Interviews of Ian Boddy aged 59

Biographical interview with Ian Boddy (b. c.1954) who trained as a nurse at the Crichton Royal Hospital and has spent his career working in health care across Dumfries and Galloway. Ian talks a little about his early life and his decision to go into mental health nursing which he took after leaving Stirling university before he sat his degree exams. Ian explains that his family had connections with working in mental health care and he had spent time working in hospitals near his home in Paisley during school holidays and on a break from university.

He began his training at the Crichton in 1976 and recalled a very traditional and rigid system there, in both training and practice. After reading 'Asylums' by Erving Goffman at Stirling he saw many similarities at the Crichton. Although the Crichton had been a progressive insititution, by the time Ian studied there he found the practice very similar to Dykebar (in Paisley) and felt it was very much a closed community controlled by a hierarchy in structure and personnel which left little room for innovation. ECT was still widely in use, and drugs were used in preference to other therapies. Ian talks about the social activities at the Crichton and about his early commitment to be part of a change of culture at the hospital.

Ian felt he was fortunate to be at the Crichton at a time when there were advances in approaches to treating mental health issues and a reliance on drug therapies and long-term care was being challenged by new therapies such as psychological interventions. He worked alongside colleagues including Ian Cameron and Ron McKechnie who were pioneering new work in this area. He recalls there was some resistance to change, led by some of the psychiatrists and supported by some of the nursing staff, but this changed over time as the need for change became more evident. Reflecting on 30 years within the service, Ian talks about the move away from long-term care and the move towards community care with led to the Crichton being first a destination for dementia patient and then a resource without an obvious purpose. Ian became part of the Crichton Development Unit and the group, mindful of Lady Crichton's aspirations for the Crichton, started to develop new purposes for the estate.