional man. A moustache, facetiously dubbed the tooth-brush variety, decorated his upper lip. There by the azalea bush, a flaunting, flaring, glowing mass of cerise, he chatted of men and things with quiet unconcern. Immediately, one mentally dubbed him a member of the medical staff. Actually, he was a patient. In twos and threes, blinking in the unaccustomed darkness after the glare of the courtyards outside, they wandered into the billiards-room. God’s afflicted children. Outside, barbedwire fantastically decorated the high wall. Inside, the windows were barred. The hand of a child furtively reaching through the barred window attracted my attention. “Gib me cigarette, Boss. . . Gib me jus’ one!” pleaded Tommy, whose slight, mis-shapen body was clad in striped blue denim. All the way from his Pacific home had he come to Avondale. The little islander’s brown eyes danced with glee as he pocketed a packet of cigarettes, and, In addition, an apple. “One more apple?” suggested Tommy. “One for my mate.”

TOMMY’S MATE Tommy’s mate, a lumbering, stricken youth of eighteen or so, from whose chin the down of adolescence had never been removed and whose brain had never been clear, always befogged, murmured, “Yes, Tommy’s mate. . . . But I have been dead for four years now.” Scuttling round the yard with a fag merrily protruding from his lips, happiness danced in the eyes of the little islander. He was supremely content. Silhouetted against the wall of the yard were a number of men of varying ages and in varying stages of mental decay. Several sat with their heads resting on their arms—unthinking, hopeless, benumbed. “Some of them sit there all day,” remarked a communicative warder. “They like the sunshine.” On the grass a small Maori child tentatively fingered a page from ail old periodical, twisting and turning it over and over again. Youth and age . . .?

Pressing around the table the patients received their tobacco and cigarettes. “Thank you kindly, sir,” mumbled an old man, who placed his finger with meticulous precision on the wooden surface. The finger then rested on the wall. “Thank you,” said he, the forefinger feeling for his brow. Again it touched the table. Once more it sought the wall. To those senseless people who insist on touching wood on any and every occasion may this be a lesson. “Care for a loan?” i The speaker’s air was solicitous in | the extreme. “Right,” he said. “Just wait one | moment.” He returned with a small square of : newspaper in his hand. . . ."Yes, it’s a ipilliou. Mf own cheque. No, not i the slightest inconvenience, old man. It will keep you going for the time | being, at. any rate!” The "financier” smiled reassuringly as he handed over the “money.” Walking across the hospital grounds j the party passed the women's quari ters. Here, as elsewhere, the uumi ber of Maori inmates, impressed one

strangely. Among the Maoris of old insanity was little known. Were these victims, one pondered, on an altar called civilisation —a period of transition with which they had been unable to cope? Some of the women sang. HYMN OF LOST SOULS Hauntingly, playing on the ear, meaningless, and devoid of melody, a hymn of lost souls wandering in the darkness. Down through a quiet lane where the oaks on either side almost burst with pride to show off their new spring coats; a lane that might, have been in Devon. Past the fields where patients, hoe in hand, toiled ’neath a sun which heralded the approach of an Auckland summer, and where prizestock, Ayrshires predominating, amiably chewed the cud. Out into the sunlight again and into another building. Here again the door was locked. . . . “Do you think, sir, that there will ever be another war in the air?” inquired a mildly spoken old man, as he pocketed a packet of chocolate. The only really remarkable thing about him were his filmy blue eyes. He munched for a moment or so, and then said, “Ah, I thought so.” In the corner a middle-aged man whose twitching countenance betrayed the turmoil of his suffering brain, began slowly to curse all creat’tm. Several of the patients attempted to calm him. Outside, as the door banged behind us, the friendly warder said: “Yes, poor fellow, he is in a bad way today. But he is not. as bad as the old man when he starts” “Which old man” It was the old man with the mild blue eyes who inquired so anxiously as to the developments of aerial warfare. ERIC RAMSDEN.