Kelvinbridge

The second most hurtful experience of my life happened at Kelvinbridge on Glasgow's Great Western Road soon after I graduated. I was equipped to go climbing and I was waiting for a Glencoe bound bus when I was set upon by plain clothes police who dragged me into a van and dumped me in a cell at Partick police station without ANY explanation. Then driven to Woodilee mental hospital where I was injected with tranquilliser and put into a dormitory. I had fortunately a 10p on me and rang my old university tutor. About 2 days later I was driven back to my lodgings at Mrs Lesko's in Wilton St (Q.V. "Catholic Landladies account") where I promptly changed into my very smartest clothes and grabbed intelligent books but I HAD TO GO BACK TO WOODILEE! So 2 days later I left with a wad of handwritten material about my experiences and was given the bus fare back to Glasgow and a pair of slippers!

I rightly feared that I would be the butt of scorn if I disclosed anything but my father got to know and how he rubbed salt into ancient wounds by his inquisition into every pettifogging detail of the affair and why I wanted to go CLIMBING! As though it was in some way a CRIMINAL OFFENCE for a man of 30 to be dressed as a climber should and be waiting for a bus to Glencoe and be in possession of TWO cameras and the Hikers map of Glencoe!

I later attended meetings of fellow victims after the Herald disclosed that right across Strathclyde people were being picked up by the police and falsely incriminated. There was at that time (and may be still) a Section of the Mental Health Act that encouraged malicious people to get their HATED ONES "put away" in mental hospitals for flimsy reasons and SO BESMIRCHED ever after become disqualified from all but menial work. Now I had quite frequent clashes with Mrs Lesko and it appears that she lied to the police that I was using drugs. When I deal with her I will narrate all the ludicrous things that happened at 143 Wilton St between 1972 and 1975. I learn that in Strathclyde there have been many similar instances of the police abusing their powers. As with the Jews in Nazi Germany people are far too afraid to complain or deceive themselves that they have actually broken the law! This includes all those hapless people who would be very embarrassed indeed to recount pettifogging naughtiness as small children. Like myself they are convinced that they are dangerous sex-maniacs because they were curious about sexual matters whren they were young.

I draw upon "Kelvinbridge" for the Andrew Sinclair Stage Monologue, its narrative version, and a story called Mike Mellor's Mindquake where two men in my storyline are wrongfully detained in mental hospitals. Here the reader or viewer has to feel the leading character's pain and bewilderment whilst the climax disclosures prod the reader into thinking why cruelties meted out to innocent people in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia are permitted to happen in so called free Britain.