A year after we moved into St Germans station, in April 1993, a new Care in the Community act was passed. This involved the closure of many hospitals that had been the home of people with mental health illnesses. Part of the reason for closure was that there was concern that these hospitals caused the institutionalisation of their patients, and this was considered unhealthy. However the alternative was far from pretty.
Placed in houses throughout the country, with little support to help their transition to ‘normal’ life, it quickly became apparent that Care in the Community was anything but. My cousin in London, who lived next door to a house where ex-hospital patients were homed, spoke of a woman who roamed the street confused and naked each night. Throughout the country people rallied against having their equilibrium breached by the scheme. It was poorly funded and left patients in limbo, rejected by both the institutions they had called home, sometimes for decades, and the communities in which they had been placed, who were vocal about not wanting them there. In Plymouth and Penzance vulnerable people with nowhere to go, and no idea of how to live, hung in clusters around subways and on park benches.
Many of these people took to the trains. Before the advent of ticket gatelines it was easy to get on a train, and relatively easy to elude ticket inspectors. Trains were warm, comfortable and safer than the streets. Journeys would last until eviction, then there would be time on the platform to wait for the next train, and the pattern would repeat.
Sometimes eviction took place from the last train of the day, and so the hard benches of St Germans became the night’s accommodation. In the ‘90s there were still signalmen working in the downside station building, some of whom had limited tolerance to late night sleepers. One autumn evening a man who had settled down for the night on the station bench was moved on. He was found the next day in the adjacent field, cold and barely alive, having suffered a heart attack.
We often found ourselves going out to offer food and drink for people who arrived, lost and hungry. We went out with provisions if we spotted them; they very rarely called at our door and asked for anything; they simply somehow survived. Some were edgy; like the young man dressed from head to toe in oilskins, his only luggage a large can of petrol. Others were dressed to the nines. There was a trio that came and went a few times, two men in ragged suits and a thin woman in heels and a leopard skin jacket, taking occupation of the station with high pitched laughter and bottles of Buckfast wine..
One afternoon I invited a dishevelled looking gentleman in and poured him a cup of tea. He was shaking so much, very little of it reached his lips. His filthy trousers were held up with bailer twine. He had plenty of plans as to where he was going, all of which were contradictory. He talked about a bus to Manchester, a train to Birmingham, of hitching a ride to Liverpool. He had no idea where in the country he was. I felt for him; he was so childlike. He kept repeating “Thank you Missy. Thank you Missy.” Dave later saw him shuffling down the road to Polbathic, whereupon he disappeared into the ether.
One wild, wintry evening they threw a man off the last train of the day. We heard it happening, because there was loud and aggressive shouting that persisted for some time. There had been an incident not long before where someone had been stabbed after going to the assistance of a vulnerable person, so we were wary of getting too close, but were concerned for this man’s welfare. It was a foul night, and very wet. By this time the signal-box had been closed down for a few years, so there were no station staff on site.
We phoned the Transport Police, explaining we were worried and voicing our disappointment with a system that felt it was okay to eject someone clearly troubled into a situation where there was no backup. They said they’d send assistance, but after two further phone calls no-one materialised. After a while the shouting died down. We looked out to see the sodden chrysalis of a sleeping bag settled in a puddle of water on the platform, with rain pounding down upon it. He had clearly eschewed the option of a dry bench under the canopy.
Eventually we gave up on any action by the transport police and instead phoned the main police switchboard, expressing our concern that in the morning they would be looking at a casualty failed by the system and dead from hypothermia. It was very difficult, because everything in my conscience told me to approach the man and help him to settle in a dry space, but his shouting had scared me into feeling unsafe to do so.
When the police finally came it was well after one in the morning, a good two hours after the last train. They agreed that the best plan was to make him comfortable under the canopy, and that he would catch the first train of the morning. By this time he had calmed down and was polite, grateful, but still clearly vulnerable and confused.
While the police were talking and settling him down I made a flask and organised a package of food and some dry blankets and pillows. As it was so late I was in my pyjamas and dressing gown. When I appeared with my bundle of bedding his face lit up and he asked “Are you sleeping here tonight too?” I think I had nearly made his day! It must be a very lonely life; no-one to talk to, and constantly being moved on.
Better than long term institutionalisation? I have no idea.
