Secrets from the asylum. [2/2].

The second part of a two-part documentary looking at the history of the mental asylum. This part moves into the twentieth century. Three well-known TV personalities learn the fate of a relative who was incarcerated due to 'mental illness' and actress Sue Johnston revisits an asylum where she worked during the 1960s. Christopher Biggins' great-grandfather spent four years in Wiltshire Asylum where he eventually died, diagnosed with General Paralysis of the Insane, the final stage of syphilis. Al Murray's relative, Laura, was recorded as being an 'imbecile from an early age' which would now be diagnosed as having a learning difficulty. As her family was wealthy, they paid for her to stay in the Royal Earlswood Asylum. In Part One of the programme, we learned how her grandmother, Isabella Thackeray, had suffered a mental breakdown and so Laura's difficulties were considered to be an inherited form of madness. As a result, she remained institutionalised from age 22 to 74 in order to stop her passing on the 'madness' to a future generation. Lesley Joseph's aunt also spent her life institutionalised from age 25 to 85, probably suffering from schizophrenia. She began her incarceration at Bethlem Royal Hospital which, in the 1920s, was no longer the frightening institution known as 'Bedlam' but promised a 50% cure rate. However, after 12 months with no change, she was sent to Colney Hatch where she remained for the rest of her life. In 1967, actress Sue Johnston took a summer job at an asylum where she witnessed patients having electroconvulsive therapy which she found very upsetting. She visits a modern day hospital to see how ECT actually works and how it is used in a far more humane way today.