MIND is not a safe place for child trafficking victims

A history of Mind

Note: The language and names used throughout this factsheet are those current at the time: for example, Mind was originally known as ‘The National Association for Mental Health (NAMH)’ or ‘the Association’; in 1972, the name ‘MIND’ was adopted; and then changed again in the nineties to ‘Mind’.  Also, some of the language used to describe mental distress, would not now be acceptable, but was current at the time in question

Origins

Mind was was established as The National Association for Mental Health in 1946 by the merging of three major mental health organisations. These were:

• the Central Association for Mental Welfare (established in 1913)  led by the pioneering Dame Evelyn Fox, this organisation worked through local groups of volunteers to help mentally handicapped people

• the National Council for Mental Hygiene (established in 1922), which had a strong educational bias and stressed the social causes of mental illness

• the Child Guidance Council (established in 1927), which set up the first child guidance clinics and launched training courses for their staff.

Between them these organisations had a fine tradition of working in the mental health sector. They were responsible for a series of important firsts, including the first homes for mentally handicapped people, the first school counsellors, and the first training for child psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, educational psychologists and teachers of mentally handicapped children.

The amalgamation was recommended by the Feversham Committee on voluntary mental health associations, which reported in 1939. The formal merger had to wait until the end of the Second World War, but the organisations worked together during the war through the Provisional Council for Mental Health. The Government asked the Council to take on the task of providing a national aftercare service for people discharged from military service on psychiatric grounds. Extended to civilians, it was the beginnings of community mental health care.

The beginnings of the National Association for Mental Health coincided with the development of the National Health Service and the welfare state. It was a period of rapid growth and change. Many voluntary organisations had to redefine their role, as many of the services they used to provide were taken over by the state. In psychiatry, new drug treatments and, perhaps more importantly, campaigning by enlightened professionals, meant that many long-stay patients could be discharged, and new patients needed much shorter periods of hospital care. The doors of the psychiatric hospitals began to be opened, and the public took an increasing interest in mental health issues.

Aims

The aims of the Association, as stated in its first annual report (1 April 1946-31 March 1947), were:

1. to foster a wider understanding throughout the community of the importance of mental health in all the relationships of everyday life, and to establish the principle that its foundations must be laid in early childhood if healthy mental and emotional development is to be achieved
2. to spread a knowledge of the ways by which mental health may be achieved and maintained
3. to provide and encourage the provision of courses, lectures and conferences for the general public, and for various groups of professional workers dealing with mental health problems
4. to encourage and advise on the setting up of training facilities for personnel in the mental health field, and to establish and maintain professional standards of work
5. to encourage and promote the establishment of treatment and training facilities for adults and children suffering from mental and nervous disorders or who are mentally subnormal or defective or who present behaviour problems
6. a) to supply information as to existing facilities for the prevention and treatment of mental and nervous disorders
   b) to give an advisory service on schools and homes for individual children and adults suffering from such disorders or from mental defect
   c) to provide and promote community care for persons handicapped by mental or nervous disorder, including epilepsy, or by mental subnormality or defect
7. to promote international contacts with mental health organisations throughout the world, to assist in the organisation of world mental health congresses, and to promote friendly international relations.

Structure

Membership

In 1947, membership of the Association cost one guinea per year (£1.05).

At this time, members of the council were all medical and associated professionals, representing organisations such as the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency, the Magistrates Association and the Royal Colleges of Nursing, Physicians and Surgeons (the Royal College of Psychiatrists did not yet exist).

Staff

During this period, the staff at the Queen Anne Street office was led by a medical director (until 1953) and a general secretary. The departments included a library and information service, residential services, social services, and training and education. Staff included psychiatric social workers and educational psychologists, and there was a panel of medical consultants who could be called on for their expertise.

The local associations

Although some local mental health groups existed before the NAMH was set up (Cambridgeshire Mental Welfare Association, for example, was formed in 1908), the development of the local associations movement really dates from the early 1960s. By that time it had become clear that the statutory services could not meet all the needs of people who were experiencing mental distress or had learning disabilities. As a result, the NAMH strengthened its campaign for improvements at a local level. The resulting publicity attracted many people to the mental health movement, and local associations affiliated to the NAMH sprang up throughout England and Wales.

Training and education

The Association ran courses for, among others, doctors, educational psychologists, psychiatric and social workers, health visitors and teachers.

At this time, the NAMH worked with people with learning disabilities, as well as those with mental health problems. Its courses for teachers of children with learning disabilities were for some years the only courses available. These training courses were gradually phased out during 1970 to 1971, following the hand over of responsibility for the education of mentally handicapped children to the Department for Education from the Department of Health. Colleges of further education gradually adopted their own teacher training courses.

Services

In 1946, the NAMH ran (in the language of the time) 11 agricultural hostels for mentally handicapped men, two homes for mentally defective children, two holiday homes for mental defectives and mental hospital patients, and one convalescent home for epileptics. The following year, a second convalescent home, an approved school, a home for pre-delinquent children, and a home for old people, were added.

Other than Feversham, a school for children with behaviour problems, which opened in September 1969 and closed in 1997, the other institutions that the NAMH was responsible for had all closed or been taken over by other bodies by 1983.

Campaigning – towards community care

By the late fifties, the forthcoming Mental Health Bill, which eventually became law in 1959, was the focus of the Association’s campaigns. In 1958, the Association’s quarterly journal Mental health commissioned articles on ‘The public and the Mental Health Bill’, ‘The Mental Health Bill and the psychopath’, ‘The new Bill and the mental deficiency services’ and ‘The new look in the care of the mentally ill’.

The proposed Mental Health Bill aimed at reorientating mental health services away from institutional care, towards care in the community. The NAMH pledged its support for the Bill, while voicing reservations. There was concern at the lack of provision for adequate mandatory community services and at the failure to address the training of qualified staff. The Association commented on the Bill at the time: “it will not give us better buildings for our mental hospitals, it will not in itself give us the extensive research for which the services crave, and it will do nothing to provide trained staff...(and) it is little more than a half-hearted attempt at promoting the preventive services where the future of this whole subject lies”.

The community care approach was boosted by a remarkable speech made at the Association’s annual conference in March 1961 by the then Minister of Health, Enoch Powell. In this he announced proposals to close the large psychiatric hospitals. Edith Morgan (then the local associations officer) commented later in a BBC radio interview: “We all sat up, looked at each other and wondered what had happened, because we’d been struggling for years to get the idea of community care and the eventual closure of mental hospitals on the map and here it was offered to us on a plate”. 

But there was still a recognition within the Association that adequate community care provision was still a long way off. The annual report of 1963 to 1964 says, “…the concept of community care is now no longer new and is generally accepted. But, as we anticipated, it has become clear that local authority provisions are inevitably lagging behind the new demands created”.

Including users

By the late sixties, the Association began to become more of a voice for patients. An article in Hospital world in 1969 expressed the view that the NAMH had: “developed from a polite, reassuring body, uttering words of comfort to all those involved with mental health, to an organisation which is now firmly on the side of the patient and not at all scared of speaking its mind when the need arises”.

The Association’s encounter with the Church of Scientology may have contributed to this shift in emphasis. In 1969, the Scientologists branded orthodox psychiatry as a system of murder, sexual perversion and monstrous cruelty, and the NAMH as a criminally motivated ‘psychiatric front group’. In October 1969, a number of Scientologists applied for membership of the Association, and it became apparent that they were trying to take over. Their membership was withdrawn and, after a court case, the matter was resolved in the Association’s favour. Mary Applebey, who was director from 1951 to 1974, said, perhaps rather generously, in a speech for Mind’s 30^th birthday in November 1976, “Scientology represented in an exaggerated form one aspect of disillusionment with the official mental health line”.

The MIND campaign

In 1971, its 25th anniversary, the Association launched the MIND campaign to clarify its policies and aims, and to attract much-needed funds, under the leadership of the new campaign director, David Ennals. It was the first time that the Association had launched a major public education and fundraising campaign. The MIND campaign had seven main objectives:

1. to create concern for mental health and to challenge apathy and neglect
2. to overcome ignorance of the origins of mental disorder and its treatment
3. to improve services for the mentally disordered in hospital and community
4. to support the relatives of the mentally disordered who may need as much help as the patients
5. to mobilise voluntary help – in psychiatric hospitals, hostels, sheltered homes, in social activities for ex-patients, children’s playgroups and in support of patients’ relatives
6. to raise funds for the work of the National Association for Mental Health and its local associations – to provide more schools for maladjusted children; more hostels, ‘half-way houses’; day centres, industrial training units and other facilities to aid recovery or retraining
7. to sponsor research directly and through the mental health research fund.

The campaign was so successful that in 1972 the NAMH adopted the new name ‘MIND’. The logo of the newly renamed organisation was a dove with the name ‘MIND’ in capitals.

At the end of the MIND campaign David Ennals left the organisation to return to Parliament, and Mary Applebey also left after 22 years as director, feeling that MIND should be free to move in a new direction. The new director, Tony Smythe, brought experience in the field of human rights. One new initiative was the setting up of an executive committee, which, “added a degree of immediacy to the running of the organisation”, and enabled staff at all levels to take on more responsibility and participate in the policy-making of MIND. This was probably the start of a process that eventually led to the involvement of service users in management and policy decisions. Another change at this time was the move to new premises in Harley Street.

The change from NAMH to MIND was much more than just a change of name: it was a complete change of emphasis. During 1971 to 1972, the organisation’s objectives were rewritten to stress MIND’s function as a lobbying group, and for the first time support for the patient’s family became a specific aim. In 1974, three strategies were given priority:

• MIND was to establish more regional offices in order to cover every part of England and Wales, and more support was to be given to local MIND associations
• three of MIND’s residential establishments were to be transferred to other agencies – in future projects were to be of a “pioneering, innovative, and experimental nature”
• the advisory service, which was dealing with an increasing number of legal and welfare rights queries, was to be expanded.

Following this last decision, the legal and welfare rights service began in 1975 with the appointment of MIND’s first legal officer, Larry Gostin, who wrote A human condition (1959) – MIND’s proposals for reforming the Mental Health Act. An article in Social work today said that this book became a basis for the Mental Health Act Commission Code of Practice: “…the 1983 Mental Health Act owes much to his tenacious battles for patients’ rights and the need for advocacy”. In 1979, the legal and welfare rights service became a fully-fledged legal department and began to take test cases.

Mind in recent years

Campaigns

The original MIND campaign lasted from 1971 to 1973, and was followed by many others.

• 1976 Home from Hospital – highlighting the housing problems faced by people with mental health problems
• 1977 Rehabilitation – demanding more and better services, and employment opportunities
• 1979 Alert! – highlighting the needs of elderly people who are mentally infirm
• 1981 MIND in Action
• 1983 to 1987 Tranquillisers – aimed at raising public awareness of the problems associated with benzodiazepine drugs (such as Valium) and the difficulties people experience coming off them
• 1983 Manifesto for a New Mental Health Service – Common Concern – with the goal of developing a comprehensive local mental health service
• 1986 A Better Life – designed to “create a climate of outrage about the lack of resources for the development of a local network of care”
• 1988 People First
• 1992 Stress on Women – to raise awareness of sexual harassment on psychiatric wards, the problems of mixed wards, and issues for mothers
• 1994 Breakthrough! Community Care – promoting a user-centred holistic approach to community care
• 1997 Respect – focusing on the discrimination faced by people with mental health problems
• 2002 My Choice – aiming to widen the choice of treatment for people with mental health needs
• 2003 Benefits – drawing attention to the difficulties mental health service users face in claiming social security benefits
• 2004 Ward Watch – campaigning for better conditions in hospitals.
• 2005 Access all ages – for better mental health services for older people
• 2006 Building solutions – about mental health and the built environment, including both hospital and work settings
• 2007 Ecotherapy – the green agenda for mental health

Many of these campaigns have led to significant breakthroughs, in prescribing practice, government policy, and in encouraging new understandings of mental health and the issues faced by service users. Successes have included the Home from Hospital campaign, the Yellow Card Scheme (part of the Breakthrough! Community Care campaign) and the Mind Inquiry – Creating Accepting Communities (part of Respect).

Home from Hospital

The 1976 Home from Hospital campaign led to increased information about existing housing projects and provided the stimulus for many new ones; doubling the accommodation available in the community. By November 1976, the local MIND associations had provided an extra 130 group home places, to add to the 800 already in existence.

Other housing schemes involved the Housing Corporation and housing associations, and adult fostering. A joint project with Shelter investigated the possible use of short-life property for people leaving hospital. MIND was heavily involved in the preparation of two Granada television programmes, as a result of which many offers of homes were received from the public.

Yellow Card Scheme

Mind’s Yellow Card Scheme was set up as part of the Breakthrough! campaign. The idea was to give users of psychiatric services an opportunity to report on the side effects of their medication. The card was based on the official yellow cards doctors use to report on side effects of drugs to the then Medicines Control Agency (MCA), but also asked about how much information people received at the time their drugs were prescribed, the help they received from their doctors, and the efficacy of their drug treatment.  Copies of the returned cards were sent, at their request, to the MCA.

A first report was produced in 1996, and a further report in 1998. The scheme was relaunched in 2000, with the specific aim of seeking more information on prescribing practice for people from Black and minority ethnic communities, and a report was published in 2001.

Mind has continued to press for mental health service users to be able to report side effects of drugs directly to the Medicines Control Agency. In 2003, following reports of problems with the antidepressant drug paroxetine (Seroxat), and two television programmes highlighting the nature and extent of the problems, Mind’s Chief Executive, Richard Brook, was invited to be on a committee reviewing the use of SSRI antidepressants. In 2004, he resigned from the committee, saying that the (by now renamed) Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency had deceived the public by not revealing all that was known about these drugs and allowing them to be prescribed in a dangerous manner, with incomplete information. In 2005, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency launched a trial scheme for users of medicines to report adverse effects directly, and this scheme was made permanent in 2007.

Mind Inquiry – Creating Accepting Communities

This inquiry into the stigma and discrimination experienced by people with mental health problems, and their relatives and friends, was set up as part of the Respectcampaign. It sought to consider:

• the experiences of people with mental health problems, in particular the extent to which they are discriminated against and the extent to which they are socially excluded by society
• what measures are needed to protect those with mental illness against discrimination and prejudice
• initiatives that have taken place within the mental health and other fields that have demonstrated effectiveness in overcoming discrimination and social exclusion
• whether a code of practice could be drawn up from those successful initiatives in order to influence government policy and practice.

The inquiry panel was chaired by Lincoln Crawford and included Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Darcus Howe, Denise Platt, Ivan Massow, David Crepaz-Keay, and Baroness Pola Uddin. The inquiry report, Creating accepting communities: report of the Mind inquiry into social exclusion by Sara Dunn, was published in 1999.

Phase two of Mind’s Creating Accepting Communities work was the Social Inclusion Initiative, which had the aim of developing measurable criteria to create models of mentally healthy living. The Initiative looked at the components that help to improve the quality of life for people with enduring mental health problems. These included issues of race/culture/diversity, arts and sport, employment, education and training, and housing and neighbourhood. The models were developed in consultation with other sectors, including local authorities, education, employment and public health bodies. The work began with a pilot project, developed in Merton during 2000. This project centred around a cyber café, to promote access to the Internet and develop mental health service users’ computer skills.

Structure and networks

Regional offices

The MIND office in Wales opened in 1972 and was renamed Mind Cymru in 1997. In 1976, the Northern regional office opened, and by 1979 there were MIND offices in Trent, Yorkshire, and the North West. In 1982, West Midlands MIND opened and the Trent and Yorkshire offices combined. South East MIND opened in 1984, starting off in Harley Street and then moving to City Road. In 1986, South West MIND opened; it was renamed South and West Mind in 1999. In 2000, the regional offices were closed down, leaving the two national offices in England and Wales.

The local Mind associations

There are now about 160 local Mind associations affiliated to Mind. Local associations have grown in the scope of their activities, as well as in their numbers. Today, they run housing schemes, day centres, social clubs, and many other projects for users and carers. Each year the work of the local associations is acknowledged by the Mind Good Practice Awards.

In 1999, Mind’s internal structure was changed, and a local Mind support team was set up to improve liaison between the national organisation and the local associations.

Mind Link

The Mind Consumer Network was set up in 1987 to inform and advise Mind on the experiences, views and opinions of service users, and to have a direct route into policy development. The following year, the Network was renamed ‘MINDLINK’ and had doubled its membership. It formed a consumer advisory panel with members from the regions, reporting to the council of management. By 1993, there were over 1,000 members, and Mind Link was becoming increasingly influential, being asked to write training manuals on user empowerment and to help with the work of the Mental Health Task Force. Membership continues to grow, and there is now a list of user/trainers available to provide training on mental health issues.

Rural Minds

Rural Minds was started in 1997, with the aim of combating the disadvantages experienced by people with mental health problems who live in rural areas in England. A review found that people in mental distress in rural areas face stigma, lack support structures and have limited access to information about what services are available. The review also found that women and people from Black and Minority Ethnic communities are more at risk of mental health problems.

Rural Minds set up a national resource centre for rural mental health, with a library of practical resources and reference materials. Information and training were offered to volunteers and professionals, and a network of individuals, statutory and voluntary organisations in rural communities is being developed, influencing purchasers and providers of mental health services by working with user networks.

Connecting Minds, a teleconferencing scheme to enable people in remote areas to hold travel-free meetings, was started in 2001. The programme started in Herefordshire, Shropshire and Northumberland, and included partner organisations.

Since April 2004, Rural Minds’ work has been integrated into Mind’s core activities, so that rural issues will be evident in all areas of its work.

Diverse Minds

Diverse Minds – set up in 1997 and still running - is an initiative aiming to help make Mind’s policy and practice more responsive to Black and Minority Ethnic communities. Its functions are to:

• be integrated into Mind and its policies and campaigns
• act as an information and contact network for Diverse Minds members and related organisations
• put forward suggestions for Mind’s future work
• have one co-opted place, with voting rights, on Mind’s Council of Management
• participate in Mind through regional forums in the (then) six English Mind regions and Wales
• promote, encourage and support training on race and cultural awareness in Wales and the English regions
• provide/promote training for Black and minority ethnic workers, carers and service users/survivors.

Projects

Changing Minds (1998-2000)

Changing Minds developed from the Avon Measure, a user-centred approach for assessing needs, created by South West Mind in partnership with representatives of users, survivors, the voluntary sector and professionals from Avon Health and Bristol Social Services. The Measure is an assessment document filled in and owned by the user, offering a chance to describe the help they would like. This covers 25 topics, including housing, money management and mood swings.

Changing Minds’ objectives are to:

• strengthen and enhance the ability of statutory, independent and voluntary agencies a) to deliver service user-centred needs assessment in their own services, and b) to develop services that more fully reflect the needs and expectations of mental health service users
• empower service users, their advocates and befrienders to achieve responsive and relevant services from all community agencies.

Training, information and publications

Training

While training for teachers was phased out in the early 1970s, Mind’s training courses have also developed in response to changing circumstances and now include legal training courses, mental health awareness, working with postnatal depression, and seminars on specific subjects, such as psychiatric drugs and help for those who hear voices.

Information

The information service has gradually developed over the years, answering calls from members of the public, mental health professionals and mental health service users. Information is also provided by letter, and latterly by email. In 2003, the information service was outsourced to Broadcasting Support Services (BSS) in Manchester, with backup from Mind head office, where a specialist library is maintained.

Publications

In the early days of the Association, its publications mainly related to childcare. Mind has been innovative in developing materials for school children on mental health. In the late 1970s, several friezes were published, designed to create an opportunity for teachers to talk about mental health in the classroom. The bird and the word, materials for mental health education in secondary schools, was first produced in 1998.

The Association’s original quarterly magazine was Mental health, which cost 5/- per year, or 2/6 for members. Openmind is now Mind’s bi-monthly magazine. Designed for people who use mental health services and the people who provide them, it has a readership of 11,000.

The list of materials produced by Mind has gradually expanded over the years, and now includes many award-winning booklets on many different subjects related to mental distress. Mind also runs the UK’s only specialist mental health mail order service, selling a wide range of publishers’ titles.

During 2003, Mind adopted a new logo and brand for all its publications.

National awards

Mind runs a series of national awards, designed in part to highlight good practice and to gain publicity for mental health issues.

Mind Book of the Year/Allen Lane Award

The Mind Book of the Year Award was started in 1981 by MIND and the National Book League, in memory of Allen Lane. The prize is awarded to a book, either fiction or non-fiction, published during the past year, which deals with the experience of emotional distress and fosters a deeper understanding of mental health. In 2000 and 2001 it was funded by the Royal Literary Society, and in 2002 by Abbey National. In 2007 it was sponsored by BT.

1982   The art of starvation, Sheila Macleod

1983   Annie’s coming out, Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald

1984   Depression: the way out of your prison, Dorothy Rowe

1985   Art as healing, Edward Adamson

1986   A woman in custody, Audrey Peckham

1987   Talking to a stranger: a guide to therapy, Lindsay Knight

1988   The minotaur hunt, Miriam Hastings

1989   Out of mind, J Bernlef

1990   No winner

1991   The trick is to keep breathing, Janice Galloway

1992      The catch of hands, Benedicta Leigh

1993      50 years in the system, Jimmy Laing

1994   Scar tissue, Michael Ignatieff

1995   Mustn’t grumble, Ed. Lois Keith

1996   Phone at nine just to say you’re alive, Linda Hart

1997   Push: the life of Precious Jones, Sapphire

1998   Skating to Antarctica, Jenny Diski

1999   Remind me who I am, again, Linda Grant

2000   Making us crazy, Herb Kutchins and Stuart A. Kirk

2001   My name is Gabriel, Kate Rankin

2002   The noonday demon: an anatomy of depression, Andrew Solomon

2003   Will the circle be unbroken: reflections on death and dignity ,Studs Terkel

2004   Giving up the ghost, Hilary Mantel
2005   The cruel mother, Siân Busby

2006   Borrowed body Valerie Mason-John
2007  Living with mother Michèle Hanson

2008  The Father I had Martin Townsend

2009  The Boy with the topknot  Sathnam Sangheera

2010  Sectioned: a life interrupted  John O’Donoghue

2011 Diary drawings: mental illness and me Bobby Baker

Mind Journalist of the Year Award

1995 Cal McCrystal

1996 David Brindle, The Guardian

1997 Euan McGrory, The Northern Echo

1998 The Big Issue

1999 Roger Dobson, freelance

2000 Peter Tory, The Express

2001 Adam James, freelance

2002 Sarah Boseley, The Guardian

2003 Sophie Goodchild, Independent on Sunday

2004 Simon Garfield, freelance

2005 Joanna Kowalski, Nottingham Evening Post

2006 Emma Forrest, Health Service Journal

2007 Derek Draper and Dr Cecilia d'Felice, Psychologies magazine

Student journalist of the year

2007 Helen Thompson, University of Cardiff newspaper, Gair Rhydd

Bigot of the Year Award

1995 Jaci Elliot

1996 Lenny Lottery, The Sun

1997 Martin Sharpe, The Sun

1998 Andrew Mosby, Time Out

1999 Roger Todd, Sunday Express

2000 Paul Gilfeather, The Sun

2001 David Mellor, People

2002 Nigel Nelson, The Sunday People

2003 David Mellor, The Sunday People

Mind Champion

In 2004, the Bigot of the Year Award was discontinued, and in its place a Mind Champion Award was started. Readers of Openmind were invited to nominate the person who, in their view, made the most important contribution to challenging discrimination against people with mental health problems during the past year.

2004 Frank Bruno
2005 Joanna Bennett and BBC Radio 4’s The Archers
2006 Peter Campbell (Mind Diamond Champion), mental health system survivor, activist and writer.
2007 Stephen Fry
2008 Liz Miller
2009 Alastair Campbel
2010 Rachel Perkins

This factsheet was written by Katherine Darton, and updated 2012.

Appendix – officers 

Patrons

1946 HRH Princess Marina, the Duchess of Kent

1968 HRH Princess Alexandra, Lady Ogilvie

Presidents

1946 the Rt Hon R A Butler (d.1982)

1990 Lord Ennals (until his death in 1995)      

2000 Lord Bragg (Melvyn Bragg)

2011 Stephen Fry

Chairs

1946 the Rt Hon the Earl of Feversham (until his death in 1963)

1963 Lord Balniel MP

1969 Christopher Mayhew MP

1978 Lady Bingley

1984 Lord Ennals

1989 Timothy F Durkin

1994 David Peryer

2001 David Henry

2012 Ryan  Campbell

Vice Chairs

1946 Lady Norman

1962 Lady Adrian

1966 vacancy

1967 Dr David Clark

1975 Charles Clark

        Dr Douglas Bennett (exact date not known)

1984 Dr Hugh Freeman

1988 Mike Lawson

1994 Judith Morgan-Freer

1995 Lisa Haywood      

2006 Alison Cowan and Keith Cornford

2012 Alison Cowan and Lesley Dixon

Treasurers

1946 Sir Otto Niemeyer

1964 RG Raw

1967 JQ Hollom

1975 Charles Clark

1978 Michael Edwardes-Evans

1987 Rev Jim Moore

1996 Roy Daniels

2003 John Tomlinson          

2006 Maureen Dickson

2011 Mike Starkie

Directors/chief executives

1946 Miss M C Owen (general secretary; there was also a medical director)

1951 Mary Applebey

1974 Tony Smythe

1982 Christopher Heginbotham

1989 Ros Hepplewhite

1992 Judi Clements

2001 Richard Brook

2006 Paul Farmer

Mind's senior management team

The Senior Management Team have overall corporate responsibility for Mind’s strategy, leadership, management and organisation performance.  The team focus at a strategic level on the business of Mind and on the delivery of its activities.

• Paul Farmer CBE - CEO
• Paul Ward - Chief Operating Officer
• Andrew Vale - Managing Director of Mind Retail
• Kathleen Miles - Director of Fundrasing
• Karen Mellanby - Director of Networks and Communities
• Sara Moseley - Director of Mind Cymru
• Sophie Corlett - Director of External Realtions
• Sue Baker - Director of Time to Change

Paul Farmer CBE - Chief Executive Officer 

Paul Farmer has been Chief Executive of Mind, the leading mental health charity working in England and Wales since May 2006.

He is Chair of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO), the leading voice of the UK’s charity and social enterprise sector. Paul is also a trustee at Lloyds Bank Foundation which invests in charities supporting people to break out of disadvantage at critical points in their lives.

Paul is Chair of the NHS England Mental Health Taskforce - bringing together health and care leaders and experts in the field, including people using services, to lead a programme of work to create a mental health Five Year Forward View for the NHS in England.

Paul has an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of East London, is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College Oxford and The Royal College of Psychiatrists, and was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours 2016.

Paul Ward - Chief Operating Officer

Paul has nearly thirty years’ experience in the mental health field having managed mental health services and commissioned mental health services. He has served on a number of government working groups in the mental health field, and early in his career lead a major mental health hospital re-provision programme.

More recently Paul has joined the board on a mental health NHS foundation trust in a non-executive director capacity. He has also been a non- executive director on a strategic health authority and has held senior management positions in both the NHS and charity sectors.

Paul joined Mind from Terrence Higgins Trust, where he had been Deputy Chief Executive since 2000 and Acting Chief Executive. He brings with him a wealth of experience in charity sector leadership, as well as around community mental health strategy and service provision planning.

Andrew Vale - Managing Director of Mind Retail

Andrew is responsible for the strategic direction of the 160 Mind shops and for developing new income streams through other trading platforms. Mind Retail is maximising the brand opportunities offered by its high street presence and is planning an extensive programme of new shop openings and refurbishments.

Andrew has a retail background which blends commercial with the charity sector, having worked for Marks and Spencer, Birthdays, British Heart Foundation and Age Concern England (latterly as Head of Retail at the merged charity Age UK).

Andrew plays a prominent part in the Charity Retail Association including time spent as a board member.

Kathleen Miles - Director of Fundraising

Kathleen Miles has been Director of Fundraising at Mind since 2007. Kathleen is responsible for the direction, development and delivery of both Mind’s fundraising and Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing hub. Together the team of c.140 staff raise c.£30m pa from a range of sources, and deliver a range of successful Workplace Wellbeing initiatives, including Mind’s Training and Consultancy and our Workplace Wellbeing Index.

Mind’s Workplace Wellbeing hub also delivers our Time to Change employers work, along with our partner colleagues at Rethink Mental Illness, and a programme to support the needs of Blue light emergency service workers. The team have been heavily involved in supporting our work following the Farmer/Stevenson Thriving at Work report, launched last October.

Kathleen has a voluntary sector background, having worked in a range of organisations over the past 26 years, both in service development and delivery and in fundraising. Amongst her previous roles she has worked at NSPCC and Oxford University. She also holds a MSc in Voluntary Sector Organisation from the LSE.

Karen Mellanby - Director of Networks and Communities

Karen is Director of Networks and Communities at Mind. She is responsible for the direction, management and development of the Networks and Communities Department which undertakes work with the national affiliated local Minds network and supports leadership and social participation in communities. This includes overseeing a range of programmes across the network that promote quality in local mental health service development and delivery; including a quality mark; grants programmes; peer learning and knowledge sharing; innovation and business development; equality improvement and community action.

Prior to joining Mind in 2013, Karen worked at Locality as Director of Programmes, overseeing a range of high profile national programmes to support effective community led development and enterprise.  Before that she was Deputy Chief Executive at Action for Advocacy, where she was actively involved in promoting and supporting the provision of independent advocacy for users of health and social care services. She holds an MA in Applied Social Studies and Diploma's in Social Work and Management, and with over 20 years experience working in the voluntary sector, has direct experience of providing services and support for older and disabled people and users of mental health services.

Sara Moseley - Director of Mind Cymru

Sara yw Cyfarwyddwr Mind Cymru ac mae’n un o Gyfarwyddwyr Gweithredol Mind hefyd.  Mae’n Cadeirio Cynghrair Iechyd Meddwl Cymru a’r ymgyrch wrth-stigma, Amser i Newid Cymru.  Mae’n ymddiriedolwr ac yn Gyfarwyddwr gyda Chyngor Gweithredu Gwirfoddol Cymru (WCVA) ac mae’n Aelod Annibynnol o Fwrdd Iechyd Prifysgol Caerdydd a’r Fro.

Mae gan Sara gefndir ym maes newyddiaduraeth, cyfathrebu ac ymgysylltu â’r cyhoedd a hithau wedi bod yn Gyfarwyddwr Cyfathrebu ar gyfer Llywodraeth Cymru, ar gyfer Ymddiriedolaeth Iechyd fawr yn Llundain ac ar gyfer Centrepoint, yr elusen digartrefedd i bobl ifanc.  Mae’n frwd iawn ynghylch galluogi lleisiau a phrofiadau pobl i gael eu clywed a’u rhannu ac ynghylch gwella mynediad at wasanaethau a chymorth effeithiol a thosturiol. 

Mae gan Sara ferch 19 oed a mab 17 oed sy’n fyddar, mewn addysg brif ffrwd ac sydd newydd gael mewnblaniad yn y cochlea.

Mae hi’n siarad Cymraeg yn rhugl ac yn dod o Aberystwyth yn wreiddiol.

Sara is Director of Mind Cymru and an Executive Director of Mind. She Chairs the Wales Alliance for Mental Health, and the anti-stigma campaign, Time to Change Wales. She is a trustee and Director of WCVA (Welsh Council for Voluntary Action) and an Independent Member of Cardiff and Vale UHB.

Sara has a background in journalism, communication and public engagement having been Director of Communications for the Welsh Government as well as a large London Health Trust and the young people’s homelessness charity, Centrepoint. She is passionate about enabling people’s voices and experiences to be heard and shared and about improving access to compassionate and effective services and support.

Sara has a 19 year old daughter and 17 year old son who is deaf, in mainstream education and has recently received a cochlear implant.

She is a fluent Welsh speaker and comes originally from Aberystwyth.

Sophie Corlett - Director of External Relations

Sophie Corlett is Director of External Relations at Mind. She has been at Mind since 2002 and is responsible for Mind's policy and campaigning, media, communications, legal and information services. Sophie is also responsible for the delivery of the Crisis Care Concordat project at Mind, a project funded by NHS England to support local areas across England to improve their response to people in mental health crisis.

Amongst other things, Sophie is on the Management Board of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health which develops guidance on care and treatment for people with mental health problems and is on the trustee board for the Centre for Mental Health. She is a regular spokesperson for Mind in the media.

Sue Baker - Director Time to Change

Sue leads Time to Change, England’s biggest ever programme to end mental health stigma and discrimination. She is responsible for leading and delivering this exciting social movement in England. 

Time to Change is an ambitious £20 million programme (funded by the Department of Health and Comic Relief) being delivered by leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness.

Sue previously worked for the leading mental health charity in New Zealand setting up marketing, campaigns and fundraising programmes and supporting the world’s largest campaign to address the discrimination experienced by people with mental health problems, using human rights and mental health promotion models.  She also worked for nine years as Head of Media at Mind, in particular carrying out the UK’s first survey of the extent and impact of discrimination (in the mid 90s). 

She has also been a Director of a leading substance misuse charity where she was responsible for marketing treatment services, delivering business growth and developing marketing and fundraising.

Today's torture session at Newcastle Under Lyme Justice Centre

I'm feeling a bit better, I've had a bit of a sleep. I'm going to use my blog as a personal record of the torture and abuse sessions,for the upcoming Nuremberg style trials which will be happening  once this horrific government is booted out. 

I AM INSERTING THIS, I DON'T USUALLY EDIT MY BLOG POSTS BORN IN THIS CASE I THINK I NEED TO, AS IT LOOKS LIKE THE SUPPOSEDLY INDEPENDENT DWP TRIBUNALS ARE ACTUALLY BEING CONDUCTED BY THE DWP!!! AND THAT MAY WELL EXPLAIN WHY I WAS TREATED LIKE THIS. I'M ALSO AWARE THEY ARE SPYING ON ME ONLINE, WHICH IS ALSO ILLEGAL.

My son came with me. I was expecting to win my tribunal,  I just assumed I would get a humane judge who would take one look at the horrific saga of abuse I've been subjected to this past 50 years and decide in my favour. Sadly, it wasn't to be.  The DWP didn't turn up,  and the judge decided I didn't have enough medical evidence,  I actually had a big heavy bag with me full of medical evidence of mental health issues caused by being trafficked as a child.  She adjourned the case and I just fell apart,  it took all my willpower to get into that court in the first place.  I couldn't stop crying and had a massive meltdown,  tried to leave the room, my legs had gone to jelly with the trauma,  and my head was spinning round and round.  It was horrific.  I ended up in a heap on the floor.  I thought I was going to die, my heart was absolutely pounding. I passed out.

My son has told me tonight that while this was happening the judge was threatening me to call security, and berating me that I could talk so why couldn't I move my legs. I've been crying about that because I would have thought, was led to believe the tribunal judges are more compassionate.

Altogether, I was on the floor for 2 hours. Some people came in,  mental health people. They were very kind but I don't think they really knew what to do.

I think one of these days someone is actually going to die in that court. Someone is going to have a heart attack and they'll find them cold two hours later. I think it's dangerous to do that to people. But I don't suppose they care.

Anyway, that's what happened today.  It's absolutely horrific that vulnerable people are being treated in such a cruel and callous way.  I was suicidal today, I really felt, was made to feel like I couldn't go on.  And I've got to go in for another torture session in a few weeks time.  I'm absolutely dreading it,  but at the same time I'm almost glad they're treating me like this, because I'm here today,  blogging about it.  I felt that Jesus had abandoned me today, no He hasnt, He is using me,  it's His cross I am carrying, because I had a message on my blog from another child abuse victim, saying I had probably saved his life by blogging my pain.

I'm not going to be able to stop this abusive shit, all I can do is try to endure it, and write about it. There will be trials soon, and I am not going to want to miss being able to give evidence and see the cruel bastards who have made my life a living hell for so long being taken down into the cells.  Like George Harrison said, All things will pass.

The Crisis team

I know you read my blog, I'm not thick! So I'll say this to you here rather than tomorrow.

You can tell that dickhead  Michael paedo Brown to fuck right off into the the next universe and once there keep on fucking off until he reaches his homeland of hell. I expect his trousers are brown in anticipation of the Nuremberg style trials that are coming soon,  he's going to be doing time soon once that gets going, once this horrific government is finally booted out.

As for the two ladies coming tomorrow, I will be polite, I always am, but they won't be getting a cup of tea or a biscuit, I do not make tea or serve biscuits to backstabbers pretending to "help" me and "be my friend", thought I'd best make that perfectly clear so as not to cause offence when I make myself a cuppa while they're here and I don't offer them one.  Unless they want to make do with water I suggest you equip them both with a thermos flask,  they could be round my house for some considerable time as I have a lot of things to tell them about the bloody disgusting way I've been treated for years.

Today's court torture sessionn

I am trying to come to terms with what happened today in court, my PIP tribunal. It's been adjourned. I can't stop crying, I feel like my heart has been stabbed a billion times. I collapsed in court and have just been crying and crying. There were two mental health people, they were kind and tried to help me.  I don't think they really knew what to do, they were very kind but I think they realised there isn't anyone to help me.  They did try though.  They said someone from crisis mental health services would contact me. Well they haven't, I told them they wouldn't, I told them Im on the murder list, the mental health services are run by Stafford police and they want me dead. So there's no help for me from there, they hate my guts. I am tempted to think even the Lord has abandoned me, but that can't be true, He wouldnt, but I do not know why I'm having to go though this absolute hell. I know I'm not the only one. I am in another agony, it's like I've been repeatedly stabbed through the heart.

The bastards from the DWP didn't even show up they are the  shittiest dirtydest evil scumbag spiteful cowards  they couldn't even face me. It's hard to write this as some evil fucker is fucking about with my internet connection. MIPaedo.

I'm very very low. Id welcome some love, some support. I know I've got friends, others who have been kicked to pieces by the same evil scumbags. My fucking evil Scum ex family can all go to hell though. I know they read my blog, I expect they're laughing their fucking nuts off about me being once again tortured. All I can say is, your days will come, it will be your turn one day.  What goes around comes around. And that goes for all those shits at St Michael's church of hypocritical scumbags as well.

I was suicidal earlier, it's hard to go through this kind of torment and not be in total dispair. I'm very very wobbly right now. If I do kill myself I will be doing it publicly and writing all over my body in perminant ink. I do not want to do it but I can't go on like this for much longer it's too long, 50 years is too long.  I am thinking about changing my name to Nelson Mandela as I am a prisoner right now.  The DWP/Crapita and that shit of a church have made me a prisoner.

The Scapegoat

scapegoat

[ˈskeɪpɡəʊt]

NOUN

1. a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.

   synonyms:

   whipping boy · victim · Aunt Sally · goat · fall guy · patsy
2. (in the Bible) a goat sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it (Lev. 16).

VERB

1. make a scapegoat of.

   "few things are harder for kids to bear than being scapegoated" · 

   [More]

From Wikipedia

Scapegoating is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. "he did it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., "I couldn't see anything because of all the tall people"), groups against individuals (e.g., "Jane was the reason our team didn't win"), and groups against groups.

A scapegoat may be an adult, child, sibling, employee, peer, ethnic, political or religious group, or country. A whipping boy, identified patient or "fall guy" are forms of scapegoat.

At the individual levelEdit

A medical definition of scapegoating is:^[1]

"Process in which the mechanisms of projection or displacement are utilized in focusing feelings of aggression, hostility, frustration, etc., upon another individual or group; the amount of blame being unwarranted." Scapegoating is a hostile tactic often employed to characterize an entire group of individuals according to the unethical or immoral conduct of a small number of individuals belonging to that group. Scapegoating relates to guilt by association and stereotyping.

Scapegoated groups throughout history have included almost every imaginable group of people: genders, religions, people of different races, nations, or sexual orientations, people with different political beliefs, or people differing in behaviour from the majority. However, scapegoating may also be applied to organizations, such as governments, corporations, or various political groups.

Its archetypeEdit

Jungian analysist Sylvia Brinton Perera situates its mythology of shadow and guilt.^[2] Individuals experience it at the archetypal level. As an ancient social process to rid a community of its past evil deeds and reconnect it to the sacred realm, the scapegoat appeared in a biblical rite,^[3] which involved two goats and the pre-Judaic, chthonic god Azazel.^[4] In the modern scapegoat complex, however, "the energy field has been radically broken apart" and the libido "split off from consciousness". Azazel's role is deformed into an accuser of the scapegoated victim.^[5]

Blame for breaking a perfectionist moral code, for instance, might be measured out by aggressive scapegoaters. Themselves often wounded, the scapegoaters can be sadistic, superego accusers with brittle personas, who have driven their own shadows underground from where such are projected onto the victim. The scapegoated victim may then live in a hell of felt unworthiness, retreating from consciousness, burdened by shadow and transpersonal guilt,^[6] and hiding from the pain of self-understanding. Therapy includes modeling self-protective skills for the victim's battered ego, and guidance in the search for inner integrity, to find the victim's own voice.^[7]

From MentalHelp.net

Toxic Families Who Scapegoat

DR. SCHWARTZ'S WEBLOG BY ALLAN SCHWARTZ, LCSW, PH.D.

Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D. was in private practice for more than thirty years. He is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the states ...Read More

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We tend to think of bullying as something that happens in the school yard amongst kids who are being mean and abusive to one another. However, over the many years of my practice I have come across cases in which the client presented with the problem and complaint that they felt picked on and excluded from their family of origin. They were distressed, anxious and depressed over this problem despite the fact that they had their own families with husbands or wives, children, careers and friends. Yet, they were experiencing life as though they were children living in their parental home.

Incredible as it might seem, there are families that scapegoat a loved one even into and including adulthood. For a variety of reasons we will explore one member becomes the target of accusations, blame, criticism and ostracism. While it’s happening, family members are totally unaware of what they are doing and would deny it if confronted with their behavior. Often, scapegoating begins in childhood and continues into and throughout adulthood.

Why would a family choose a loved one to bully and scapegoat? The answer has a lot to do with the concept of scapegoating and the purpose it serves. Scapegoating is often a way for families to hide problems that they cannot face. In the examples of cases I have worked with one or both parents were abusive to their children. In adulthood, scapegoating became a way for adult children to hide the fact of family history of abuse by blaming everything on one member who seemed vulnerable for attack. At times the scapegoat targeted by the sibling who was always the favorite of the family. In that way, the less favored sibling becomes the repository of everything that is wrong in the family.

A parent with Borderline Personality or Narcissistic Personality Disorder can vent their own frustrations, aggression and hatred against one child by uniting the others who are made to think that this one sibling is guilty of everything. In this scenario, the parent goads the other children to pick on the one. None of this stops in adulthood. Of course, the child whose personality is most like the personality disordered patient is targeted because that parent sees in the child everything they hate about themselves. Here, too, this pattern continues into adulthood.

The question that scapegoats face is what they can do to deal with the problem? While one would might think this should not be a problem for an adult, the fact is that these people become depressed, anxious, withdrawn and even, in the worst cases, suicidal. There is no way to underestimate the fears, self hatred and desperation these people come to fee. It is common for them to believe what the family tells them so that they accept all of the blame and finger pointing at them despite the fact that it’s untrue.

Commonly used strategies used by the scapegoat usually end in failure and even worse. I have seen situations where the scapegoat argues pleads their innocence before the family only to find themselves further blamed and persecuted. The sad fact is that rational and reasonable discussion is impossible. So, what is a person to do?

Over the years I have recommended family therapy for this situation. Given the nature of the family dynamics involved, none of the families have been willing to attend, not even for the sake of their loved one. The only other alternative that I have suggested and has been used in a few desperate cases, is to walk away from the family of origin by severing all ties.

This is not a decision that is easily made, especially when mothers and fathers are involved. However, given the fact that these very same parents constantly express cruelty to their adult child with unfortunate emotional consequences there is nothing else to do. It’s important to remember that the reason for severing all ties is preservation of one’s emotional health. It’s also important to remember that these scapegoated family members often have their own families that are warm, loving and successful.

The bottom line is that making someone the scapegoat is abuse, whether that person is a child or adult.

Allan N. Schwartz, PhD

Keep Reading By Author Allan Schwartz, LCSW, Ph.D.

I'm feeling exhausted most of the time now. I don't think I can take much more to be honest, it's just been too much, too vicious. 

I AM RECLAIMING MY RIGHT TO SPEAK

I stopped blogging due to being bullied to stop. I basically got frightened. I've now been left a virtual prisoner. I've decided to start blogging again.

I want to write about my experiences as a user of Staffordshire mental health services. I've tried complaining through all the "proper channels" and got absolutely nowhere. I want to make this as a quick post about an incident that happened while I was being kept, illegally, on a locked ward at St George's Psychiatric hospital Stafford.

I had been told by the doctor in charge, Dr Ignatius Agell, that child abuse does not cause mental illness. That was what he told me on the first day I was incarcerated there. It was very obvious to me that he did not like me, it was as if he actually knew more about me than professionally he should have. He trashed everything I told him, how id been abused and he said several times during that 15 minuites that psychiatric illness is not caused by child abuse.  Straight away that triggered alarm bells that this hospital was not interested in actually healing broken minds.

I'll go into more detail about what kind of environment and how unfit for purpose St George's Psychiatric hospital is later. For now I want to concentrate on one particular event. I made friends during my 3 week incarceration. It's not hard for me to make friends, I generally like people, I'm a friendly and open kind of person. We were doing art,  I found a not very good art corner with some kiddy art supplies and a guitar on the ward, so I was pretty much amusing myself with those things and other people started joining in. I got the impression that everything was discouraged in that, how do I describe it, shit hole, that the patients (inmates more like) were expected to take their poisons and sit listless in front of the great big enormous telly all day long. Well I can't live like that, to me, that's like being dead. So I found some art supplies and that guitar and other people were starting to do nice things as well, and that included TALKING to one another. One night I went into a side room with a DVD  player as there was a nice film I hadn't seen so I put it on and other people came in, and we were having quite a nice time. I did notice the hospital spy with his red clipboard right outside the room, the staff didn't speak me at all while I was there except to read hospital procedure or shout and bawl at me in my face, but that's another incident. They followed us round with a clipboard, writing down our conversation. Which is, in my opinion, abusive. But I didn't challenge that, I just let it go.

One of the other patients brought up how she had been abused as a child, and that started a discussion amongst us, it seemed we had ALL been abused at some point in our lives, usually at school, by a teacher or someone in authority. We finished watching the film and went to bed.  The film and our discussion was interrupted a few times by a woman I strongly suspect was a hospital plant, a fake patient.  The reason I say that is there were two people on that mixed sex ward, a man and a woman who continually harassed everyone else, and the way the staff treated those incidents was startling, it was as if they approved. It was very very strange.  But apart from a that everyone went to bed in good terms, like friends.

In the morning I was singled out by the OT Therapist. I call her a therapist but I am very dubious that she actually had any qualifications, she reminded me of Gail Tilsley on Coronation street, a shrewd little cat of a woman,  I'm not a Corrie fan so I apologise to the actress who plays that role I'm just trying to explain my experience. She lured me into the kitchen on the pretext of a treat,  and I'm a bit of a foodie, I like my food!  She said we could make blueberry smoothie for my breakfast, so I went with her.  Once in, she locked the door, she said it was because we were in the kitchen with sharp instruments.  Looking back, that seems a strange thing for her to lock herself in a room with a patient, for safety reasons, but I didn't think at the time, I felt unhappy that the door was locked but didn't say anything.  I made my smoothie, and while I was drinking it she started berating me about talking with other patients the night before and upsetting other people.  I was pretty shocked, and asked her who id upset, and she wouldn't tell me, she just kept saying I wasn't to talk to the other patients. I could hardly believe the crap she was coming out with and it made me smile, it was so ridiculous! So I told her, she could hardly expect me to be incarcerated in that place and not actually have any human contact, and she said I could have conversations as long as I didn't talk about certain topics. So I asked her if it was because we were all talking about institutional child abuse that she found so upsetting, and she wouldn't answer that, she tried to steer me away from that question and said patients were not allowed to discuss their own case history! I had never heard anything so daft and it was all I could do not to laugh in her face! But I kept it polite and calmly told her that if she wanted patients to stop discussing their own case history amongst themselves she had better announce it to the entire ward, and she said she would, at the morning meeting, and then she unlocked the door and let me out. Of course the first thing I did as soon as she released me was go and tell all the other patients, and we had a very good laugh at the nonsensical control freakery of the silly woman.  Well they do say laughing is good for mental health!

We went to bed and in the morning I made a big effort to attend the morning meeting. As I am a bed hugger and don't like getting up too early that was a big deal for me. I just wanted to be there to see the fun when the Gail Tilsley lookalike made her public control freak announcement. I was highly disappointed when it didn't happen, instead we were given a display of competitive scowling by the grumpy looking staff.

We were all very suddenly discharged en masse after that incident. I wonder why? I expect Dr Agell will come into my blog with some anonymous post to explain what all this nonsense was all about!