“There were some people who really didn’t like it [at Middlefield], and couldn’t wait to leave, but some people were okay about it, and some would have said that they liked it there. But it’s a tricky thing; certainly some of the people who said that they liked Middlefield said they were happier after they moved out.
We went back and did quality of life studies afterwards... It was rare as I remember, very rare, for someone to say that they wished they were back in Middlefield.”

“I knew Dennis Timms and Ken Laight, who came to live at the Greswolde Arms when Middlefield closed. They were kitchen porters, and used to do all sorts of odds and ends there. My mum, who worked there... got to know “the boys”. And some days, Ken and Den would come round. They used to be happy to go and sit at my mum’s house, have a cuppa and a biscuit, and just talk to people, just be in a normal home.”

“I lived in a road where two of the community homes were set up, and the neighbours that I had then actually asked me to sign a petition to stop this house. They didn’t want it in their street... I couldn’t believe that people could think like that, but they did, they thought it was going to lower the price of their house, that these people were going to interfere with their children, all sorts of things. They weren’t welcome in the community when they moved out.

That’s not supposed to be a criticism of the general public. That is a lack of knowledge. Because these institutions were so shut away, there was a lack of understanding of what, and who, people with learning disabilities were.”