The Halfway House

An important innovation at Stoke Mandeville was the creation of a hostel within the hospital to which recovering patients could go and stay in order to develop the ability to live more independently prior to moving out all together.

Many also worked in the workshops attached to the hostel: clock mending and wheelchair repairs were specialities. Sister Mary Brennan ran this hostel with her husband Jimmy after it opened in 1970.

“In 1970 I was given a part-time sisters post so that I could join my husband Jimmy and help  run the new rehabilitation hostel, what became the “Sir Ludwig Guttmann Hostel”.

This was a sort of half-way house for rehabilitated spinal injury patients where they would learn life skills before moving back out to their families or to start living independently. It was quite a revolutionary thing at the time.

There were patients studying there for open degrees and other qualifications.

I remember there was one tetraplegic patient there who was writing a book; and in his room there was this elaborate piece of equipment that allowed him to type using his mouth as he had no movement below his neck. He would blow into a tube and the air pressure would then make a projector shine letters of the alphabet onto the wall in front of him; as he blew harder it moved through all the letters of the alphabet, shining them on the wall in turn; when he arrived at the letter he wanted he would stop blowing and his machine would type that letter.  I think this was a machine developed by someone who had connections with the hospital.

Related content: An interview with Mary Brennan