The role of relatives as carers of people with chronic mental illness has long been emphasised and was legitimised by Sir Roy Griffiths in his report to the Secretary of State in 1988. The White Paper (Caring for People), however, merely pays lip service to the role of the family. It does not suggest how such help might be provided. There is no reference to relatives, or even ‘informal carers’ (the most recent way of describing relatives), in its sections on provision of services by Social Services or the Health Service. While ‘informal’ is clearly used to indicate ‘unpaid’, it emphasises that relatives, even as carers, are not part of the formal caring process and can, therefore, be ignored as part of the team. If relatives are to be part of the service, as carers, then they need, as Griffiths and the White Paper point out, to receive support and resources to fulfil this role. But what support and services? And who is to provide them?

The Liverpool training scheme in psychiatry began in August 1985 and at the time of writing is five years old. During this time 73 trainees have left the scheme; some having completed four years training in psychiatry, some completing a much shorter time. We thought, therefore, that it would be interesting to consider the posts trainees took on leaving.

It could be said that one of the chief architectural legacies of the late 20th century, when it comes to be considered retrospectively, will be the wanton destruction and dispersal of buildings constructed in the previous century for the public benefit. Churches, schools and hospitals have been systematically sold off, and a good number of them, if not totally demolished, have lapsed into a pathetic state of limbo, particularly in this time of economic recession. Some of the worst cases of this known to the Victorian Society are hospitals of great architectural quality, constructed for the treatment of the mentally ill, then known as lunatic asylums.

Despite publication in the Lancet (1988), the initial impact of the Edinburgh Declaration was probably not apparent to many outside the world of academic medical education when it was first published in 1988. In particular the implication for psychiatrists involved with teaching was hardly recognised by the profession at that time. Thus, this review by Professor Walton is a timely reminder of the Declaration's importance.

At the turn of the century, opera was leaderless after the heady days of Verdi and Wagner. Puccini emerged as the new voice of Italian opera, where realism, or verismo, was the way forward. But verismo could never be the answer to the operatic dilemma that faced the latest composers, since it only gave a musical dimension to a stage painting of ‘life as it is’, without reference to underlying psychodynamics — I personally have never thought Puccini much of an intellectual. Beautiful his music may be, but as thinking pieces of theatre they are devoid of real challenges. Their appeal and potency lies, to a great extent, in Puccini's obsession with needless suffering.

When the 6th Prague International Conference was announced in September 1989, the organisers can have had little idea that within two months the communist regime in Czechoslovakia would collapse and the Berlin wall be breached. The conference was postponed until August 1991. That week the failed Soviet coup led to the disbandment of the USSR as such. It was an exciting time to visit Prague. It was a disconcerting time too, I was still not sure whether my contribution was meant to be a poster or a paper. Writing received no response, fax machines were unavailable, phoning at first resulted in repeated Sprechen Sie Deutsch? but eventually in an assurance that my accommodation had been booked So I arrived as Rusyne airport with a paper and a poster, having ascertained during the journey that delegates to two other unrelated conferences in Prague had had similar experiences!