Searching for reality in Ringmer

When I was a child, I liked to read comics. They helped make me the person I am today. I learned dog-training from Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, I learned social interaction from the Bash Street Kids and I learned feminism from Pansy Potter, the Strongman's Daughter. But it was The Numskulls that made me question the very fabric of reality. In this cartoon strip, six tiny people lived inside a man's head, controlling his thoughts and his body. It's a concept that was refined by Pixar for last year's animated film Inside Out, which featured five colourful emotions inside the brain of an 11-year-old girl.

Whilst The Numskulls were never going to win points for biological accuracy, they certainly scored highly when it came to surrealism. Brainy - the leader, naturally - worked in a room with a teleprinter and a suggestion box. In the mouth, Alf and Fred (whose names sounded as old-fashioned to me as 'teleprinter' does today) would break up food with pickaxes. There was a Numskull behind the eyes, one for the ears and another for the nose. Fortunately, everything else seemed to take care of itself. As I grew older, I swapped my comics for science-fiction, where I discovered more simulated reality in the stories of Ray Bradbury and Philip K Dick, and in assorted films, from Tron to The Thirteenth Floor.

All this helps explain why I'll happily argue that time isn't necessarily linear (which means I'll never miss a deadline again) and colours only exist inside your brain (no more mismatched socks). You may disagree with me, of course. But it's unlikely you'd suggest sending me to the Ringmer Asylum. Back in the mid-19th century, that could have been a very real threat.

In 1829, a couple of years after the Royal Horse Artillery had vacated its Ringmer barracks, the buildings were turned into what was described as a lunatic asylum. It was privately owned, charging its patients the equivalent of 75p per week. Records show that 20 patients were there in 1830, with eleven being restrained during the day and six at night. (I’d like to think the night-time restraint was nothing more than a particularly heavy duvet, similar to the 16.5 tog behemoth that Mrs B uses to keep me subdued in the winter.) Over the next 25 years, the Commissioners in Lunacy reported that conditions improved and then declined. Eventually, in 1855, Ringmer Asylum closed when the proprietor died. Today, the cries of patients have been replaced by barking, as some of those former barracks buildings are now kennels for the Southdown & Eridge Hunt. Mind you, I reckon I could probably stop the barking quite easily. If those hounds ever gneed extra training, I have gnumerous tips from a gnotable source.

First published in Viva Lewes magazine issue 114 March 2016