The new single by The Victorian English Gentlemens Club is out tomorrow.

the lead singer used to work as a cleaner at Shelton hospital.


http://www.thevictorianenglishgentlemensclub.co.uk/

s.g.d.

I enjoyed the video on their News page. I like their image too, and the way everyone gets involved in the vocals.

Slightly off-tangent, surely someone on here must have been into Shelton Hospital at one time (I mean as a visitor, not as a patient). Is it really as grim as people make out?

I've been into the low security womens wing (as a visitor). I wouldn't call it grim, it was the same as any other hospital apart from the patients. Some were suffering from severe depression etc. but some were mad as a jelly in a welly!

I'd imagine that the mens side might be a bit grimmer or any of the high security bits (if there are any).

I work at Shelton hospital as a Support worker - it's not such a bad place but obviously it's a very old building and as such is no longer really 'fit for purpose', to coin a phrase. There is a long term plan to relocate the hospital to a nearby site but quite how and when this is supposed to happen remains a mystery to me, at least. As for the grimness or otherwise of the place, I can assure you it could be a lot worse - it's certainly no bedlam and the men's wards are no grimmer than the female ones (I'm not quite sure why Ant imagines this would be?)

I worked at Shelton Hospital in the 1970/80s and it was a pretty grim place IMHO, if you were a patient that is.

I have not seen inside the place for 25 years but have been told it is much improved to how it was then.

My sister is a Psychiatrist and the hospital in Wales where she worked was sold off to a developer whilst they moved to a unit attached to the main hospital. This was not exactly the progress the patients were promised as the unit was way too small, services were reduced and the community care not in place.

The old hospitals had their downsides but at least they were better for troubled folk than ending up in prison or suffering alone in the community as many people do now. :(

I'm not sure why I thought that either. I guess I feel more comfortable around disturbed women than I am around disturbed men. Must have been my subconscious at work!! :)

Thanks for all these interesting replies. Given that it is such as old building, I didn't imagine that it would be perfect, but it's good to hear that it's not a 'Victorian dungeon' as some people (although not on here) have described it. It seems to have that 'make do and mend' look about it that lots of public buildings do (many post offices and schools are the same), largely because someone not working on the front line is playing politics with the funding.

Another tangent - sometimes when I'm on the Welshpool Road / around Gains Park at around 8.30am, I've heard a something that sounds like an air-raid warning. It goes on for about a minute. Does this have anything to do with the hospital?

Probably an escaped inmate warning! ;)

No, you 're thinking of the Guilhall! :D :D :D