Behind Your Mask

After first seeing the film "The Elephant Man," I was moved to write a song for Joseph (who was called "John" in the film and Broadway play of the same name.) I was haunted by the idea of a living, suffering being with a gentle soul and longing for human contact, forced to wear a concealing mask whenever he was in public. You might say he spent his life behind a mask, until Frederick Treves brought him to the London Hospital and introduced him to society.

Even then, Joseph could only go outside at night, concealed in his iconic hat, mask and cloak. When he went to Drury Lane Theater, he needed to be shielded from the public gaze. That required elaborate arrangements --smuggling him into the theater by the royal entrance and seating him in a private box behind three nurses in evening dress.

Visits to the countryside required more elaborate preparation. Joseph was conveyed in a cab with drawn blinds to a second-class railway car on a separate siding from the main train. He boarded there and then the car was coupled to the rear of the train for his journey to Northamptonshire, for a wonderful holiday on a private estate owned by Lady Louisa Knightley. Only then could he roam freely in the woods by daylight, savoring the fresh breeze and warm sunlight, the sights and sounds of animals and brooks. He wrote excited letters to Treves and other friends, pressing flowers and leaves between the pages. Those three extended holidays gave him a taste of freedom the rest of us take for granted.

In my work at an elder home, I am reminded of Joseph. The residents, some of whom are unsightly and frozen in wheelchairs, don't wear actual masks, but their mental state keeps them confused and foggy most of the time. They are like living statues. Yet if you sit face to face, touch their hands and speak their names, they respond, often quite eloquently. As with Joseph, people underestimate how much these elders understand, think, and feel. I wish I could spend hours with each one of them as Treves did with Joseph, drawing them out and encouraging them to express their thoughts, but the busy schedule only allows for a few brief moments with each person.

A few years back, the celebrated neurologist, Oliver Sacks, wrote a book which was made into a film, called "Awakenings," about his patients with equine encephalopathy - many of them had spent decades in a frozen trance. The use of L-dopa seemed to miraculously bring them back "to life," but they were convinced it was still the roaring twenties. People emerged as individuals with passions and memories - for a short time anyway. The drug had mixed success and some had to be taken off it. But the point of the film and this long blog is to reflect on how many people live behind some kind of mask, real or metaphorical. It only takes the human touch and a moment of contact to awaken them.

BEHIND YOUR MASK (for Joseph Merrick)

I saw a photograph of you the other day

Far beyond my strangest dreams

A sidehow of the age, a showpiece on an English stage

where horror mixed with love like a bitter wine.

Behind your mask you were a dreamer

A suffering heart

Behind your mask, you had the courage to be a man

And I wish I could have known you

I wish that I could have seen behind your mask

where you lived and dreamed.

I heard the story of your life the other day

Far beyond my strangest dreams.

Building a cathedral in your room, lonely man

Living with your poetry and portraits of fine ladies

You longed to be the hero of their hearts

Behind your mask, you were a dreamer.

M Siu Wai Stroshane c 1982

Unsung Heroes: Joseph's Caregivers at the London Hospital

There’s no doubt that Treves acted out of compassion in his aim to provide shelter for a fellow human being in need. But Joseph would never have survived without the devoted care of his nurses and hospital staff. As the Head Matron declares in the film, “I bathed him, I fed him, I cleaned up after him, and I see that my nurses do the same.” This is exactly right.

For four years, the nurses, maids, and porters who volunteered to care for Joseph Merrick had to go out of their way to reach him. Armed with bath supplies, linens, medicines and meal trays, they made the trek several times a day up many flights to the Isolation Ward, and later to his home in the remote wing of Bedstead Square. They are truly the unsung heroes of Joseph’s last years.

The Real Nurse Ireland

In the "Elephant Man" movie, Treves has painstakingly rescued "John" Merrick from his cruel owner, Bytes, and furtively admitted him to the hospital, tucking him away in an attic isolation ward for food, care and rest. The sharp-eyed hospital governor spots him carrying Merrick's breakfast and summons him away for questioning just as a student nurse happens by. Treves hands her the bowl of porridge and gently reassures her, "Don't worry, he won't hurt you." It's hardly sufficient preparation for Merrick's shocking appearance. At the sight of him, she screams, drops the bowl and runs away, sobbing. This was partly based on Treves' memoirs but he did not name the nurse. In the film, her name is Nora Ireland.

As it turns out, Joseph did have a Nurse Ireland taking care of him, but her real name was Emma Gertrude. She was a 29 year old nursing student the day he was admitted to the London Hospital after being rescued from the train station, broken and starving. From the Royal London Archives, archivist Jonathan Evans gives us this fascinating story about her.

Notice the interesting dates in her life:
Emma Gertrude Ireland (1857 – 1898), has a poignant life story. She entered the London Hospital School of Nursing in March 1886 at the age of 29, having previously worked at St. Pancras Infirmary. She became Sister in Blizard Ward [then a surgical ward at The London] in 1888 .

Emma had been on duty in Cotton ward when Joseph Merrick was first admitted to the London in 1886.
Sshe was the last nurse to see Joseph Merrick alive on the morning of Friday April 11th, 1890.

Emma Ireland knew Joseph from his first day at the LH to his last. Surely she must have learned his speech well and had interesting conversations with him, perhaps confiding her dreams of serving humanity in other places. Three months after Joseph's death, she left the London Hospital and traveled to Hong Kong to care for plague victims. She herself died of the plague in 1898. Here is the notice in the press about her:

1898 Plague in Hong Kong—Two nursing sisters have died from the plague in Hong Kong. A plague patient in delirium coughed in the face of Miss Elizabeth Frances Higgin (Sister Frances) on April 2oth; on the 25th she became ill, and was found suffering from bubonic plague, the worst form of the disease. She died on April 29th. The sister who attended her, Miss Emma Gertrude Ireland (Sister Gertrude), was admitted to the hospital May 2d. The next morning the typical bacilli were found; she died May 5th. Both these sisters served through the plague epidemic of 1894.

Among other British army, navy, and other civilians, the two women were awarded the Hong Kong Plague medal, the highest army medal awarded to civilians. One side was an allegorical scene of a nurse and soldier tending a Chinese man lying on a bed supported by two sawhorses. There is a pail of whitewash between the soldier’s legs. Death flies above the victim, poised to thrust his fatal blow. The Chinese characters from Hong Kong are present on the right side and the date “1894” is present at the bottom.

She was truly a devoted nurse, who gave her life to serving humanity