Frank Bangay

Leading Survivor Poet, Frank Bangay has a book out: Naked Songs & Rhythms of Hope

THAT PLACE ON THE HILL

When I was young
We would often ride on bus
Past that place on the hill;
There were pigs and horses
On the side visible to the public
The funny farm they called it.
We would make jokes about the place
And stare at the people
When they ventured out into the street
But made us keep our distance.
I would join in the jokes
Even though I was fucked-up schoolboy
Who was sometimes considered backward
Other times told to pull his socks up,
Like everyone else I needed my scapegoats.
Unaware
I didn't realise
Who had heard of E.C.T. and Major Tranquillisers?
It's the way they are
I thought
So different from us
The crazy ones.
Some years later in my mid-twenties
I got free board and lodging
In that place on the hill,
The world outside became a frightening place
Many hostile voices
Many impossible situations

The animals had gone
But the buses still went past
The funny farm
Became a mental hospital
Became a Psychiatric Hospital
Became a Psychiatric Institution.
I found out about the Major Tranquillisers and E.C.T.
Scheming psychiatrists
The authority figures
We are taught to look up to
Now they become symbols of fear.
The Psychiatric Institution became a prison
When there seemed no way out
No hopeful tomorrow
The world outside mocked and discriminated.
Praying for strength,
Someone to trust,
A helping hand,
A friendly face,
It becomes easy for any of us
To want to seek refuge
In that place on the hill.
I struggled on
A little damaged
I found wisdom
A sense of awareness
That I sometimes communicate
I value what I have learnt from surviving.

February 1995

Naked Songs and Rhythms of Hope is an illustrated collection of poems by Frank Bangay. Co-published by Spare Change Books.
It has 160 pages, plus background to poems and biography and tons of pictures.

You can order a copy from:
Southwark MIND, Cambridge House,
131 Camberwell Road, London SE5 0HF United Kingdom
Price is £7.95 plus £1 p&p (£2.00 overseas)