An untitled piece of work in two sections (this is the first)

She’d spent some time in the now closed Cane Hill Hospital. This type of hospital was once called an asylum which contrasts somewhat with the modern day concept of someone seeking asylum as nobody in their right mind wanted to be in an asylum. Actually very few out of their right mind volunteered but now ‘the world and his dog’ seeks asylum... and who would blame them I hear you say. I’m not trivialising here or being a jerk; I just find myself in this role as narrator. I didn’t ask for it; it was thrust upon me by you – yes you, my new boss – my employer.

Why have I been sectioned out? – Ah that reminds me - I was introduced to her some time back in nineteen forty nine when I was in a Moses basket and far too young to appreciate that she, my ‘white’ aunty - well that was my childhood name for her, was incarcerated... did I get that wrong? Is the word incinerated?... In the aforementioned establishment on and off, several times, after she was, er... also sectioned, but not out - rather in, I would say.

South Londoners who went ‘off their rocker’ would often end up in Cane Hill or maybe The Maudsley. This is mental illness that we’re talking about here –

R E S P E C T – not dissing about here but I have been asked by you, yes you, to be amusing here but that puts me in a dangerous position. I don’t want nutters, current, former or future, chasing me down the road for some allied mental equivalent to homophobia, agoraphobia or any other bloody phobia. I embrace mental health. I am very far from being mental myself; although I was once described as being ‘on the spectrum’ which some misconstrue to be a mental thing but I take as a compliment as my mother always said that labels were important. Her? - She likes Versace, Gucci, Ferrari – and, er, obviously, Spectrum; Mum’s always right.

My aunt Blanche – white aunty, was a very interesting, if manic person. She was... oh I didn’t say did I? Yes she passed a long time ago poor love, so how bloody unfair is this of me? – She isn’t even around to sue me for libel or the opposite - defend any of my commentary or should I better say, my narrative.

She did survive being thrown from a New York window and indeed her American ex-husband pretty much paid for her house in Dulwich. She dolled-out this window stuff repeatedly over the years. The latter is certainly true, but the former, I doubt as I’ve never heard of any Big Apple bungalows.