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"Denmark hill has a Wetherspoons, an okay railway pub, a train station, a hospital, and a mental hospital. That is all.


Oh, and a big scary tower with a cross."


Big scary tower is Salvation Army. Supposedly, one of the best hospitals in the UK - King's College Hospital, Maudsley Hospital - a psychiatric hospital please as opposed to mental, and King's College.

To my knowledge (via some excellent local history books I bought at Chener on L Lane) D K Hill is so called because it used to be covered in, er, dog kennels.


They were for Hoorays who would come out from town to what was then the country and hire hounds to attempt to polish off some wildlife.


It's also why, I presume, the blocks in the LCC-built East Dulwich Estate are named after hunts - Quorn etc.

What's the problem with the word 'mental'? This kind of over-sensitivity drives me up the wall.


men?tal

1    [men-tl]


adjective

1. of or pertaining to the mind: mental powers; mental suffering.

2. of, pertaining to, or affected by a disorder of the mind: a mental patient; mental illness.

3. providing care for persons with disordered minds, emotions, etc.: a mental hospital.

4. performed by or existing in the mind: mental arithmetic; a mental note.

5. pertaining to intellectuals or intellectual activity.

I think you are being the over-sensitive one here.

Mental, in this context is loaded with stigma.


The hospital in question deals with all kinds of mental illnesses, yes, but I think we've moved on from the 70s sitcom labels. If you don't get this and are happy to wave 'the PC brigade gone mad banner' you don't get mental illness.

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