Abstract
This article discusses life in one asylum, Hellingly, near Eastbourne in Sussex. Where once the majority of mental health professionals worked in asylums, their gradual run down and closure saw most staff, as well as patients, transfer into new community services. The two main protagonists in this paper both found themselves at Hellingly Hospital in the 1970s. One was a charge nurse who ran the therapeutic community ward in the hospital. The other was an inmate, who was to begin his alternative mental health career as a ‘revolving door’ patient. Both start by giving their respective memories of the hospital and its impact on their lives. They then reflect on what happened to them after they left the hospital. Now both in their 70s, they have each achieved a sense of contentment with their respective careers in mental health, but via completely different routes. The lessons we can learn from both accounts are drawn out in the discussion section. The fact that the accounts feature a professional and a patient show how far mental health nursing has come over the ensuing 50 years. Patients are partners, and lived experience narratives are indispensable to understand the phenomenology of mental health problems.