Looking for Wormholes
By Sonia Kumar
Dr Sonia Kumar is the mother of three very active primary schoolers and works in medical education at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry. She is an intermittent writer, blogger and UTS student and loves writing real life stories as well as occasional fiction. She has worked in psychiatry for many years and is now taking a break to pursue a more creative life that includes music as well as writing.
A wormhole is a hypothetical glitch in the space-time continuum. According to the theory of relativity, a wormhole large enough to pass through could enable time travel. This has caused much speculation in the realms of fiction, but has not happened in reality. If I were to discover a traversable wormhole in my office, it could lead to some fascinating adventures; however, I would like to have some kind of guarantee that I could be returned safely back to the present before 5pm. I would hate to be left behind in the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, or the infamous Female Factory, no matter how interesting the experience was to write about. I would probably find it quite hard to explain what I was doing there, and how I’d got hold of such odd-looking clothes. That is assuming that clothes also travel through time, which, according to some of the literature, they don’t.
I work at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry, which inhabits an imposing rectangular sandstone building, situated on the banks of the Parramatta River. It was originally constructed in 1884 as Ward One of the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, and its most prominent feature is a large belfry tower at the north end, set diagonally into the roof and forming a striking silhouette against the sky. The tower holds an antique clock with pointed iron hands and Roman numerals, donated to the colonies by King George VI. The clock was originally mounted in the main gable of the original Female Factory building, long since demolished. The bell was once integral to the running of the asylum and was rung at regular intervals to announce mealtimes and other daily rhythms. A longer, more ominous clanging was the emergency response signal, upon which all asylum attendants were to hasten to the main building and await instructions.
My office is situated right underneath the clock tower on the ground floor. I rise at dawn each Wednesday, leaving behind my sleeping children to drive through the twilight streets, ahead of the Sydney traffic. I park my car in a dilapidated gravel courtyard, next to a faded sign saying ‘Warning: Asbestos!’ on a nondescript, long abandoned building. The courtyard is thought to be of major archaeological significance as it is the site of the original Factory, built in 1821 to house and employ unwanted female convicts. Local residents, mostly old ‘Parragirls’, ex-inmates of the nearby Parramatta Girls Home, have launched a campaign to have the area World Heritage listed and converted into an arts and history precinct.
I spend my days in peace inside the sandstone walls of the Institute, planning and coordinating the formal education course for future psychiatrists of the state. It’s a welcome contrast to my usual job in community mental health, where crisis is our daily business and the Emergency department can call me at any time. But on Wednesdays, I emerge from the chaos of a desperately under-resourced system to take refuge inside this old asylum building.
Sometimes in the late afternoon I am left alone in the office, the rare gift of solitude, and my mind is given the opportunity to wander. I’ve noticed the building is always vacated promptly at 5pm, and I hear the nervous fiddling with keys and light switches in the lead up to the hour. There’s a sense of hurry as the staff get ready to leave, and suddenly everyone is gone, as if chased by an unseen presence. Officially, this happens because of the ‘security rule’, employees are not permitted to work alone after hours, but I’ve heard something else. Glancing references to ghosts, usually accompanied by a small smile that says ‘of course I don’t actually believe it, just saying…’
As far as my office goes, if there are ghosts here I’m sure they are benign ones, and we coexist peacefully. Perhaps the ghosts have discovered a wormhole, and they just pop through in summer for a quick blast of air conditioning.
The process of time travelling has not yet been refined down to a precise art. So I imagine when entering a wormhole you might not be able to predict the exact time period you would be travelling to. You could possibly end up arriving one week previously, or just five minutes ago, turning up in your own office and confusing your co-workers or a previous version of yourself. If I were able to find a wormhole in my office and it spat me out some time in the nineteenth century, the walls around me would disappear because my building didn’t yet exist. It was constructed later as Ward One of the asylum from the remains of the Female Factory. I’d probably find myself in the kitchen gardens of the old Factory with a clear view of the weir on Parramatta River. As a stray, unidentified woman they would probably assume I was an unassigned convict and put me to work straight away. All women entering the Factory began their time in third class, identified by a shaved head, and were employed in breaking stones for a living. They were the unwanted ones, women who had arrived at the docks in Sydney Town and been inspected by an unruly horde of convict men and free settlers who were gathered to claim a partner. Some had been rejected because of physical deformities, others because of small children in tow or pregnancies acquired on the sea journey; they were shuffled onto smaller boats and sent up the river to this grim destination.
The criteria for entry into second class after six months were ‘industry, sobriety and a humble demeanour.’ I believe I could achieve the first and third criteria, but legend has it the local men would sling bottles of potato vodka over the walls to tempt the workers. I’m not so sure I’d be able to resist after a hard day’s stone-breaking. Unless, as sometimes happened, the alcohol was delivered over the wall in the bladder of a dead animal, that method being likely to ensure full sobriety for me.
First and second-class women worked in the gardens, growing their own food and tending livestock, but spent most of their time carding, spinning and weaving wool to make Parramatta cloth. This was used for many purposes throughout the colony, and was considered to be suitable mourning attire by Queen Victoria.
The Female Factory also functioned as a matrimonial agency for convict men and free settlers alike. If I could time my arrival to an exact date, I’d want to be there for one of the ‘marriage fairs’ that happened around four times a year. Only the first class women were permitted to marry, and they might prepare for the occasion by washing in the river, a salubrious body of water that also drained the toilets, laundry and nearby infectious hospital.
Women were lined up as groups of men filed into the premises, and if anyone caught their eye, a brief conversational exchange was permitted. An early precursor to speed dating, but the stakes were much higher. Most women would accept a marriage proposal, no matter how unappealing the prospect, rather than remain in the Factory. There wasn’t much recourse if things didn’t work out: as it was illegal to desert a husband you would be returned promptly, with twenty-five lashes for good measure.
When time travelling to the Female Factory, I would be careful to mark the exact location of my wormhole in the garden, so I could escape back there at the right conjunction of events needed to line up for me to return to the present. If I mistimed my return to the Institute by say, fourteen years, I might even bump into myself as a young registrar beginning my psychiatric training. Assuming no cosmic anti-matter explosion occurred as a result, I could even warn myself about things in my own future: ‘Don’t do it! It’s not too late to choose a different career!’, or give myself advice about relationships to avoid. Although my younger, more fashionable self would probably sneer at how I’ve let myself go since motherhood.
Or, if I mistimed the trip in the opposite direction of time, all the colonial buildings would vanish, leaving just the unspoilt wilderness of the place-of-eels, where the freshwater meets the salt tidal waters, the land of the Burramattagal clan. In ancient times, this piece of land was used for women’s ceremonies. I would have to befriend the tribe and become one of them in order to survive, living on a diet of shellfish, yams and other small animals. It would certainly lower my cholesterol, but I’d really miss the kids and my iPad. But the most frightening and foolhardy trip of all would be to venture into the bowels of the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum itself, not least because my building was once the Male Ward. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect my office was the sleeping quarters, not for the ‘lunatics’ themselves, but a small room built off the patient dormitory for the male attendants to sleep in. Perhaps if I was brave enough to try it, I might dress as a man first, although as mentioned before there are no guarantees about clothing and time travel. Male attendants were granted three hours leave every forty-eight hours, and every fifth Sunday off-duty. They were paid six pounds a month, only half the wages paid at the gaol. A strange female with odd speech arriving possibly naked in a bedroom full of overworked and love-starved ruffians could only be assumed to be a true ‘lunatic.’
In its heyday around the turn of the century, the asylum received favourable reviews in colonial newspapers. Unlike the Female Factory, it was praised for excellent hygiene, the humane care of inmates and the variety of entertainments provided, including organised sports and live musical shows. As described in the Australian Town and Country Journal, 1895:
What strikes the visitor on entering the main gates is the exquisitely clean and neat appearance of the buildings and their surroundings. Closely shaven lawns, well-rolled gravel paths, and flower-beds bright with color, walls covered with ivy and the climbing ficus, and in some cases the gorgeously-tinted bougainvillia, all betoken a great amount of care on the part of the gardener and his assistants, and show that amongst other curative, or palliative, measures used, that of beautiful surroundings holds no small place in the system adopted.
Lithium and the early antipsychotic medications were first used in the 1950s, so before the practice of chemical restraint, ‘lunatics,’ (who are now known as ‘consumers’ and mostly have diagnoses of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) would be held down by canvas straitjackets or leather armbands if their behaviour was deemed dangerous or uncontrollable.
Wormhole or not, I don’t think I’ll be making that journey. As a twentieth century working mother there is far too much to lose. I’m not so convinced that the present is a better place for the patients, and I wonder if any of them might choose to go back through the wormhole. Since deinstitutionalisation, all the old asylums were closed down and the patients were optimistically transferred to the ‘community’. Now many of them live alone in government housing bedsitters and there are some who need long-term care but no hospital beds. Most people are aware the old institutions had terrible problems and sometimes abuses, but I still imagine the kitchen gardens and hospital farms, patients making clothes, playing organised sports and putting on musical performances.
Maybe one day I’ll find a wormhole that takes me to the future, and who knows what I might find? My children and their children, living a life I can’t yet imagine. This old building reinvented for some entirely new purpose. These sandstone walls have held a prison and a sanctuary, they have witnessed great atrocities but also real community, industry and creativity. I’d like to see what the future holds for this place and the people it represents, and maybe what we need is a metaphorical wormhole to bring some of the elements of the past forward, into the future.
Sources
- Historical Tour of Female Factory precinct — Judith Dunn, Past Times Tours, 9 May 2012
- Smith, Terry (1999). Hidden Heritage: 150 Years of Public Mental Health Care at Cumberland Hospital, Parramatta.
- Parramatta Female Factory Precinct. www.parragirls.org.au
- Tobin, Leanne and Djuric, Bonney. The Fence: Burra matta — Parramatta. Urban Theatre Projects
- Museum of History of Mental Health Care, Glengarriff House, Cumberland Hospital
- Wormhole. Article — Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole
- Dunn, Judith (2008) Colonial Ladies: Lovely, Lively and Lamentably Loose. Self- publication.
