Crazy Clearance

This is an image of Rocky who was a local character in Seaham. who refused all efforts to house him, preferring to live in a tent by a cliff on the Blast Beach and later in a cave in Ice House Dene. During his periodic bouts of psychosis he would sing and perform on the street. The people of Seaham were fond of him and tried hard to care for him. During Lock-Down he did eventually allow himself to be admitted to a care home where he died a couple of years later. This photograph that I took of him had the sign ' crazy clearance in the window of the store behind him. It was closing down and seemed to be a metaphor for the difficulties experienced by people with mental illness since the closure of mental hospitals under 'Care in the Community' policies which covered massive cuts in provision.