Tribute to shell shock pioneers
BILL ESTERSON MP praised the work of Maghull’s former Moss Side hospital in an Armistice debate in Parliament.
The Sefton Central MP told the House of Commons that the hospital, now part of Ashworth high-security psychiatric unit, pioneered the treatment of shell shock and laid the foundations for modern understanding of psychology and psychiatry.
He said: “The work there paved the way for much of our understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder, and for modern mental health practice and medicine.
“At the time, the British Medical Journal described the treatment at Moss Side, which is recognisable today, as ‘suggestion, persuasion, therapeutic conversations, re-education. The physician masters the patients, gains his confidence and analyses his troubles and morbid ideas and sets his mind at rest’.
“This was the forerunner of both cognitive behavioural therapy and EMDR, which, for those of us who had not come across it before, is eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing.
“We can trace their origins straight back to the work done 100 or so years ago at Moss Side.”
He recounted the haunting story of soldier Jimmy Smith, who was shot for cowardice – by one of his closest friends – during the war.
He said: “At the same time that treatment was starting at Maghull, soldiers who were ill were being executed.
“Arbitrary decisions were taken about whether a man was suffering from shell shock and should be sent for treatment, or should be deemed a coward, convicted and sentenced to death.
“There is no adequate explanation for the gross injustice suffered by those labelled cowards and shot at dawn in WWI.
“Take the case of Pte Jimmy Smith of the Liver- pool Pals. Jimmy survived Gallipoli.
“He was decorated at the Somme, where he was seriously injured, but he was forced to return to duty on the frontline, despite clearly suffering from shell shock. He was found guilty at court martial after going absent without leave, and sentenced to death by firing squad.
“The officer in charge ordered Jimmy’s friend to fire the fatal shot after Jimmy was only wounded by the firing squad, most of whom deliberately missed because they did not agree with the sentence.
“They knew Jimmy was not a man lacking in moral fibre.”
Following a collaboration between Maghull Town Council and local historians, a memorial to Moss Side hospital is to be unveiled at Maghull North Station soon.
The MP laid wreaths at events around his constituency over the weekend.