THE MR "X" INTERVIEW - Part Three

 

Mr X: Another time, when I returned there, about 16 years old, I hung a sheet over a height measurer - a wooden upright with a sliding piece which stuck out at the top. The Filipino night nurse - very Catholic and religious - turned a corner, saw it and screamed. Another time, a rumour started about a ghost monk in the chapel. It turned out that another young Filipino nurse had heard that her uncle had died, and had been seen kneeling with her dark cape, praying. Funny how the mind of a young lad can twist things. I think we were relieved to hear the truth.

Damon: What, that there wasn't a real ghost?... or that the hospital was being over-run with Filipino nurses?

Mr X: Okay. I was thinking about your essay, and a couple of things came to mind. I had deleted them - not wanting to sensationalise - and being the rational person I am.

Damon: Go on.

Mr X: I remember one day, a couple of the boys had bumped into one of the regular Portuguese porters...

Damon: Why did I instantly think of Manuel from Fawlty Towers when you said that? I guess they did film bits around here - down the road in Wooburn Green. And then Michael Shanly comes along and demolishes the actual "Fawlty Towers" - bastard.

Mr X: Well, we were on good terms with them, especially those of us who were there a while. This event took place between wards 1 and 3 - maternity and our ward. The place of The Flincher?

Damon: Yeah. The place ofThe Flincher. The Lair. If it has one.

Mr X: The porter, I think it was Sebastian - actually he was Spanish...

Damon: "I'm from Bar-thé-lona."

Mr X: He worked at Wexham Park after that - I saw him there in 1991. Anyway, he was carrying something, and as usual the boys were hounding him and wanted to know what it was.

Damon: His Siberian hamster?

Mr X: They occasionally ran into the guys with the 'morgue trolley' - a trolley with a kind of inner/under section, sealed off at the sides. This time he was, as far as my memory serves me, carrying something more like a tray.

Damon: His Paella?

Mr X: The boys described him showing them this babies foot.

Damon: Okay, so it gets serious now.

Mr X: There was a name tag, bearing the words "Baby Hood". It was unnamed. Of course, word got around on our ward, and as usual we chatted after lights out. The talk was all of Baby Hood, and for some time, whenever a noise was heard after dark someone would say "Oh - that's Baby Hood."

Damon: That sort of thing would have freaked you all out.

Mr X: It was just assumed he would haunt us, or the place. This saga was all around 1976 - 1977. We even used to joke around and make up songs , how - like Robin Hood - he would roam up and down that corridor with the other baby ghosts.

Damon: Bloody hell.

Mr X: Now, although childhood memories can stay with you, and I'll never forget the name Baby Hood, it is not something I think about often at all - unless I hear that Robin Hood song - "Robin Hood, Robin Hood..."

Damon: "...riding through the glen."

Mr X: Which is indelibly marked on my memory with the words "Baby Hood" instead. But , after reading your story and seeing your map.......... actually, I have another more plausible theory as to the origins of The Flincher.

Damon: Tell me more.

Mr X: At the bottom of the corridor, were 2 wooden doors.

Damon: Oh dear.

Mr X: They led out to the little school - immediately to the right and the library down the slope.

Damon: Yes. They're still there.

Mr X: I reckon they caught the draught and swung back - although it is hard to imagine that they would still be closable to be honest.

Damon: Sure, I can see where you're coming from. They do still sort-of close. But I know those doors. They flap about a bit but they're quite flimsy. The sounds we heard...Well, let's just say that it wasn't even close. Read the section on "wind" in my essay.

Mr X: I can still remember passing through them at 9 years old. They were painted green I think. Maybe it could have been some day room doors swinging in the wind. Each ward had doubledoors at the end. But, thinking about it, if everything was getting overgrown outside, I don't think any of those doors would be free swinging - more likely stuck shut, or hanging off.

Damon: A few, sure. But generally - No. Surprisingly, there are still a great number of doors in the place, still on their hinges, still flapping back and forth in the breeze making eerie sounds. But, like I said. Not possible. Is that really what you think "The Flincher" was... or perhaps is?

Mr X: As for what/who the "Flincher" was........ the way it looks on the diagram, you were at one end of the diagonal corridor, and the thing at the other. Did you see it there or did it sound as if it was coming from that direction?

Damon: It's all in the essay. See? - No. Neither Owen or myself ever said that. Feel. Know something was there? Big time. You bet your bottom dollar.

Mr X: I know that a couple of the boys sometimes saw the morgue trolley going along that bit - i.e. from the Flincher spot to chapel direction. But I do not think that is the answer. I don't want to jump to conclusions.

Damon: You would not credit the amount of mail I've recieved about "The Flincher" since I first put it up on the web. Does it surprise you that there's this tremendous cult body of interest in the CRCMH, yet nothing widely available about it anywhere in historical terms, or socially through societies of former staff or patients?

Mr X: Absolutely. But actually, there was a TV program shown about 3 years ago on the CRCMH. There were kids on it I knew - old footage. Just watching that spooked me big time. There's a clip where the physio - who I saw a few years ago at Wexham - described how she went home on a friday and a girl was really ill. When she returned on Monday, she had died. The physio then cried on the show, as they stood in the hospital in the exact spot - Ward 4. And she said "To me she's still there...". That really spooked me. That physio was really tough and strict.

Damon: Any other recollections that spook you?

Mr X: There was another thing that popped to mind. There was a young guy who came to our ward - ill with something.

Damon: Funny, that.

Mr X: I spoke to my mum about it a few months ago. It is the only time in adult life I can remember discussing "Taplow" as we called it, with the family. We were talking about a boy called Anthony "streaking" in his wheelchair.

Damon: And this is the guy in the story?

Mr X: No, the guy in the story was black and had a heart problem. In the ward - but later taken down- was a little isolation room. Not a side room like todays, but a wood and glass room in the main ward. It was blue, and known as the blue room.

Damon: Funny, that.

Mr X: The boy was black, and I can't think of his name right now, but it was all quite disturbing at the time. He died about the time of that song 'Seasons in the Sun'.

Damon: Terry Jacks. I know it well because I had my own experience with it. We went on holiday to North Wales, and our parents used to make us record a "holiday diary" on cassette in our caravan every evening - what we did, where we went that day. We got back home and decided to play the tape for our babysitter - because she asked if we had a good time. So I said "This is what we did on our holidays" and pressed play on the tape recorder. Instantly - "We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun" says Terry Jacks on our behalf. To this day I have no idea how that tape got into the tape player, keyed up for the chorus. I hadn't even heard the song before that incident - and hardly ever since. Although, like your "Robin Hood" thing - whenever I hear it now I invariably end up rolling around the floor in tears. Which is exactly the same response it caused back then. Strange how music brings it all back. Though it seems your experience of that song is profoundly different.

Mr X: It upset me quite a bit. The whole thing did - being away from home. Changing the subject - Did you notice how at the end of the wards there were slopes going up?

Damon: Actually, yes. Why would they do that?

Mr X: Because the wards were sort of built in trenches. Well, one winter, when it snowed, some of the boys made a snow ball and kept rolling it around making it bigger and bigger. Some of the girls on ward 4 had been throwing snowballs our way. The boys planned to roll the snowball down the slope and bash their doors open. So, they rolled this big thing down, which gained mass as it went, hit the doors with a thud and stopped. Later it melted, and flowed down into their day room soaking the carpet and the lads got a bollocking. There's so many stories, some better than others.

Damon: I'm listening.

Mr X: We used to hold parties and discos and sell tickets to nurses.

Damon: Don't tell me you were trying to pick up the nurses at that age.

Mr X: No, but I first got drunk on punch at 12 - then threw up. There was a steel band on outside.

Damon: Well that explains nicely why you threw up. No. I must admit, I have a soft spot for steel bands. And it's Boney M I have to blame for that one. Have these better memories managed to entice you to revisit the CRCMH in recent times?

Mr X: The last time I went near it was in a friends car heading out for a drink in the late '80s. The hair stood up on my neck and I knew we were getting near. Another mate never knew my history, and didn't understand. I never explained. I certainly haven't got the bottle to go there again. I tried to one summer afternoon. Don't know when, but workmen were cutting out the big crest at the front of the building.

Damon: Really? Wow. That looked long gone by the time I first discovered the place.

Mr X: It was probably about 1990. Maybe I'll build up the courage to go again later. I live quite a distance now, but still in England. I used to frequently visit my mate at Windsor, and I now sometimes get to Slough. But I never even think of the place, and how close I was to it. It is buried so deep in my memory. I think I should stop at this point. It feels as though I have been sitting here a long time. I have reached back, deep into my mind. But there is more, and it will take a long time to tell you everything. Be prepared to be scared... hehe.

 

Note from the CRCMH webmaster:

...and with this, Mr X disappeared - never to be heard from again. Damon also prepared the map below - featuring the northern end of the CRCMH - specifically for Mr X. However, his thoughts on this one remain unknown. All part of the mystery that is...Mr "X".

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.

CRCMH Northern area map - Prepared by Damon for Mr "X" (8Okb)