After a few months building it, New Bedlam Hospital for the Criminally Insane was finally ready to accept its new patients. Housed deep beneath the infamous Tower of London near the earth’s core, it was built specifically for English prisoners believed to be too insane for regular prisons.
Everyone in England, including the residents of Lower Strangling, were glued to their television sets; watching the live coverage on whatever news channel they were loyal to of the first patients entering the hospital via the Traitor’s Gate, knowing full well that the next time the outside world would know about them would be when the news broke out that they’d died.
In Lower Strangling specifically, the villagers watched the coverage from their individual homes, as the Coronavirus lockdown meant that they couldn’t watch it together on the large flat screen TV inside the Hangman’s Noose; the local pub. But they discussed it with each other via WhatsApp anyway, as this was as big a national event as any Royal Wedding or the Olympics.
Dave, Sarah, Will, and Eleanor Peterson were watching it in their living room; as the incarceration of extremely mentally ill people into a new mental facility was essential family viewing.
“Oooh, here we go”, said Dave excitedly, as the first boat to arrive across the Thames sailed towards the Traitor’s Gate.
The boat had five people in white coats wearing face masks in it, in the middle of them was a cartoonish looking man in his late fifties, also wearing a mask because he was told to. The expression on his face was not one he had shown since his unfortunate plane crash a decade earlier. It was, of course, former MEP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. He had been admitted to the hospital as it has been agreed by leading authorities that someone must be criminally insane to come up with something like Brexit.
“And here comes Mr Farage now”, announced Huw Edwards, who was presenting the coverage for the BBC from the opposite side of the Thames, as if he was commentating a Royal Wedding. Audiences around the country watched with baited breath as the Traitor’s Gate slid open and Nigel Farage sailed into it, probably never to return to the surface alive. After the Traitor’s Gate closed, a sense of peace filled the land. A gentle quiet.
“Mr Farage has now entered the Traitor’s Gate and has disappeared from view, probably never to be seen again by any of us on the surface until his carcass is brought up for a quick burial”, explained Huw.
“It’s odd. Was it just me or has the world become… slightly more peaceful after Nigel Farage went through the Traitor’s Gate?”, Dave asked his wife.
“Yeah, I think you’re right”, Sarah replied, “I believe it’s due to the knowledge that we’ll probably never have to hear his opinions again.”
“I feel sorry for the Doctors inside the hospital”, said Will, “they’ll have to listen to him every day as it’s their job”.
“I’m sure they’ll have ways to deal with him”, Dave reassured his son, “they may not appear to be ethical, legal, or humane by us ordinary folk, but rest assured they’ll be affective”.
Will shuddered at the thought, he was only seven but he understood what his father was getting at.
Several more prisoners went in, some were well known others not so much. But after a while it was time for the most infamous patient of all to enter the hospital. He was a man in his late seventies and wore a straight jacket and a leather face mask that he wore mainly to stop him from attacking the other people in the boat rather than to not give them COVID-19. He was strapped to one of those carriers used to move piles of chairs from one place to the other. He was cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr Scamander Trout.
Dr Scamander Trout was a revered Oxford educated psychiatrist before he was arrested after his true nature was discovered. He studied psychology at Oxford in the early sixties and was a member of the university’s notorious Bullingdon Club, were he did unspeakable things like burn £50 notes in front of homeless people and throw the ashes in their faces.
His best friend, also in the Bullingdon Club, was Sir Hugo Townsend. Sir Hugo was the 9th Duke of Knightlow, the Warwickshire sub-division that Lower Strangling is a part of, a sub division that very few people still care about.
Hugo and Scamander did a lot of dodgy things at university, namely incessantly bullying future documentary presenter Michael Palin, something that Scamander did without a care as he was a sociopath as well as a psychopath.
After graduating, Scamander made a name for himself as a psychiatrist in central Oxford, giving top quality therapy to those who needed it most. Except, later on in his career, following the disappearance of nine people, it was discovered that they were killed by him in the middle of therapy before the best part of their body was deep fried and eaten with salad and the best wine available. Some of his clients survived, but were badly abused.
Scamander was in the middle of doing a therapy session with a young man by the name of Samuel Bates, who’d been taken into his care by Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector David Mason OBE after his mother died, when the police came barging in and arrested him. Samuel just stared at Scamander passively as he was dragged of the therapy room.
And so Scamander resided in HMP Thameside for half a decade until now, where he was finally being interred into the lunatic asylum he belonged.
“Here comes Dr Scamander Trout, perhaps the main spectacle everyone watching at home is waiting for”, proclaimed Huw Edwards as the Traitor’s Gate opened and closed again after Dr Trout sailed in.
Inside their home in Lower Strangling, Janet Foster and Jo Whitley were watching Dr Trout’s incarceration whilst sipping cups of Earl Grey tea. Janet Foster had not said anything for sometime and had just stared at the TV, which worried her girlfriend.
“What’s wrong, Janet?”, asked Jo attentively.
“Nothing”, Janet finally replied, “it’s just I have an odd feeling that Dr Trout will be entangled into my life in the near future.”
With that, Janet and Jo sipped the tea as they watched the news.
The Lower Strangling Chronicles 