A storyteller talks about their experience working as a maintenance joiner in Newton Lodge at Fieldhead Hospital

What involvement did you have in Field Head Hospital? Well, I was work for facilities. The State Department and I was maintenance. Maintenance Joiner. So all around the site where you know the damage furniture, etcetera and doors and whatever

You used to take him back to the workshop and repair them. So I mean, it will Launch is obviously the the worst. You know, I'm saying the worst part, that's the wrong

That's the wrong thing to say. But a damaged equipment came from there, you know, because they're stronger, patient out the, you know, the I suppose the more ill than anywhere else in the hospital. But I've seen the hospital developed over the years

It's really modernised now. I mean, everybody has their own on sweet and everything you know, which is better for the patients, isn't it? What kind of damaged had the patient's done? Well, if he's going to get upset in the kickoff, and I mean, it's a closing rooms that I've had to repress the closing room doors because I mean unbelievably strong when they when they kick off bedroom door is another main thing. You know, um, slamming doors and breaking doors off when they're when they're upset

So it was a case of we have We have a little John has shut down there. Um, me and a friend of mine, my workmate Dave. Dave Shelby used to take them off, repair them and put them back on again

You know, there's obviously all the trades down there. There's a plumber's, the sparky's and, uh, those joiners and builders. So we did with a lot of work in there, you know, putting walls up with walls in there and put up an altar in making altering offices for different purposes

So, yeah, over the years, we've you know, I mean, the men locked down here, we we mean, with all the toilet facilities, new panels and everything modernised all those. So and And we worked in satellite buildings, you know, doctors, surgeries and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's been a good, uh, 19 years of work really have enjoyed it

What was it like doing this collision beans? Um, doing this seclusion rooms. Um, well, I mean, the doors that were torn from the start, you have to have lifted for the doors and a couple of people to lift them out with you and wheel them out. And these used to break the news to break on the weak points where the bolts went into the into the door, friends and everything

Um, that from that that's about what we did like, you know, um, and maintenance in general, like every dog's got a lock on it. So we used to look after all the locks weeks. There are lots of different locks weeks, which you have to get the head with your head around because you've got coming from one day you'll have

You'll have a master key that will open every door in award. But each door is individual, so they have a certain what you call a servant key. So the the the the music and just have their own key to get into that door

But then you've got a sub sweet. On top of that, your partition that that unit off into like three different sub sweets. But a master key will override everything you know

So you can have a patient with the key to open his own bedroom door. And in that area it will have a subsequent that the member is tough to override that key. But in all the system, if you have a master master suite, then if you master key that along for a ride, How the sub sweets and the servants weeks so that one key would fit everything in that in that unit, you know, So you've got to have all this in mind when you when you're replacing locks and we have to have stocks of different types of locks, different battles, different sweets, sweets, different sub suites because they all came with a servant key

But you have a sub master key on top of that and the master key that off around that. So it's quite complicated really, to get your head around, but once you've got it, you know it's there for life.