About Frank.

13 May 2005. Author: Peter - a friend

I first met Frank when I was in hospital. He was what is now called ‘Bi-Polar’ which used to be known as manic depressive, a condition as you probably know where one’s mental state fluctuates between two extremes; from high elation and boundless energy to the very lowest and obviously very painful depths.

Frank’s ‘cycle’ was sort of bi-annual and he used to admit himself when he felt he was starting to go “up” as it was in this state that he was deemed to be “ a threat to his and other people’s safety”.

Frank was in his early to mid sixties, originally from Ireland, illiterate (he could read O.K. but not write) and blind in one eye. He had left Ireland as a young boy and was, unlike many of his ex-pat countrymen, completely unsentimental about the place. For most of his time he had lived in Wales and Birmingham and for the last 10-15 years in London .

As far as I know he had two sons but only saw one of them (Craig) on a regular basis. He was living near Birmingham and doing ‘some thing with computers’. Having done all sorts of work over the years Frank was a repository of all sorts of knowledge as well as a fair bit of wisdom but he still had the humility to want to keep learning and was keenly interested in the world around him.

Anyway, so there we were; Frank, a veteran of St. Clement’s (nearly 15 years) and me, alone, quite frightened and very ,very down in the dumps. Even though they kept Frank drugged up to the eyeballs he was always lurching about day and night with a nurse always in tow. Because of the medication he was given his speech was slurred, he dribbled and as I have said he would stumble around like a drunk. I wanted nothing to do with him and had to tell the nurses to keep him away from me. Later as I started to feel a bit more confident I would start to talk to people, listen to music etc. Meanwhile Frank was starting to calm down a bit and had stopped pestering people all the time.

We sized each other up for a couple more weeks until he came up to me one day and said, “I know what you are. You’re a comedian!” He was right of course. That is exactly what I am. I tell jokes and stories to get people to like me/make friends and always have done.

From that day on we started to get on a lot better. For an elderly gent he was up to date with his music (favorites John Lennon, Meatloaf and Eminem) and would argue passionately with anybody who would listen about politics, religion, anything in fact. He went to Rome to sue the Pope for the horrors inflicted on him by the Catholic priests who had taught him in Ireland. There is a film called (I think) The Magdalene Sisters which is about the equivalent system run by the Catholic Church to teach girls in Ireland.

Apart from his ability to talk the hind leg off a donkey, the only recognisably Irish trait left in Frank was his rebelliousness. There was always a showdown at night when the music had to go off, eventually resulting in the stereo being removed. On other wards the night staff actually stayed awake at night and let people listen to music or watch T.V. (because of medication, sleep patterns were erratic and lots of people just could not settle down at night.). On our ward the nurses were more keen on handing out sleeping tablets and catching a snooze themselves. Once Frank started to get leave he would be allowed out for a few (4 to begin with) hours a day. He would have to be accompanied by a nurse and he would go to his flat to get letters and stuff like that. As his condition improved however he started to feel restricted by these few short hours of freedom and had, on occasion started to give the escorting nurses the slip! The old hands would keep him in view and he rarely got away but there was many a red faced student nurse who returned Frank-less after 10 minutes muttering darkly about how they didn’t realise an old bloke could move so fast, one minute he was there and the next he wasn’t. They would get bawled out by the charge nurse and Frank would be grounded. He reckoned it was worth it for the days of freedom.

I realised later that it was not just the rebellious streak in him that caused him to act like this but that he so cherished the time when he was active, fit and happy that he could not bear to waste that time stuck on a smelly old hospital ward. He was a bit like the Steve McQueen character in ‘The Great Escape’, always escaping then getting dragged back and thrown into ‘The Cooler’.

He wanted to attend the ‘Anti Bush’ protests when he came to London and had made a very elaborate banner telling George Dubya what he thought of him in no uncertain terms.( I had to spell out the words with stencils and Frank would fill them in. I would have to ask, “Frank, are you sure you can actually say that about the president of the United States?”) He wasn’t allowed to go so the banner never got used. Frank was known far and wide around the neighbourhood and had mates in all the markets, pubs and various dives so when one of the other patients, a rather posh ‘older ‘lady needed a wheelchair Frank said he would sort it out. She wasn’t due to get one from the NHS for several months and while she considered Frank to be some lower form of life she agreed that she would pay him to get one. A few phone calls later and a wheelchair was delivered and she and Frank became the most unlikely of best friends.

Frank COULD NOT speak more than a few words without swearing. (He always said he wanted “elocution lessons” to deal with this problem until I pointed out to him that the only thing that would achieve would be the ability to swear in a posh voice.) Anyway they became good mates and her tut-tut ting and shocked outbursts “ Really Frank!” were gradually replaced with acceptance and good humour.

I haven’t really explained the beneficial effect my relationship with Frank had on me while I was in hospital. When you are depressed the one thing you don’t need is people telling you to “cheer up!” or “pull yourself together”. The words are meaningless and even if they did mean anything to you there isn’t any way you could act upon them. The words REALLY do mean NOTHING. You might as well say “cardboard” or “bicycle” for all the good they would do.

Frank was a pest. As I said initially I would tell him to “go away” in fairly robust terms but after a while I would tolerate his company for short times. During this time I was still a bit wobbly mentally. I didn’t leave the ward very often and would stay on my bed for most of the day sleeping or just lying there.

The nurses would encourage me to do occupational therapy courses, which I did but I would always rush straight back to the ward afterwards. After we had established some ground rules Frank used to come by my cubicle and ask if I wanted to go out; just to the canteen for a coffee or for a walk in the grounds. 99 times out of 100 I didn’t but gradually I would go out more and more. Eventually he would be quite tough with me and start calling me this and that. He knew when it was appropriate and when to leave alone. Also I think because he was a fellow patient I would take more of this nagging (for that’s what it was) from him than I would from a “civilian”. Over the weeks I started to interact a bit more with my surroundings and the black moods began to recede. Obviously I do not attribute all of this to Frank’s intervention but he really made an invaluable contribution.

As it became nearer the time for Frank to be discharged he became more and more frustrated about being locked up in hospital and was desperate to get out into the wide world again. At this time our roles started to become reversed a little bit. I had to rein him in; stop him from trying to “do a runner” at every opportunity and get him to understand that the longer he acted up, the longer he would be kept in hospital. I got him to come to O.T. and generally tried to keep him on the straight and narrow.

He had heard the nurses complaining that they didn’t have a sitting room on the ward and “volunteered” “OUR” services to fix up a disused store room for them. We cleaned it out and Frank persuaded them to buy paint and a bit of furniture and we spent a couple of weeks doing that. In reality I spent a couple of weeks painting and Frank organised the music, cups of tea and all the really important things that needed doing as well as talking 19 to the doz.

I was discharged before Frank and then re-admitted to a different ward for a few more weeks. Frank was on day release and sometimes could stay out overnight. I was moved into a bedsit in Limehouse but because all my stuff was again in storage I needed all the essentials. Frank came through with a kettle, an iron, plates, knives, forks, cups, tin-opener, table lamps, a duvet (new) and everything I needed to get me started again. He would not accept a penny for it and said it was all “junk” that he had lying around and that he was glad to get rid of it. Because my bedsit was a bit of a dump, I used to go around to his flat (near Shoreditch) some days and just hang out for a while. He could cook one meal - breakfast, so he used to do that. In return I would knock up a spag-bol or something now and then.

Although he had now been discharged Frank was still full of an almost superhuman amount of energy and as I have said before he treated each minute of his good health as the treasure it was. I would get 10 – 12 or more phone calls a day: “Pete, it’s Frank! What are you doing?” So as I was getting re-acclimatised with the real world I would be charging around Bethnal Green with Frank trying to burn off some of that energy. Inevitably we would visit several pubs and ended up with a bit of a circuit. Frank was not a boozer and I never saw him (very) drunk. He just liked being with people and having a good time, good company and good conversation. He used to like winding up the sentimental old geezers crying into their Guinness and talking about “the old country”.

At one stage I thought there might be a danger in my continuing to accompany Frank on these jaunts because I was aware of the negative effect alcohol can have on people with depressive tendencies and I did not want to risk undoing all the work I, and many others had done to get me out of that rotten old state of mind. After a week of calls and messages I explained to Frank that I was just trying to stay healthy and that I was not up to his 100m.p.h. lifestyle. He was distraught that he might be contributing towards a relapse and subsequently made sure I only came out with him when I really wanted to.
Having said that we still used to go out and about quite a lot and when I was out without him people would say “where’s your mate?” We were a bit like “The Odd Couple” him- a little grey haired old fella, running about, buzzing with ideas (“why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do that?”) and me bringing up the rear in a slightly more sedate fashion.

After Christmas 2003, which I spent with Frank I saw less and less of him and in March when I moved into my current place I was kept quite busy doing this and that. I still kept in touch and was going to get Frank to hang some wallpaper I had bought for my hallway. I was aware that Frank was slowing down a bit and I assumed he was settling back to a more stable way of life.

He was going up to see his son in Birmingham now and then and helping him put some decking down in his garden. He was also spending a lot of time with a woman called Irene who was on old (hospital) friend of Franks. They would go out for the day to see relatives and went to the bingo once or twice a week. I continued to see Frank around at her flat and although he was a good deal quieter and no longer went out “on the town” he was still good company and interesting to talk to.

In late summer I got a call from Irene and she asked me to come over. Because of some bureaucratic snarl-up Frank’s rent benefit had been stopped. Consequently he had started to get strong (eviction strength!) letters from the Council’s heavies. Frank was very worried and would not go back to his flat in case bailiffs came round. Of course these things are fairly easily sorted out once you get your mind in “local government” mode. I made some calls and went round to the local housing office with Frank. The way only “to call off the dogs” was to acknowledge the debt (several hundred pounds) and set up a repayment plan. (a few pounds a week equals no more bailiffs!) In the meantime the grindingly slow machinery of state would sort itself out and it could all be resolved down the line.

Myself and Irene were annoyed that Frank’s social worker had not done anything to sort out the problem. He HAD made some phone calls and assured Frank that he would be O.K. but was content to let nature (bureaucracy) take its course. Frank was really worried about these letters and this guy had done nothing to actually STOP the eviction procedure. I was very cross with the guy and told him that I thought he was guilty of neglecting Frank. I also told him that Frank was not taking his medication and hadn’t for months. He is not a healthcare professional but he said that that he was not aware that Frank was ‘presenting’ with any symptoms of malaise. I said that I doubted if he could tell.

Anyway I continued to see Frank on and off; always at Irene’s. He was quiet and said he felt rotten. He was adamant that his medication didn’t do any thing and it just seemed like he was prepared to wait out the dark spell. Irene was making sure he ate regularly and he just used to sit round at her house everyday. On one visit he did tell me that he had thought about jumping off a block of flats but all you can say is “don’t do that Frank.” Irene had done everything she could to try and motivate Frank to get out of his mood but couldn’t make any progress. She even tried a bit of “tough love” for a while and stopped him coming round. It had reached the stage where Irene had made an appointment for herself and Frank to see Frank’s social worker and two doctors on the morning of Wednesday 9th of March. Frank didn’t show up. Irene told all those present of her worries about Frank’s state of mind. At 2.00 p.m. on that day Frank jumped off the building and put an end to it all.

R.I.P. Frank Mohamed Ray.