MITCHELL LAITHES RECCE
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| Photo - circa 1969, Hospital opened in 1890 and was demolished in the early 1970s Read information about ML in my next post here |
Mitchell Laithes now lies within reach of the general populace but in the 1800s it was 'in the sticks'. Betty Goodwin was admitted to the hospital with scarlet fever and remembers being intimidated by its location - 'it seems like another world from my home'. Maggie Eccles was a student nurse there - ' oh the isolation and the hard work!' It's hardly surprising that people came down with these diseases, the River Calder was so polluted that a local writer described it as 'little better than a sewer'.
Tuberculosis, or TB for short, is an infectious disease caused by bacteria. In years gone by it used to be called the 'consumption'. In the late 1800s belief in the restorative powers of fresh air was common. Once germ theory became accepted and TB was understood to be contagious, sanatoria became the primary method of treatment for active TB cases. Sanatoria were intended to be places where TB patients were quarantined to prevent the spread of the disease, and places where they could rest, get fresh air and have good food. This 'rest cure' was the main philosophy behind sanatoria treatments in the 1910s and 20s.
Some of the locals I've spoken to think that the hospital was also the local 'nut house' which I find rather derogatory but anyhow..as some patients had been spotted wandering the village. I am not sure if this is true or not, but somewhere along the lines there would have been patients with mental issues.
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| TB Hospital ruins
4pm to 5pm 12 Feb 2013
We re-visited Mitchell Laithes fever hospital ruins once again.
Equipment: Canon Legria FS200
Olympus DW-90 digital voice recorder.
(Simplified), what you will hear is me talking to my partner, about the area we are in and visa versa, chatting about the history and the people. We pause with quiet intermissions in conversation to see if we record anything unusual.
We have had on occasion recorded whispers as if something is butting into our conversations, so we tend to do this now, we never assume that they are spirits of the dead.
I placed our Canon digital camcorder on that pile of bricks 'in the picture above' and just left it rolling. We were stood a good 10 feet away from it. Generally I prefer just to leave a camera rolling on its own (automated) and get out of the area (remotely) not to contaminate it, but in this instance we couldn't.
There was quite a bit of extraneous noise as was expected mid afternoon, but I sometimes think night vigils are nonsensical, you are setting yourself up for misperception.
We didn't hear anything unusual on the voice recorder.
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In the first video at 1:27 a strange clicking noise was heard, we couldn't rationalize this, it sounds very close to the camera, you can hear us chatting in the distance. I thought it might be something hitting the camera from above, or an internal mechanism, there appears to be a dip in sound (pressure) but I've never heard it do this before. I have added an additional video explaining what I think the sound 'sounds like' not that it is this, as I explain, the camera was flush on a brick. It would be impossible for the SD card cover to open on its own. I don't know what this sound is, it is more than likely mechanical.
Conclusion: Internal mechanism, unknown.
