Marjorie Wallace (SANE)

After graduating, Wallace worked as a trainee producer for The Frost Programme with David Frost. She then became a religious programmes producer and a current affairs reporter for London Weekend Television.[9]

She later joined the BBC as a reporter and film director for news and current affairs programme Nationwide, including covering stories about homeless people and making the first film inside an IRA training camp.[10][11][9]

In 1972, Harold Evans, then editor of The Sunday Times, recruited Wallace into the Insight Team of the newspaper to work on the thalidomide scandal. She was tasked with tracking down as many of the cases where children had been born with deformities caused by the drug.[12][13][14][9]

Wallace interviewed over 140 families affected by thalidomide, publishing weekly stories in the newspaper.[15] One of the cases was Terry Wiles, a child born with severe physical disabilities who had been adopted by Hazel and Len Wiles. The article is credited with helping to persuade Distillers, the company that distributed and marketed the drugs, to offer compensation to victims of the scandal.[16][12][15]

Wallace later turned Wiles’ story into a book and a screenplay, On Giant’s Shoulders, for a BBC television film broadcast in 1979 starring Judi Dench.[17] The drama won an International Emmy Award in 1980 and was also nominated for a BAFTA.[13][16][18] The Sunday Times expose of thalidomide led to victims being awarded over £28 million compensation.[12]

In 1976, Wallace reported on the Dioxin disaster in Seveso, Northern Italy, which led to the publication of The Superpoison.[19]

In 1986, Wallace wrote a series of campaigning articles in The Times on schizophrenia and other severe mental illness. The articles were published under the title The Forgotten Illness. They focused on misconceptions about mental illness, the anguish and neglect of sufferers and families, and the failures of the community care policy.[20][21] The response to the articles was the largest The Times had ever received on a home news subject.[13]

In 1986, as a result of the scale of the public response to The Forgotten Illness articles, Marjorie Wallace founded SANE. The charity initially focused on the most severe mental illnesses, but it later expanded its remit to all mental health.[6][22]

Following the launch of the charity, Wallace recruited support for SANE from key figures in medicine, science, business, industry and the media, including Prince Charles as its first patron.[10][9] Minette Marrin in The Sunday Times wrote of Wallace: “She stands firmly and consciously in the tradition of 19th-century social reformers like Charles Dickens.”[2]

In 1992, Wallace founded SANEline, the UK's first national specialist out-of-hours mental health helpline, offering information and emotional support to individuals, families, carers, professionals, and the public.[23][9]

In 1994, Wallace also raised over £6 million to build a new research centre, The Prince of Wales International Centre for SANE Research, with donations from Xylas family, Prince Turki Al Faizal and The Sultan of Brunei.[9] The Centre promotes and hosts multidisciplinary teams researching and investigating the causes of psychosis. It was opened by Prince Charles in 2003.[24]

In 1982, Wallace met June and Jennifer Gibbons. Identical twins who had made a pact of silence to speak only with each other and no one else.[25] The twins were admitted to Broadmoor Hospital following a string of offences, including vandalism and arson. They remained at Broadmoor for 11 years, where Wallace earned their trust and publicised their cause.[26]

In 1986, Wallace published The Silent Twins. The book bought the twins to international attention, with Oliver Sacks writing that it was “a remarkable and tragic study in its depth, penetration and detail.” Wallace wrote the screenplay for the BBC film directed by Jon Amiel.[27][28][29]

The story was also turned into numerous plays, documentaries, and two operas.[26] Another film version of The Silent Twins, featuring Letitia Wright and Tamara Wilson, premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.[30]