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LAST DAYS
OF THE SPIKE
The
Sunday Times (London) September 15 1985
By
the time George Orwell was writing about homelessness
in London, "the spike" had become the
common name for a shelter of last resort. The
original, and by far the biggest, was the great
Victorian Institution in Camberwell, which this week
closes after more than a century of service. Brian
Deer looks back over its history.
WHEN in 1850 the first steam engines came
chugging through south London on the new Chatham and
Dover Railway, the noise, the grime and the curiosity
were all too much for the nuns of Nazareth House.
Confronted with the disturbance of the industrial
revolution, they packed their bibles, sold their
land, and on the site of their convent up sprang
perhaps Britain's greatest single landmark of
Christian charity.
The
site was first refurbished as the Camberwell
workhouse, taking whole families from the
newly-emerging urban underclass of homeless, jobless
poor. The demand was overwhelming and soon the
Guardians of Camberwell erected two vast grey-brick
buildings either side of the nuns' simple chapel. And
so was born the place where a million men have slept,
and which to its users has ever since been simply
known as The Spike.
Nobody
is certain about the origins of the nickname. One
view is that the spike in question was the means by
which those too drunk to stand were held in an
upright posture. Another is that it was the implement
with which residents broke rocks for their keep. But
whatever the origin of the label, it became known
throughout Britain and Ireland as the place where you
could always get a bed for the night and not have too
much bother.
On a
winter night in its heyday, some 15 years ago, the
Spike, now the Department of Health and Social
Security's Camberwell Resettlement Unit, packed in
1,100 bedraggled men. Each had a narrow bunkspace, a
thin mattress and a blanket. Most were chronically
alcoholic, many had fleas or lice, and considerably
more than a handful would wet their bed at night.
They
slept in eight noisy, dirty and often dangerous
dormitories, each over 30 yards long, in two
hospital-like wings. One wing housed the long-stay
guests, or "residents", who were allowed to
remain all day on the premises if they performed some
useful chore. The other was for "casuals",
who each afternoon lined up outside the gates to
register, shower and eat.
Even
10 years ago, Dr John Hewetson, Camberwell's medical
officer, recorded an alarming level of sickness among
the unit's users. Nearly half had a history of mental
illness. 34% were handicapped, 14% suffered from
epilepsy and 13% had tuberculosis.
"Schizophrenics, demented old men, the
brain-damaged, rigid abrasive characters are all
accepted at Camberwell," Hewetson noted.
In
the past decade, the numbers admitted to the unit
have been run down, and this week the few who remain
will be bussed away to psychiatric hospitals and the
Spike will finally close. Smaller hostels are to take
the strain of the homeless, and only the acrid smell
of a century of filth recalls Camberwell's
easily-forgettable past.
The
closure is part of a national plan to shut 24
resettlement units in major cities and hand over
their functions to local government and voluntary
bodies. "This provision, which is largely a
relic of the poor law workhouses, has come to seem
increasingly anomalous," Tony Newton, the
minister for social security, told parliament earlier
this year.
From
Newton's standpoint, the closures of the units will
be happy events - lifting the dead hand of the DHSS
bureaucrats from the department's only direct
services for the homeless. There is no rationale for
government-run centres that have no links with the
local community.
But
there has been a sadness at the Spike in recent weeks
that may seem at first hard to comprehend. "This
is the best place of them all. I don't want to leave
here," explains Albert Mills. aged 70, who has
stalked the unit's corridors since 1972. "Nobody
worries you here. You can do more or less what you
want to."
Like
nearly all the Spike's residents, Mills has given
smaller hostels a try, attempted life in lodgings and
spent years living rough. Today, he sits aimlessly
watching daytime television and remembering his
youthful years. "I was never any good on my
own," he concludes. "I'd just be pissed all
the time."
The
paradox of the Spike is that, for all its poor
conditions, people like Mills much prefer the life in
a big institution and will find it hard to
struggle-on elsewhere. Before its run-down, 90% of
those resettled by Camberwell were back within six
months and, for them, pools of urine in the
dormitories are of less importance than the right to
be left alone.
"In
the smaller hostels they are seen more and probably
kept on their toes a bit more than they are at
Camberwell; and some of them don't like that,"
says Frank Woodhead, who as the Spike's current
manager is supervising its closure. "It's just
their way of living, you see. If they've been
wandering round the country for years, it doesn't go
down very well."
The
impeccable Victorian structure stands all but silent
now, the gates finally closed on the destitute men
who have walked from all over England to the shelter
of Camberwell. This weekend, a few late stragglers
will appear - to be sent on somewhere else. And even
those who are found new homes find it hard to stay
away. They come wandering back along the railway
track for a last goodbye to the Spike.
Copyright,
Times Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved. No portion
of this article on the Camberwell homeless
resettlement unit 'spike' may be copied,
retransmitted, reposted, duplicated or otherwise used
without the express written approval of the copyright
owner. Responses, information and other feedback are
appreciated - via Brian Deer's homepage.
