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Grace Williams Says It Loud

This novel tells the story of Grace Williams, from her birth in 1946 until 1987. Grace is born with a number of severe disabilities, both physical and mental, and at the age of eleven is sent to live in a mental hospital. She stays there for more than twenty-five years and is the subject of considerable, verbal, physical and sexual abuse. However, she also develops a deep friendship and, ultimately a loving, sexual relationship with another patient at the hospital. The novel is written throughout in the first person, narrated in the voice of Grace. Developing this voice involved trial and error. There was no model.

The novel is a love story. It is also a historical depiction of the mental health-care system in the UK between 1946 and 1987. The process of writing the novel was slow and fragmented. In the first instance, individual scenes were written in no particular order and with no specific dates. Most of the redrafting involved ordering these scenes and tying them down to a clear chronology. Research consisted of two elements. Firstly interviewing people – family, friends, professionals – about everyday life and about the social and cultural context of disability in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. These interviews took place over a period of two years, as the development of the work dictated. Secondly, reading the literature available on the subject at the Wellcome Library; significantly, the majority of the primary sources – hospital records – have been destroyed, and there appears to be little secondary material. Henderson spent approximately six days in the Wellcome Library, spread across three months. She also visited the sites of several – now closed or converted – Victorian mental asylums.