Hanwell

One of the people to comment on the birthday thread asks me to go easy on Hanwell. I grew up in West London and what is now Ealing Hospital was, in those anything-but-mealy-mouthed days, known as Hanwell Asylum or, colloquially, the Loony Bin. We used to peer over the wall from the top of the 607 trolleybus and try to imagine strange goings-on among the disappointingly normal-looking people walking in the grounds. Many was the mother, exasperated by the antics of her post-war baby boom children who would cry:- "You'll have me in Hanwell, you will, if you don't stop that!"