Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) uniquely combined talent as a poet and composer. Born in Gloucester, his father was a tailor. Experience of music while a chorister in the city cathedral enabled him to win a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Music where he was instructed by, amongst others, Charles Stanford and Ralph Vaughan Williams, the former holding him in high regard but saying he was `unteachable’. In the First World War, Gurney enlisted, seeing active service at Passchendaele where he was gassed. It was during this period that the started to write poetry. It was also lass happily during this time that he started suffering from severe mood swings. These have subsequently been interpreted as psychotic in nature. They related to a complex set of circumstances. Some of these were due to post traumatic stress disorder from the world war. There may have been elements of suffering from syphilis. In addition, the ending of a relationship which Gurney had started while undergoing treatment in Edinburgh after being gassed also had an impact, triggering instability. Finally, there were signs of mood swings from earlier in his life, meaning he may have been either bipolar, or suffered from schizophrenia.
From 1922, after a series of periods in hospital, and what seems to have been a major nervous breakdown in the early part of the decade, Gurney was treated first at Barnwood House in Gloucestershire, and then, for the final 15 years of his life, at the City of London Mental Hospital, in Stone, close to Dartford, actually within the boundary of Kent. Over this period, he continued, sporadically, to write both poetry and musical compositions. The hospital was founded in the 1860s, and was largely intended for private patients. It became a National Health Service facility in 1948, until its closure in 2005. Today, most of the buildings on the site have been converted to residential use.
On his arrival in Stone in December 1922, he was diagnosed as having `systematic delusional insanity.’ A nurse described him as `a hostile patient but not violent……not troublesome, simply difficult to reach.’ (from Michael Hurd, `Ordeal of Ivor Gurney’, Faber and Faber, London, 2008). Records at the hospital from the time give more detail about his condition: `The electricity manifests itself chiefly in thought. Words are conveyed to him. They are often threatening and they have been obscene and sexual. He has heard many kinds of voices. He sees things when he is awake, faces etc that he can recognise.’ (Ibid) While at Stone, Gurney worked sometimes on the farm attached to the hospital.
Since his death, Gurney’s musical and poetic work has enjoyed increased recognition. It is a lugubrious fact that such a fine, talented but tragic figure should have spent a third of their life in a place but been largely unaware of much of the larger environment around them. One of Gurney’s poems refers to the disappearance of a fellow poet during the war while they were at the front. This might just as well refer to Gurney himself:
`He’s gone and all our plans
Are useless indeed.
We’ll walk no more on Cotswold
Where the sheep feed
Quietly and take no heed.
You would not know him now….
But still he died
Nobly, so cover him over
With violets of pride
Purple from Severn side.’