![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/nayland-the-cemetery-where-iron-crosses-mark-people-with-disabilities/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/130604230_cross2.jpg&description=Image caption, Each cross is a reminder of a patient once cared for by a hospital that looked after people with disabilities In a small village cemetery, 34 tiny iron crosses poke up through the soil. Many are twisted and a few are missing completely. On some, the nameplates are visible. On others, they are not. Each cross is a reminder of a patient once cared for by a hospital that looked after people with disabilities in Nayland - a village that sits between Sudbury in Suffolk and Colchester in Essex. Image caption, Tom Weston says most residents were forgotten by their families Most of the patients at the long defunct Jane Walker Hospital, says Tom Weston, a former nurse there, were left and forgotten by their families. "Ninety per cent were not visited, easily," he says. "The staff, the maintenance men, the drivers and the cleaners - they became their family." He tells of one man who, before being sent to Jane Walker, was a teenage farm worker. He had learning difficulties and once told Mr Weston how he used to be whipped by the foreman. On one occasion, Mr Weston says, the teenager got hold of the whip and "gave the foreman a good hiding". "That's how he ended up in care," Mr Weston says. "They were given labels like being aggressive. They weren't." Image caption, Joining the Jane Walker Hospital in 1977, Mr Weston fondly remembers it as "a special place at a special point in time" Mr Weston, now 71 and still working as a nurse, spent nine years at Jane Walker after leaving the Royal Air Force. Hired in 1977, he fondly remembers it as "a special place at a special point in time". He tells of group picnics at Thetford Forest, days out at the beach and endless activities at the hospital itself. With seven wards, the Jane Walker Hospital had between 150 and 200 patient-residents at any one time. Image caption, The Jane Walker Hospital pictured during the 1970s "It was ahead of its time in being person-centred, and everybody who went on from Jane Walker took those){kind=link}
In a small village cemetery, 34 tiny iron crosses poke up through the soil.
Many are twisted and a few are missing completely. On some, the nameplates are visible. On others, they are not.
Each cross is a reminder of a patient once cared for by a hospital that looked after people with disabilities in Nayland – a village that sits between Sudbury in Suffolk and Colchester in Essex.
Most of the patients at the long defunct Jane Walker Hospital, says Tom Weston, a former nurse there, were left and forgotten by their families.
“Ninety per cent were not visited, easily,” he says. “The staff, the maintenance men, the drivers and the cleaners – they became their family.”