A health cri de coeur

Published: 17 February, 2011

• WHAT a cri de coeur on mental illness and its impact on families in Tom Foot’s review of Henry’s Demons (Review, February 10).

Yet sufferer Henry’s distraught insight: “Being locked up for so long really damages your spirits”, has to be contextualised,

as William Golding (Lord of the Flies) noted of his own mentally-ill son, David: “I do not know how deep it is, nor where it is from.

This thing that lies under my house like a rusting bomb”.  

As the father of a son (Jethro) who has had  four major mental breakdowns in six years, may I praise his NHS treatment in Highgate Mental Health Centre and wish him a speedy recovery.

MIKE BOR
Hyde Park Square, W2