The story of Tom’s return to Bullbridge is, I am sorry to say, painful. He was the most distinguished graduate in Physics in my College, St Satyrus. In my forty years of College teaching, I had never had a better undergraduate. And, he had a formidable international reputation.
But the University and the College accepted, without the most minimal enquiry, the result of his Argentinian trial – that he was a convicted felon. You would imagine that in a great university as Bullbridge somebody would have realised that Tom was the victim of a very serious scam and that he fully deserved compassion, not condemnation. That he had an unusual mental condition no one even considered possible, which is typical of the total lack of understanding of mental disorders in the University in what concerns its senior members.
I shall tell you the reaction of a senior member of the University when I suggested to him that it was necessary to take some steps so that senior members would be more aware of mental health and related disorders and thus avoid discriminating against other scholars. He dismissed the question by saying that they can have the services of the Counselling Services or the mental hospital. This is totally off the mark.
The problem is not how senior members try to deal with their own mental conditions. The problem is how they respond to the needs of colleagues that suffer from such conditions, and, I am sorry to say, that this is serious and can border on cruelty. One of my dear friends committed suicide in a great college.
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