Every so often, you encounter a strange event. I use that term to designate some meeting or ritual that is inexplicable or at least discordant. One such encounter took place in 1997 when I was a member of a team working for the NHS Health Advisory Service. The HAS at that time produced a series of policy reports on mental health care for different groups of people. I made contributions to reports on child and adolescent psychiatry, people with eating disorders, elderly people with mental disorders, and people with psychiatric disorders associated with Huntington’s Disease, acquired brain injury and early-onset dementia. Each report was produced by a team assembled and led by Professor Richard Williams. The team would spend several days visiting various services which had a reputation for delivering a high quality of treatment and care for the particular group of patients who were the subjects of the report. For each visit, team-members would be based at the same hotel, visit services during the day and spend any spare time discussing what they had found. At the end of the stay, Richard Williams would hand round laptops and tell each member of the team to prepare a draft of a particular part of the report before they checked out.
This production method was very successful. The HAS reports were well-written and edited (lacking the sort of vacuous pomposity of so many official reports), and had a high quality of design and layout. They set an agenda for how services should develop that continues to shape many areas of mental health. This success inevitably made the HAS unpopular with the senior officials of the Department of Health, and it was closed down at the turn of the millennium.
For the report on psychiatric disorders associated with Huntington’s Disease, acquired brain injury and early-onset dementia, the team visited services in Leicester, Newcastle-on-Tyne and Liverpool. In Liverpool, we stayed in a grand city centre hotel and scheduled our evening meeting in a room in the basement. While we were gathering in the foyer, there was an event in the ballroom next door. It was a warm evening and the doors were open. So we could see the footballers and directors of Liverpool Football Club making speeches in tribute to their departing team-mate Jan Mølby. The chairman of the event seemed to be Derek Hatton, former deputy leader of the City Council, once a leading figure in the Marxist Militant Tendency, and by that time some sort of businessman.
Sharing the foyer with us were several girls of about 11 or 12 years of age, dressed in the short skirts and uniforms of majorettes. They looked bored, and had, it seems, waited for some time to go into the ballroom and parade and dance for the footballers. Our meeting started before we could see them perform, and when we had finished the ballroom was empty. I can not imagine how the majorettes fitted into the farewell party, or why footballers would find pleasure in seeing young girls march up and down in uniform. But many organisations have their rituals, particularly when people leave. Some arrange for a strippogram or some other form of humiliation for the departing member of their team.
There were neither majorettes nor strippograms when my work with the HAS came to an end. Nor indeed, did anything of note happen when I left any the various jobs that comprised my working life. Just a short speech of thanks (of varying degrees of sincerity) from my boss, a card signed by my colleagues, and a present. Perhaps I should have been a footballer.
This production method was very successful. The HAS reports were well-written and edited (lacking the sort of vacuous pomposity of so many official reports), and had a high quality of design and layout. They set an agenda for how services should develop that continues to shape many areas of mental health. This success inevitably made the HAS unpopular with the senior officials of the Department of Health, and it was closed down at the turn of the millennium.
For the report on psychiatric disorders associated with Huntington’s Disease, acquired brain injury and early-onset dementia, the team visited services in Leicester, Newcastle-on-Tyne and Liverpool. In Liverpool, we stayed in a grand city centre hotel and scheduled our evening meeting in a room in the basement. While we were gathering in the foyer, there was an event in the ballroom next door. It was a warm evening and the doors were open. So we could see the footballers and directors of Liverpool Football Club making speeches in tribute to their departing team-mate Jan Mølby. The chairman of the event seemed to be Derek Hatton, former deputy leader of the City Council, once a leading figure in the Marxist Militant Tendency, and by that time some sort of businessman.
Sharing the foyer with us were several girls of about 11 or 12 years of age, dressed in the short skirts and uniforms of majorettes. They looked bored, and had, it seems, waited for some time to go into the ballroom and parade and dance for the footballers. Our meeting started before we could see them perform, and when we had finished the ballroom was empty. I can not imagine how the majorettes fitted into the farewell party, or why footballers would find pleasure in seeing young girls march up and down in uniform. But many organisations have their rituals, particularly when people leave. Some arrange for a strippogram or some other form of humiliation for the departing member of their team.
There were neither majorettes nor strippograms when my work with the HAS came to an end. Nor indeed, did anything of note happen when I left any the various jobs that comprised my working life. Just a short speech of thanks (of varying degrees of sincerity) from my boss, a card signed by my colleagues, and a present. Perhaps I should have been a footballer.
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