The Ballroom - Anna Hope

                                                 





The Ballroom is a deeply moving tale of life in an asylum  around 1911, told in short chapters, each headed with a character's name.  Each chapter reveals a little bit of history, or current life of the character whose name appears at the start.   Many people were incarcerated in asylums in those early days that were not mentally ill in the then accepted sense of the word; perhaps severely depressed because of a trauma, or perhaps like the character of Ella, because she had broken a window at the factory just to see the sky.... can you imagine that?  Or like John, because he had ended up in the poorhouse, and was not well enough to work.   Ella and John are inmates and will meet, one Friday in the ballroom of the title;  and Charles is a staff member;  a young medical man from a wealthy family on the staff who has a secret of his own..

 The power that staff had over the inmates as described here was truly awful, particularly if they were employed only because of their strength (to hold a patient down whilst they fought to be free), a case of brawn not brains.   Some more senior staff held views which would simply not be acceptable today.  I found this a particularly well written book, with a lot of good research by the author including facts about her great great grandfather, transferred to an asylum from the poorhouse, dying there 9 long years later.  Do read the author's note at the back - for those unfamiliar with asylums as a way of housing the mentally ill this will be an eye-opener.  So will Churchill's early views on Eugenics.