Farmstead Villa
I arrived at Farmstead Villa. To be honest I was quite apprehensive of what I was going to find there. I had simply been told it was a mental hospital for disturbed kids. Farmstead was a juvenile unit within an established mental hospital. Long Grove was one of the 5 large mental hospitals on the outskirts of Epsom. Little did I know it was going to see a lot more of Long Grove over the next few years.
When I arrived I was shown into the Day room. It was full of youngsters like myself, boys and girls. All looked relatively normal. I wandered around the areas I had access to. The boys dormitory was one side of the day room and the girls the other. At the end of the dormitory were some single rooms. Some had mattresses and no furniture. There was at least one padded cell, blood, snot and shit spread on the walls.
Later as I settled in I found the girls side was the same but was prettily painted in pink whilst we had green and cream.
The place wasn’t proving to be as hostile and nutty as I expected. Certainly not as nutty as Brookwood.
Farmstead School
The school was in a separate building just a hundred yards or so away just across our playing field. We went to school weekdays, 9-3.30. School was easy going which was irritating because I have always been keen on learning. I have a hungry mind, but I soon fell into taking it easy along with the others and bunking off for a fag when I could.
In all the time I was there one teacher took a special interest in me. Pat. She was a very kind and caring person who somehow had a knack of seeing through how we appeared and acted and saw the real person inside. She had taken a few of us under her wing as 'friends'. Once she got to know us she used to take us to her home and family and treat us as family. She was a wonderful person who I loved very much as a friend and regret having fallen out with her.
Pamela
One girl latched onto me almost soon as I arrived. Pamela was 15, a year older than me. She seemed very normal, if quiet, and I liked her. We used to go for long walks around the woods and fields that surrounded the hospital and Villa and talk and generally just hang out. I wasn’t looking for an exclusive girlfriend though, and after a bit of disappointment she was content just to spend time with me when she could
It was Pam who took my heterosexual cherry in the woods one summer evening. She was good. She was very experienced and taught me well. She also gave me an appetite for heterosexual sex which I pursued whenever I could.
Drugs
Farmstead was the location for another first for me. Drug taking. Chris W was another lad that became a very good friend. He introduced me to drugs. It wasn’t too soon before Chris and I were regularly smoking grass and resin together. We would while away many a sunny evening lying in the cornfield at the back of the Villa smoking and laughing. I really liked Chris and we spent a lot of time together.
Chris also introduced me to acid (LSD) and heroin. The acid I liked and took as regularly as I could afford. The heroin I tried once. It made me sick and scared and I never went near it again after the first time.
Runaway
Chris and I decided to 'leave' the Villa for a while. We travelled up to London where he had a girlfriend who had a flat in Holland Park. The next week or so are a pleasant haze of sex, both gay and straight, drugs, music and rebellion. We smoked weed so often the cat was permanently stoned.
I did a bit of thievery to get some cash and with Chris taking me to parties with people he knew, he introduced me to a world I could only have dreamt about.
This era unravelled as I started suffering drug withdrawal from the medication the hospital had had me on. I had been on an anti-depressant called Tryptizol and suddenly coming off of it was painful. Too painful, and at the time I had no idea what was happening. The last straw was when I nearly collapsed at Notting Hill Gate tube station. I telephoned Farmstead and spoke to a nurse who explained what was happening. She advised to me to get a train to Epsom and come straight back to the unit. I did, and never have I been more pleased to take myself back to a place I had runaway from.
Despite their asking I never told them where Chris was, or what I had been up to. I accepted the injection they offered me to get drugs quickly back into my system and settled in again.
I never saw Chris again. I heard a few years later that he died. That, if it is true, was such a waste.
Holiday in Wales
In the summer of 1970 I was sent on a holiday to Wales. It was called an adventure holiday and involved sailing on Lake Llangorse, horse riding over the Brecon Beacons and much more. I had a great time. The second half of the holiday we transferred to another centre at Ross - on - Wye. Here most of the activities involved canoeing, getting cold and getting wet. Ugh! It was on the last day of this holiday at Ross on Wye that in packing my clothes and gear up ready to leave that I came across a wallet, I forget how much money was in it, but it was sufficient to tempt me, and so I stole it. I remember pushing the wallet down the front of my trousers into my underpants so if I was searched it would hopefully not be found. When I was safely on the train, which fortunately happened before the theft was discovered I took all the money out and threw the wallet out of the train window as it sped towards London.
