The Priory, Carisbrooke, formerly St Dominic’s Priory, is a sanctuary of healing for people with mental and emotional health problems. Picture by Peter Boma.
WIGHT LIVINGIMAGINE, just for a second, what it’s like to suffer from some form of mental illness.
You can’t? Well, its a sobering fact that, according to National Health Service figures, one in four of us will be struck down with a mental health problem at some point in our lives.
From mild depression to full blown psychotic episodes, mental illness can be a frightening, lonely experience for sufferers and, indeed, for those closest to them.
Yet until relatively recently, mental illness was an embarrassing, taboo subject, only spoken about as something that happened to other people and then, in the most hushed of terms.
Even within the church, a body which takes as its inspiration Christ’s message to look after the most vulnerable members of our community, mental illness was a subject too few spoke about or even recognised.
However, the vision of an extraordinary woman more than 50 years ago has helped change all that, and has resulted in the formation of The Carisbrooke Priory Trust.
The charity — which costs around £100,000 a year to run — has just been named as one of two Island charities chosen for the Charity Challenge 2012 in a poll run jointly by the County Press and IW Radio.
Both organisations will be working together throughout this year, with other Island residents and the groups themselves, on a series of fun, fund-raising challenges designed to boost the coffers of the trust and the other chosen charity, the IW Young Carers. The charities will also get a new website, designed by we3create.
The amazing tale of how the trust came into being starts with a vision given to Helen Rawlings in the late 1960s. Mrs Rawlings had suffered with serious mental illness for many years but believed, during a time of prayer, Christ had promised to heal her.
Shortly afterwards, she had a dream, where she was taken from Surrey, where she was living at the time, and shown a large Victorian house from the back and just above roof height. The only other information Helen received in her dream was 'there was water nearby’ and Helen assumed this was the sea, as she remembered how much it would please her children.
During the following months, she took charge of her often random and troubled thoughts and her mind healed remarkably, a situation which continues to this day.
With her late husband, John, an Anglican priest, they founded a ministry of Christian prayer to help people seeking mental and emotional health.
However, the couple never gave up on finding the house that had been revealed to Helen in her dream.
Fast forward a few years and Helen and John were celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary at Freshwater. They visited The Priory, then up for sale after the former St Dominic’s Priory had closed, and were convinced it was the house Helen had seen in her dream.
A public meeting was arranged on the Island in 1991 and the house was eventually bought for £275,000. The Carisbrooke Priory Trust was later formed, inspired by the vision Helen had all those years ago, to form a non-denominational Christian charity, dedicated to helping people in mental distress.
Remarkably, one of the nuns who had lived at The Priory before it shut in 1989, Sister Mary Albert, had also prayed for a house that would reconcile and heal what she saw as the divided body of Christ.
At the same time as Helen had her vision, she composed a prayer, which she recited every day for 25 years and saw her vision made reality when the trust was formed.
Today, the trust provides an oasis of calm for people who suffer from mental health issues, staying true to its original aims of being a non-denominational centre where people can go to find relief from mental anguish through the power of prayer.
The Rev Chris Lane, 63, has been chaplain at The Priory for the past 16 years. He was involved with the formation of the charity at its beginning but, at the start, he was sceptical about founding a Christian charity that concentrated on mental health issues.
He said: "From a personal point of view, I didn’t want to know, I guess because of the church’s attitude at the time. There was a lot of mystery around mental illness."
Chris had originally come to the Island as priest in charge at St Paul’s, Barton. However, he was drawn to the new trust after meeting Helen.
He became its first chairman and was part of the steering group that bought the empty priory. Originally, it had been up for sale for £300,000.
Following negotiations, the price was reduced and the trust was given just one month to find a ten per cent deposit.
Each of the committee members decided to give what they could to buy the property and, miraculously, when the cash was added up at the end of the month, it came to £27,500, enabling them to put a deposit on the building.
Chris said: "It was quite an extraordinary time."
Chris, who has recently been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, is due to retire from the chaplaincy role. At the moment though, he remains as one of the three permanent employees of the trust.
He said: "It is a safe place and we do all we can to see it remains so."
The other full-time members of The Priory are husband and wife team Colin Thornton, 56, and his wife, Marja, 57. Not only are they employees at the trust but have lived there full-time since they moved from Lancashire when the trust was founded with their two children, Tobias and Dominic, then aged 12 and ten respectively.
Chris said: "Our desire was really to help people."
Volunteers at the trust include former prison officer at Parkhurst, Rob Stamp, 61, and his wife, Carole, 62, both from Seaview.
Carole said: "Back in the early 1990s, I had quite a remarkable healing. I had come from a hurt background and had experienced a great deal of depression."
She learned of The Priory’s concentration on mental health issues and decided to go.
She said: "When you come, you are attracted to the people who are here. There is a level of understanding. You are accepted as you are. Nobody pried or asked difficult questions."
Lawrence Jay and his wife, Janet, also have good reason to be grateful to The Priory. Their son, Kingsley, now 47, suffered from learning disabilities, is blind and also has autism.
The NHS was unable to help him, yet his life has been changed by regular visits to The Priory.
Lawrence said: "It is a wonderful resource. He has been made to feel very valuable for the first time. He has been coming here for ten years and has been absorbed into Priory life. He is now able to live reasonably independently with a support worker.
"I don’t think he would have been able to do that if he had not had the help he received here."
Reporter: davidn@iwcpmail.co.uk