UP TOP – FROM LUNATIC ASYLUM TO COMMUNITY CARE
Hugh Purcell and Margaret Percy (Y Lolfa)
Up Top was what the Talgarth locals called this hospital, a colossal structure of a mental asylum. Over 100 years later and renowned historians Hugh Purcell and Margarte Percy dissect the history of the hospital. Leaving no stone unturned, this detailed and thorough account throws light on the goings-on of a mental asylum in 20th-century mid-Wales. From its humble beginnings, when health officials had truly good intentions of “fresh air, exercise and hot baths,” to the harrowing details of patients being reduced to vegetative states through leucotomies and ECT, and the new age medication that put an end to the innovative yet gruesome mental health treatments of the 1960s, in Up Top Purcell reveals a slightly more sinister side to an otherwise sleepy valleys town. (JD)
Price: £9.99 Info: www.ylolfa.com
