1. The Barlow Song
Stan Byers was recorded singing this at a reminiscence group in 1988.
Barlow Home was the boys‘ ward at the hospital
SL RA with V and N. My thing is a song-the Barlow Song. This song was recorded by a man called Stan Byers, pictured here ....at a memories group at the Royal Albert hospital in 1988.
Barlow was the name of the boys ward at The Royal Albert Hospital where Stan had lived.

2. The Barlow Song Come to Barlow. We will find it very nice.
If it wasn’t for the nurses,
We would live in paradise.
Build a bonfire
Build a bonfire.
Put the nurses on the top.
Put the charge hands in the middle
And we’ll burn the bloomin’ lot.
So here are the words with Stan singing them.

3. Songs from long stay hospitals and boarding schools
We sang the songs when the staff weren’t around
The Barlow song was one of many songs composed and sung by people with learning disabilities living in long stay institutions. In 2006 I worked on a project to bring some of these songs together. The songs were often only known by people with learning disabilities who had made them up and sung them, in secret, as a protest against the way they were being treated in the hospitals. The songs, like the Barlow song, were part of a hidden history and in danger of being lost for ever .
I would like to see these songs, including the Barlow Song in the archive were other people could enjoy then and learn about learning disability history at the same time.
Sylvia Ironman, former resident at St Lawrence’s hospital, Surrey