The Brighton Babbler
Picking up on the everyday social and political issues – and historic ones too – that impact on lives across Brighton and Hove, the Babbler aims to generate greater awareness of those issues, at a time when existing news coverage in the city sometimes seems to be in retreat. The podcast name may hint at whimsy, but the intent is unashamedly serious.
The Brighton Babbler
Asylum tales, forgotten lives
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The bodies of 4000 mental health patients are buried, mostly in unmarked graves, in the grounds of St Francis Hospital, formerly the Sussex County Asylum. The last known address of nearly half of those patients was in Brighton. In this episode of the Babbler, historian James Gardner talks to Kevin McDonnell (pictured), head of a team painstakingly uncovering the personal stories of some of those patients, and later catches up with one of Kevin's research team to focus on one particular case study – George Aquila Dubbin, who lived and worked in the city.
If you'd like to know more about the Sussex Asylums Burial Grounds Project... visit https://sussexasylumsburialgrounds.org/
Produced by Martin Shelley... contact: bysshebash@gmail.com... intro/outro music courtesy of www.purple-planet.com