Our Adventures in the Wild

Terry Simpson was born not long after a world war and grew up to a soundtrack of Family Favourites and Rock n' Roll. He has lived his whole life in West or South Yorkshire, apart from 4 years away at college studying Philosophy. He came back with a degree and an existential crisis that was resolved by a term of post graduate study on a psychiatric ward in Leeds. Appalled by the treatment of patients, including his own, he became a lifelong campaigner for mental health reform.He worked as a patients advocate in Leeds during the early 1990s, and went on to manage the newly formed UK Advocacy Network, a national survivor led campaigning group, from 1993-2002. During this time he wrote two plays about the mental health system, A Quiet Night On Roundhay Wing, and An Untimely Death On Passchendaele Ward, which were performed regionally and nationally in mental health settings, and came to the attention of the Open University, which filmed them for use as course materials. The second play was set in the mythical Needleham Mental Health Trust, and the novel Needleham is a sequel to this play.He has edited or co-edited various collections of poems and stories by mental health survivors, including And The World Really Had Changed (Leeds Survivors Press 1996), and Doorways in the Night - a collection of personal accounts of recovery (Local Voices 2004).Terry says "I have 3 children and a partner who writes crime novels and keeps me on track. My ambition remains to change the world and, like my childhood hero, still have plenty of time to sing."