Wednesday 21 June 2017

Summer Solstice News

Dear Friends,

Summer is here, no doubts as we just had the longest day of the year! Hopefully this excessive heat is not affecting you too much, as some find it harder to cope than others. Do keep well hydrated, please.

Today I am forwarding a list of very interesting and culturally varied events that people might find useful.
Well done and all the best to all involved.


Special highlight...while Ronnie is occupying most of the screen in "Mad to Be Normal" (and giving some hope and satisfaction to all Laingians and anti-psychiatrist types), Londoners next week will have the chance to meet a true Loonies' hero that lived the tales and tragedies that took place at Kingsley Hall in the Sixties.
Please find below the info about the "Mary Barnes" play
csmevents.co.uk/

LOONIES FEST CALL OUT:
Join us at Kingsley Hall on Tuesday 4 July 4-6 PM for a briefing and mind mapping for the programme for our special day on Saturday 9 September as it is starting to shape up.

We'd like to invite anyone willing to exhibiting their art work in the dedicated show 'Survivors Stories'. We are also looking for stewards, first aiders, crew members with practical experience and initiative and volunteers. On the day there will also be a market place (Saturday 9 September 12-4PM) and stalls will be available for mental health groups and organisations. Please send queries and suggestions to nat.kingsleyhall@gmail.com
More info bit.ly/2sh1Bbk

Solstice Blessings to all!

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​HUGE FALL IN DLA TO PIP REASSESSMENTS
(from Benefits and Work newsletter http://bit.ly/2sBArZY)

The number of people being summoned to go through their DLA to PIP reassessments has plummeted in recent months. The combined number of PIP new claims and reassessments has plunged from 104,333 in January of this year to 49,409 in April. Most of the fall is due to a huge reduction in DLA to PIP reassessments. The DWP have offered no explanation for the fall, saying only that “reassessment registrations have decreased due to DWP managing capacity within the system.” Anecdotal evidence from our members suggests that waiting times for assessments have risen in recent months. So the reason may simply be that a large backlog has once again built up and the DWP are doing their best to cover up the truth. We’d be very interested to hear from you about how long you waited for your face-to-face assessment.

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Post-Election Anxiety by Mental Health Under Capitalism - support and solidarity group 

Thu 22 June 18:45pm, Common House, Unit 5E Pundersons Gardens Bethnal Green, London E2 9QG

Following the horrific formation of a Tory-DUP alliance, many of us are filled with dread at the thought of further cuts to mental health services, financial instability and fractured communities. This is down, at least partially, to the somewhat uncertain role of the DUP; a party who are pro-Brexit, anti-choice, anti-LGBT rights, climate-change deniers with strong links to loyalist paramilitary groups. Little wonder so many of us are feeling anxious.

Join us at 18:45 for an hourly discussion of the 2017 General Election, followed by our solidarity and support group session. We hope to see you all there.

Mental Health Under Capitalism is a collective of anti-capitalists who are interested in the impact of how capitalism effects our mental health, creating communities of care and support for one another bit.ly/2sR6g31

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SECTIONED
(1/2h play)

Saturday June 24th, 11am in The Orchard, White Hart Lane, Basingstoke. As part of Fluid Motions All in the Mind Festival.

Reading based Rose and Thorn Theatre Company are presenting 'Sectioned' about a gay man who has a breakdown and who is detained by the police under section 136 of the mental health act, the stresses that cause this, how the mental health system react and how things could improve.

John Hoggett, the author of the play, who is also acting in the play, said, "LGBT people have high rates of mental distress with gay men suffering twice the rate of psychosis as the general population. Services often ignore the causes of people's distress and section 136 assessments have massively increased in recent years due to cuts in budgets to services so all of these things are worth looking at." John Hoggett was also a founder of Speak Out Against Psychiatry which bought survivors of psychiatry together to protest against the injustices they felt they had suffered bit.ly/2mBFhWG

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Lords of Sounds and Lesser Things ​(Part of the East End Film Festival​)​

Sunday 25th June film screenings from 18.15 pm. The Castle Cinema, First floor, 64-66 Brooksby's Walk Hackney, London E9 6DA

Emerging artist filmmakers Juliet Jacques and Ker Wallwork present their film 'Approach/ Withdraw', which explores the intersection between queer love, sex and gender with biomedical science, alongside a selection of other works that were an influence on it, or form a dialogue with it. Inspired by the Queering Love, Queering Hormones project. This programme will consist of: Marina Grzinic & Aina Smid - Bilokacija Lis Rhodes - Light Reading VALIE EXPORT - Syntagma Katherine Arianello - The Interview (Parts 1 + 2) Stéphane Marti - Allegoria Eline McGeorge - A World of Our Own Andrea Crespo - Polymorphoses.

Presented in partnership with no.w.here. Tickets can be bought​ here​ bit.ly/2ttUFVs

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'Mary Barnes'


Final year students of the Drama Centre London (part of UAL Central Saint Martins) present the BA Acting Production 'Mary Barnes' an adaptation from the David Edgar playwright about Mary’s time in Kingsley Hall.

Directed by Georgina Sowerby (Dirty Market theatre www.dirtymarket.co.uk) at the Platform Theatre, 1 Handyside St, Kings Cross, London N1C 4AA
Mon 26 Jun, 7.30pm
Thu 29 Jun, 2.00pm and 7.30pm
Fri 30 Jun, 2.00pm
Sat 1 Jul, 7.30pm
Ticket Prices: Adults £12 | Concessions £9 | UAL staff / students £6
Suitable only for people aged 14 years and over
csmevents.co.uk/

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30 June 2017 Time: 7-9 PM Shoreditch Art Wall 17-19 Great Eastern Street, Shoreditch, London EC2

To Celebrate the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships Artist Michelle Baharier and the Artist group Vision with Action for Children, lead by Artist Sarah Hughes have created Murals To Celebrate the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships running 25th June - 23rd July 2017.

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​​Thai Boxing Fighters Academy (Service User Led) Annual General Meeting 2016-2017
Monday 10th July 2017 19:00-20:00 at Oxford House Derbyshire Street, Bethnal Green London E2 6HG

Buffet & Social 20:00-21:00 Guest Speaker: Marion Khalam (TBFA) Special Guest: Alan Green, Vicar St Johns Church. Please confirm attendance at 07769797916 thaiboxingfightersacademy@yahoo.co.uk​ www.thaiboxingfightersacademy.com/

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Interrogating Digital Capitalism: a series of events organised by Breaking the Frame
Event 1: Digital Technology and Neoliberalism – the Basics
July 6th 2017, 7.15pm. Apple Tree pub function room. 45 Mount Pleasant, Clerkenwell, London WC1X 0AE

How does digital technology function in and shape neoliberal capitalism? Is it just a question of corporations using technology to their advantage or has digital technology fundamentally reshaped the whole system? Are we already, as a key anarchist critique, The Cybernetic Hypothesis suggests, enmeshed in a control system in which conventional resistance just strengthens the system? Ursula Huws (University of Hertfordshire) will describe the nuts and bolts of how digital capitalism works.

Richard Hall of De Montfort University will look at a critique of digital capitalism developed by French anarchists in the 1990s. Free/donation. We apologise that this venue has no wheelchair access. Other events will be at accessible venues. For more information contact info@breakingtheframe.org.uk, or visit breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/


Event 2: Digital Technology as Heavy Industrial Technology: iSlavery and Environmental Destruction
September 6th 2017, 7.15pm. Feminist Library meeting room, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW
Digital technology is often seen as ‘immaterial’ and ‘smart’, defining a new industrial and social paradigm. Yet digital gadgets are produced within an ‘old-fashioned’ highly exploitative regime that has been likened to slavery, whilst the industry creates massive environmental destruction and makes a major contribution to climate change.

Jack Linchuan Qiu, author of Goodbye iSlave will describe the conditions in Chinese electronics factories, such as Foxconn, which were brought to international attention by a wave of worker suicides in 2010.

Second speaker (TBC) will look at the environmental impacts of digital technology and its role in causing conflicts.
Free/donation. Venue is accessible, we would advise wheelchair users to contact us in advance if possible.

For more information contact info@breakingtheframe.org.uk, or visit breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/ For later events in the series visit breakingtheframe.org.uk/category/events-listings/

Wednesday 14 June 2017

June Newsletter

​Dear Friends,

I hate to be sharing so many sad news, while thinking of all the people affected by this tragedy in the Grenfell Tower.

Please find here and attached the details for our friend Philip Morgan funeral, taking place tomorrow Thursday 15th June.
Church Service10.30 am: New Testament Church, Lambert Road, Brixton Hill, SW2 5BB
Burial1.30pm: Lambeth Cemetery, Blackshaw Road, SW17 0BY
Reception 4.30pm St. Martins Community Centre, 57 Abbotts Park, SW2 3QX
Family kindly requests all attendees to wear a touch of white.

Another recent sad loss for the disabled campaigning movement in the UK is the recent passing of extraordinary artist Sophie Partridge bit.ly/2tnNaPm

With all respect for the sad events mentioned above, changing the subject into a more uplifting theme, the updates about The Loonies Fest. All updates will be shared on our blog bit.ly/2sh1Bbk

Do come along to our monthly meeting at LARC next Monday the 19th June from 6:30pm to discuss this further if keen to get involved, please. There will also be a brainstorming session on Tuesday the 4th of July at Kingsley Hall between 4-6pm.

Have you seen the new Laing movie yet? Here my review bit.ly/2sqfu6e

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It's Carer's Week: remembering the millions of people working for free (if not receiving the ridiculous Carer’s Allowance of £62.70 per week for a minimum of 35hrs of work - April 2017-18 quotes). Let's not forget the many children often working for their disabled parents from early age, the spouses, friends and family members.
Many blessings to all the carers, and please do not forget to care for yourself, before caring for others.

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This week is also Creativity and Wellbeing Week www.creativityandwellbeing.org.uk/

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Asylum: Action and Reaction Conference Wednesday 28 June 2017 Roscoe Building,University of Manchester, Brunswick Street, Manchester, M13 9PL
bit.ly/2rihaez

The Asylum magazine it's 30 years old!!! Well done and Congratulations to all involved!
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​Please find attached the latest Poetry Express Newsletter #54

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Soul relics Museum

Soul Relics is an online platform on storytelling, objects and mental health.It is a gallery of photos of objects and personal stories that are related to a difficult time of your lives (A period of mental ill health); and/or something that helped you work towards recovery. That object can be anything of personal significance, or/and represent institutional barrier to mental health care, etc.​
More info: bit.ly/2sbLXLD

Mad to Be Normal - A Loonie review

(Post updated on Saturday 24 June 2017)

Simply renamed 'Mad To Be' on our cinema tickets, the R.D. Laing biopic resulted a very entertaining and inspiring viewing.



Probably one of the best cinema outings that I can remember of, as Dee organised a ride with Myra to reach the North London cinema, giving us time to chat and catch up en route. Later we met a party of North Londoners, included Ben, Laing's youngest son, and friends for a round up of analysis of the movie.

Now, I am certainly NOT a film critic, nor a tiny expert in films whatsoever, so do watch your expectations while reading this review, please. Must also add that being partially deaf, my capacity to follow dialogues in a film with no captions is very limited; hence, while watching a movie I often tend to create my own story, according to what my intuition lets me capture. Having a rough idea of the rough story certainly helped me in following Mad2B. And this was the Laing movie, something somehow very close to those of us that identify as Survivors, mental health activists and the people turned angry by the often outrageous and coercive psychiatry system.

On top, with Myra and myself being board members of the present and active Kingsley Hall Community Centre (KHCC), and eager mental health activists, it did feel like our flags were flying high.



The first detail that made me smile as the movie started rolling, was the initial statement affirming that R.D. Laing created Kingsley Hall. To give justice to the Lesters Sisters, I invite people to read a bit in regards, especially those that might have not heard yet about these two awesome ladies, and discover Kingsley Hall's tremendous and fascinating heritage, that actually started over a century ago, even before Ronnie was born. So, not all the people involved in the active Kingsley Hall necessarily have a particular interest in its mental health heritage, as some people might wrongly assume. Kingsley Hall truly is a special place and everyone would benefit to know about its tremendously deep humanitarian rooted history.

Portrayed as a heavy smoker and heavy drinker (possibly just like many Scotts of adult age? Awesome Scotts!), Ronnie does certainly demonstrates to be an extraordinary Doctor, sharing his knowledge in natural healing practices, and creating a meditative and contemplative space with his peers and patients.

Many people might have blacklisted and censured the approaches welcomed by the Philadelphia Association in those days, especially for their open use of (illegal!) drugs such as LSD and cannabis, but let's not forget that these were the Sixties! A time of profound change and liberation, the "Make Love, Not War" infused times, which did set some positive influence to whatever followed.

I like to imagine Ronnie living now, in the New Millennium, when more and more people are opting for a more conscious living, sober partying and avoiding legal (alias prescribed) and illegal drugs alike; specially in a time when the anti e critical psychiatry movements are stronger and big pharma corruptive intentions are more exposed and broadly known by the general public. What a riot would it be! What a driving force for change when many more people are becoming professionals in the field due to their own needs, or the needs of close friends and family, driven by the necessity to find their hope and 'cure' to own distress... like the Only Us Campaign suggests.

Change keeps making its way, and we have to thank all people that have contribuited in the long history of anti psychiatry and subversion from the real people that fought the fights for our rights (psychiatric patients) as it can be found in Andrew Roberts's Survivors History dedicated archive.

So, thank you Mr Mullan, Cast & Crew for your great work in taking the delicate topic of madness to the large screen, for showing the stupidly of conventional psychiatry and for bringing back some buzzing vibes to a seemingly dormant castle. Thank you also for the choice of the fantastic cast, with David Tennant already my hero in the series 'Takin' Over the Asylum', playing his part terrificly.



Now I really wish someone will follow suit and show also the story of Mary Barnes, which is barely seen in Mad2B as Maria. Mary Barnes was the actual originator of the idea of having this radical community at Kingsley Hall, the first person to enter the building in 1965 and the last one to leave in 1970.

For the time being we're looking forward to watch the forthcoming BA Acting production MARY BARNES Play at the Platform Theatre, in London, part of the CSM, Drama Centre London. Catch it if you can.
Happening between the 26 June and the 1st of July 2017.




If you wish to find out more about Kingsley Hall Community Centre do check the website for info and opening times. We are joining Open House on Saturday 16th September if you wish visiting the building.
Also save Saturday 9 September for a special day celebrating madness and lunacy, while questioning normality for the Loonies Fest.

More film reviews here:

-https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/apr/07/mad-to-be-normal-review-david-tennant-rd-laing-elizabeth-moss

-https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/09/mad-to-be-normal-review-david-tennant

-http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mad-be-normal-review-990476

-http://lwlies.com/reviews/mad-to-be-normal/