SHACK 4086 OUT ON A LIMB

Courtesy  Re-Ignite

Many years back I came across a Catholic priest in London and he had a mission at a church in Earls Court, at this time there were a lot of foreign students living in small dilapidated rooms who put up with it in order save money and go to University. The rate of suicides were astonishing; I was called to an attempted suicide and the consequences were strongly comical in a sad way; two police officers were there and I got there when one of the officers said to a young Chinese lad and trying to cut his throat and the officer said 'don't use that knife its rusty and could infect you' It was so surreal that the boy, the police and I stopped in a frozen moment and we all began to laugh, then the priest who was Canadian came in and he was running this mission because of the suicide problems and took the boy away with the ambulance crew and the police car and I went to the church..

After talking with Father McCrae (not real name) we agreed to meet because at the time I was chairperson of Attitudinal Healing which we changed to Healing Attitudes which were run Barbara F's flat in Kensington and my St. James Church Piccadilly in the famous tower and the church was a Wren church and in the second world war a few minutes silence and prayer were broadcast from there every day, the sessions were on Tuesday from 17.00 to 21.00 often going on till early hours with about 80 to 90 people in the 70's and early 80's  One of our AH members and I regularly combined session with Father McCrae and it was totally non religious a rare priest indeed.

The desperation amongst the students who often did not mix and isolated in their small rooms and from different cultures sent by parents who wanted their offspring to have English University Education and many of the students feared failure as we found out from them about their strict demanding parents.

Later on I went onto present workshops in Europe and Canada with one to one sessions and clinics at St James every Tuesday and Thursday evenings whilst working at Forensics I had to separate the two, some cases I referred to police only with consent. (another longish story)

Apologies for blurred images; out of this came 670 workshop presentations and 3000 patients in clinics and numerous one to one's.

Today these mental issues have multiplied many times over and it is now a crisis in many countries with lack of funds, clinicians, care workers and indeed a sad world of wars and threats of wars and the media ramping up the fear aspects.

SHACK