FOR many years, adults with learning disabilities were frequently uprooted from their families and sent to large hospitals which could be many miles from home.

Now a Bournemouth-based charity is looking to interview as many people as possible about their memories – both good and bad – of those days.

Bournemouth People First had already put together Struggle for Equality, a successful project about the way people with learning disabilities have been treated over the years.

Its follow-up, Unheard Voices, will take the idea further by recording oral histories of people who lived or worked in those institutions, or had family members in them.

People with learning disabilities locally were often sent to the huge Coldharbour Hospital at Sherborne. The main alternatives were Tatchbury Mount in Calmore in the New Forest or Coldeast Hospital in Southampton.

The project wants to speak to people with experience of those institutions or the smaller units which came later.

The Heritage Lottery fund is providing a grant, as it did for the predecessor.

Beccy Hinton-Garner, of Bournemouth People first, said: “It’s telling people’s personal stories.

“We’d like people’s personal histories and experience and I think we’ve got a real sense that if it’s not captured it will be lost.”

The lottery bid was supported by Dorset History Centre, which has trained the Bournemouth People First researchers in how to capture oral histories.

“They’re going to archive everything. They’ve been very enthusiastic about the project and very helpful,” said Beccy.

The work is being driven by people who have learning disabilities themselves and have seen some of the way services for them have changed.

Organisers are planning to set up discussion groups locally to get memories flowing.

Amanda Frost, co-assistant manager with the project, said she was surprised at the way people who, like her, have a learning disability were once treated.

“People with learning disabilities have been deprived of their liberties and have not done anything wrong,” she said.

The researchers are in touch with a counselling service which can help if anyone is distressed by recalling their experiences.

Beccy said: “It’s not that we’re looking to blame or point out that things were awful and things should have been done differently. It’s just the way it was and things have changed, we think for the better.”

l Anyone who lived or worked at a long-stay hospital can call 01202 303765 to find out more.

Media students are also needed to help record the stories. They should ring the same number or email caroline@bourmemouthpeoplefirst.co.uk FAIRMILE HOUSE FAIRMILE House in Christchurch opened in 1972 as a new-style hostel for what were then termed ‘mentally handicapped adults’.

The Echo reported that the £9,200 building “is believed to be the first hostel of its kind in the world and the 26 men and women who will be accommodated there are at present in hospital.

“The idea is they will receive care in domestic surroundings and be close to their own families, who will be encouraged to play a much greater role in their training and rehabilitation.”

By coincidence, Fairmile House opened only weeks after the tragic fire at the huge institution that was Coldharbour Hospital.

Residents at the small unit came from Coldharbour, Tatchbury Mount and Coldeast, and the Echo noted that “this type of hostel is now national policy”.

Dr Albert Kushlick, who carried the now outdated title of ‘director for sub-normality research’ with the Wessex Regional Hospital Board, acknowledged that many people in long-stay hospitals should not be there.

“The people who will be coming to Christchurch will need a lot of care but the big difference is they will be given this form of hospital care in domestic surroundings,” he said.

The unit had a hard-working League of Friends, who managed to attract the likes of Mike Yarwood, Bobby Crush and Paul Daniels to appear at their fundraising fetes over the years. Lady Mildred Bailey, wife of World War II bridging pioneer Sir Donald Bailey, opened a shop in The Grove to raise money for the cause.

The unit closed in 1997 as part of the government’s Care in the Community policy, although the community mental health team remained based there.

COLDHARBOUR HOSPITAL COLDHARBOUR, a former Royal Navy hospital at Sherborne, was taken over by the newly formed NHS after the war.

The vast site housed people with learning disabilities from all over the Wessex region.

A journey there from Bournemouth is an 80-mile round trip.

Coldharbour gained national notoriety in July 1972, when a fire in its newly refurbished Winfrith Ward killed 30 people, aged 14 to 49. It had broken out while staff were on a tea break and two of the four doors to the ward were locked.

A front page editorial in the Echo demanded answers about how the tragedy could have happened, noting of the patients: “That they were all severely mentally handicapped only strengthens their right to have been protected from a holocaust such as that which devastated Winfrith Ward of Coldharbour Hospital, Sherborne, early yesterday.”

Social services secretary Sir Keith Joseph set up a committee of inquiry to investigate the deaths. The inquiry heard that hospital night staff were so concerned about fire safety that they had held two meetings before the tragedy.

The inquiry heard that residents in the refurbished ward had their own rooms, could wear their own clothes and had more recreation.

Brian Galpin, a lawyer for Coldharbour, warned the hearing against “turning back the clock”. He said: “We are trying an experiment to restore human dignity to patients who otherwise would lack many of the amenities which make for an ordinary existence. We think it would be a tragedy if as a result of this calamity, we were forced to abandon this experiment.”

The phased closure of Coldharbour began in 1978, with many patients supported instead in the areas they came from, with the help of day centres and other community services. It would not be until the late 1980s that the last wards closed.