Peter Campbell: The pleasure madmen know
Peter Campbell. Photograph by Hilary Porter
Joe Bidder profiles survivor poet and activist Peter Campbell and gives a potted history of the movement, through his achievements.
There is a pleasure madmen know is the opening line of the first poem in Peter Campbell's first poetry collection entitled Brown Linoleum Green Lawns but this phrase is not an idiosyncrasy or merely a clever literary sleight of hand with a line taken from John Dryden. Campbell is a mental health system survivor, writer and poet who has devoted his life and considerable talents to the pursuit of survivors' rights and justice. He is proud of his identity. “I am a survivor but I don't feel that this is an impairment”, he says.
In 2006 Melvyn Bragg presented Peter Campbell with the MIND Diamond Champion Award for the person who has done most for users of mental health services in England and Wales in the last 20 years. It is noteworthy that this award was made based on a survey of survivor/user opinion. It wasn't until the end of a 60 minute interview that I was able to extract this from him: a fact which would surprise no-one who knows him well. Shy, self effacing and highly intelligent, Peter Campbell has spent 25 years battling with the government and the mental health system for survivors' rights.
Raised in the Scottish Highlands, Campbell's early years were spent confronting mental distress. Long stays in hospital, which curtailed his academic career at Cambridge, also prevented him from maintaining continuous paid employment. Consequently, in 1980, he changed his life and began an involvement with mental health activism coupled with poetry and performance which has lasted until the present day. By the 1990s he was able to construct a professional life as a freelance writer, consultant and trainer.
In the 1980s he participated in CAPO (Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression), was a member of Camden Mental Health Consortium, a co-founder of Survivors Speak Out in 1986 and a co-founder of Survivors' Poetry in 1991. He is a gifted poet and performer, writes extensively on mental health issues, and trains psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and other health professionals.
All his adult life Peter has been a mental health system survivor, cumulatively spending many years in asylums. He expresses deep anger, rooted in feelings of helplessness and the incompetence, indifference and callousness frequently displayed by psychiatrists and other health workers but has been able to convert his anger into constructive action.
Until 2004 he never considered himself a disabled person because he doesn't consider a mental health problem to be an impairment. Campbell readily concurs that society discriminates against people with mental health problems but for himself he refuses to accept that he has a mental illness and debates whether there is such a thing as mental illness.
Since 2004 Peter Campbell has become progressively deaf and uses a hearing aid, lip reading and induction loops (when they are available and in working order!) and now regards himself as a disabled person. “My deafness is a real impairment and I find immense difficulties making adjustments”, he says, then adds reflectively, “I don't feel part of the deaf community, and accept that there is an enormous chasm between those born deaf and those who acquire deafness in middle age”.
Peter Campbell: Poetry and rights
last updated: 2006-12-16 00:00:00
More by this author : Squaring The Circle Chris Hammond Peter Campbell: Brown Linoleum Green Lawns Victoria Waddington Ruth Gould: Creative Force in Disability Arts
tags : poetry interview_profile