A blog written by Janet Bolam, Author of Within These Walls
When I was first approached by the Warneford 200 Steering Group to write a play to mark the 200th anniversary of the Hospital I was both daunted and excited. From the outset, I knew I wanted the script to be rooted in real detail – the building, the grounds, the voices, and the changing approach to care across two centuries.
A morning spent with Dr John Hall, a member of the Steering Group, confirmed that I was not going to be short of material. John has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Warneford’s history, and his generosity in sharing it with me was invaluable. The rich and complex story made me realise that my challenge was not what I could write about, but what to include – and what not to include.
I was also incredibly fortunate that historian Dr Jane Freebody had been researching patient case notes from more than a century ago. Through these records, a vivid world emerged of former soldiers with ‘sunstroke’, abandoned wives, and men of the cloth with ‘acute melancholia’, that provided insight into the treatments they received, and how they progressed.
The character ‘Lucy’ represents the women who were deposited in the hospital by their husbands, with no say of their own, and left there for the rest of their lives. ‘Matlida’ was a real person who also spent most of her life as an inpatient. Through her eyes, we see what life was like in the hospital in 1900.‘
Will’ appears in 1969 to highlight the very particular relationship between the Warneford and the University of Oxford. With thanks to historian Dr Sally Frampton, I came across some wonderful material stored in the Oxfordshire History Centre archives. Letters between the chief psychiatrist, Dr Seymour Spencer, clinical psychologist May Davidson and various Oxford Colleges, illustrated the important work undertaken by the hospital. Students with acute mental health problems were given specialised help and support. Many took their exams there – in fact, CS Lewis was quoted as saying that the Warneford had “more Firsts than any other Oxford College: the only trouble was that it was so difficult to get into”.
In writing the present-day strand, I wanted to be accurate about the reality of acute mental health care in 2026, the vulnerability of patients in crisis, and the strain on staff trying to do the right thing in difficult conditions. I interviewed a number of extremely helpful mental health workers and former inpatients, and I asked Gillie Ruscombe-King, an experienced psychotherapist, to collaborate with me. Through ‘Stu’ and ‘Zoe’ our aim was to reflect the competing pressures in modern inpatient care.
Of course, this is a play, not a documentary – but I hope it’s truthful in spirit, and thataudiences find it moving, surprising, and genuinely entertaining.
