Cane Hill Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon in the London Borough of Croydon. (grid reference TQ291587)
The main buildings at Cane Hill were designed by Charles Henry Howell, consultant architect to the Commissioners in Lunacy and built on a hill-top site overlooking Coulsdon and Farthing Downs. The hospital opened in two phases, in 1882 and in 1888 as the Third Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.
The first superintendent, James Moody, was knighted for his psychiatric work and, following his death in 1915, he was succeeded by Dr George Lilly who retired in 1949. In the post-war period, Cane Hill's superintendent for twenty-three years was the eminent psychiatrist Dr Alexander Walk (1901-1982). Walk was renowned for his scholarship and was an authority on the history of British psychiatry.
During its lengthy period of operation, many notable patients passed through the doors of Cane Hill - these include Charlie Chaplin's mother, and the brothers of Michael Caine and David Bowie. Bowie's album The Man Who Sold The World featured the administration block of Cane Hill on its sleeve. At its peak, the hospital housed almost 2,000 patients.[citation needed]
Anne Clark (born 14 May 1960, Croydon, London, England) is an English poet and songwriter. Her first album, The Sitting Room, was released in 1982, and she has released over a dozen albums since then.
Her experimental music occupies a region bounded roughly by electronic, dance (techno applies on occasion) and possibly avant-garde genres, with varying hard as well as romantic and orchestral styles.
Clark is mainly a spoken word artist. Many of her lyrics deal critically with the imperfections of humanity, everyday life, and politics. Especially in her early works she has created a gloomy, melancholy kind of atmosphere bordering on weltschmerz.
Anne Clark was born the daughter of an Irish mother and a Scottish father. At the age of 16, she left school. She took various jobs, one of which was as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. Clark then got a job at the local record store (and label), Bonaparte Records. Punk rock was finding its way into London's music scene and perfectly matched Anne Clark's emotions.
Here
Upon these ghostly shadows
Of men and women
There are no smiles
Singly
They mingle
With the greyness of the walls
And at strange angels
They travel on
To nowhere
Each a nucleus
Of sadness and despair
Small
Or no conversation
Passes their cigarette-stained lips
They sit
The lonely ones
Sitting eternally
In institutions
That have become their eyes
That have become their arms
Their legs
They are empty now
Just shells moving back and forth
Upon a shore
Of some uncharted beach
Up steep green hills
They linger
Like the darknest thoughts
That push them selves
Into your mind
You cannot question them
For they will not answer you
They