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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Mrs Lizzy on Wednesday 13 January 10 15:16 GMT (UK)
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Can anyone tell me how long people have been campaigning against disability discrimination please? I'm doing a writing course and for my current assignment I interviewed a 99 year old lady yesterday. This lady contracted polio aged 5 (she is now in her 90s) and has had to wear callipers ever since. She told me, quite matter of factly, "In those days, if you were disabled, you were nothing," and went on to explain that everyone assumed she would never be much good for anything, so she was pretty much written off. She sat no exams, never had a job and worst of all, from her point of view, she never got married and had children. It was just always assumed that in spite of being able to travel around on her own, on foot and on public transport, in spite of being fit enough to help her mother with her younger siblings, somehow she was not good enough to study, take an exam, or look after a family of her own. Can you tell I'm a bit peeved??
I've been looking for some sort of history of disability discrimination to use as research for this and further writing and would be really grateful for any advice or input.
thanks,
Mrs Lizzy
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Hi
I found this by looking on Google Scholar. Not sure if it is what you mean but it might give you some leads.
https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/paper/kowalsky.html
Glen
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Thanks, glenclare, will have a look. :)
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My mother was born 1907; she had club feet ... 30+ operations on them, in the days when the surgeons really didnt know how to treat them, and ended up with calipers all her life. She didnt go to school until she was 11, as it was thought she'd never learn. (Who learns with their feet ?? :o ) But being the daughter of a suffragist ( ! ), and although poor, she never lacked for anything; Granny fought for her all the way, and she was trained as a dressmaker (back then the assumption was that disabled people had not much ability) ... but due to her own determination she ended up a court dressmaker, making clothes for minor royalty and the famous (and infamous !) ... she married my father, also disabled as a child from polio, and together they took on the world.
So although there was nothing provided by the state for such people, I knew a lot who did succeed, but only through their own will. Mum used to say 'If you are disabled, you can't hope to be equal to the able bodied; you have to be better than them' !!
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We complain about the smallest and pettiest of things these days and forget to see how the other half lived.
Disability discrimination has been around forever. It's how the disability is handled by the family and those around them that makes or breaks a person with a challenge. It's people like Lydart's parents who have survived and beaten the odds that I think are some of the most courageous. I take my hat off to your parents Lydart - well done them.
My mum's saying was "it's better to have tried and failed, than failed to try" -
and that probably applies to life in general anyway, not just for those with any type of (perceived) disability.
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Thank you, Lydart and Lady Di - I am not sure how much difference this lady could have made if she had fought for her rights to an education, a job and I really doubt she would have felt able to actively look out for a husband. Even yesterday, when I asked her why she had never married, she was surprised and answered "Who'd want me with a gammy leg??" Even so, I think it's attitude that counts and it seems everyone around her, family, friends, acquaintances, all simply accepted that this was how it was going to be. Just one person refusing to accept the status quo might have made a difference. :(
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That's so sad ... I worked for a short while at Chailey Heritage ... where several of those disabled by thalidomide were ... my goodness, they had courage, but even then in the 60's, the emphasis was still on DISability, rather than ABility !
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At first sight it does seem discrimatory but I think we've got our 21st century cap on. I've got female relatives from that era and earlier in the 19th century who never married but they did have jobs, either as teachers or nurses. For some reason there were always more girls survived to adulthood than boys I've heard it said. I wouldn't know if there were less boys born than girls in the 19th century but given that young boys and young male adults died at work from accidents on the farm or at sea, etc you'd be lucky if you found anyone to marry. In the 20th century there were far less available men when the lady reached marriageable age due to deaths in WWI plus the millions of surviving soldiers who caught Spanish flu and died within 48 hours of catching it.
I can feel your indignation that the lady wasn't in paid work, but what will you think when I tell you that in 1955 my working class father asked me if I'd like to stay at home when I finished school to help my mother around the home. Like every female child in that era I knew how to knit, sew, cook, etc and some of my friends would have jumped at the offer but as I was very progressive, went to grammar school, was in various sports teams I said thank you but no thank you.
As for formal education, my grandmother was born 1884 and had to take tuppence (2d) a day for her schooling.
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Well spotted, Rena - I didn't think of that! ;D
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Wasn't there something in a WDYTYA about many blind people being trained as piano tuners because it was thought that would be something they could do to earn a living?
Rena: When I told my mother I was getting married (in the 1980s!), she asked me if I would be giving up work. I was most indignant "What would I do at home on my own all day?"
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Our school back in the 1940-1950's had a blind piano tuner and once when I visited my grandmother on the other side of the town (2 bus rides away) I found him tuning her piano. I couldn't believe how independant he was to be able to go about his business catching buses, etc., on his own. and guess what - when I walked into my grandmother's & greeted her he recognised my voice !!!
lol skb I carried on working too when I married back in the 1960's but like most of my generation I gave up work for a few years to raise children until the youngest one went to school. On the other hand my mother, her sisters & their friends all gave up work permanently. I did ask why they didn't carry on working until they had their first child - apparently the new husband's pride didn't want anyone to think he couldn't support a wife. (I think I had my first feminist feeling - who on earth did these men think they were!!) Now that I'm older and wiser, I think they had enough to do without wearing their fingers to the bone over a extra sheckels which were whittled away before you even took your money home, such as travel, food breaks, not to mention the weekly collections for somebody leaving, marrying, having a baby or a birthday, etc., etc.
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In the 20th century there were far less available men when the lady reached marriageable age due to deaths in WWI plus the millions of surviving soldiers who caught Spanish flu and died within 48 hours of catching it.
Off topic, but this is a myth. The statistics don't bear it out. A large number of war widows managed to remarry; with early death being more common than it is now due to disease, infection, childbirth etc, there were plenty of widowed men around too. And of course the Spanish flu claimed lives regardless of gender.
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In the 20th century there were far less available men when the lady reached marriageable age due to deaths in WWI plus the millions of surviving soldiers who caught Spanish flu and died within 48 hours of catching it.
Off topic, but this is a myth. The statistics don't bear it out. A large number of war widows managed to remarry; with early death being more common than it is now due to disease, infection, childbirth etc, there were plenty of widowed men around too. And of course the Spanish flu claimed lives regardless of gender.
There is a very interesting book called Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson, about the many women who, after WW1, never married. It may be a myth that there was an overall gender imbalance (I don't know enough to say), but the book claims that middle and upper class women were hit hard by the shortage of men after the war. Public school educated men felt it their duty to join up. A high proportion of officers were killed in action. Many working class men were not fit or healthy enough for the army.
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Yes, I'm aware of that book. You can find some interesting discussions on the topic, and also the book, over on the Great War Forum (http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums).
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Sadly in less enlightened times children with disabilities were considered sub-normal. So many ended up in the Workhouse (if allowed to survive). They would often then be sent from the workhouse when of an age, to an industrial school where they were taught a trade.
I have 2 in my family 1 was brought up by his family until about 12 then sent of to an Industrial School where he was taught to be a saddle maker.
My own g/grandfather walked wtih a very pronounced limp & was trained as a tailor, he eventually ended up working in Saville Row.
It will be very interesting when the full 1911 original pages can be viewed in 2011 when we can see the hidden column dealing with disabities etc.
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My uncle was born with a disability (mental retardation) in 1930 and he didn't go to school or work. My grandmother kept him at home to protect him from others. It's a shame that was the attitude back then as today there would be no reason why he couldn't go to school or have a job.
He's gonna be 80 next month and we are having a big birthday party for him.
Karen
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I had an Uncle, who was in the 1930's considered educationally subnormal, he was just a little slower than others, thats all.
He worked all his life, never married & in later years looked after his mum, til she got too much for him(alzheimers). He was a gardener & was very good.
In his spare time he made miniature trees, they were marvellous, so good in fact that when he died, my dad gave them to a miniature railway club where they were used in the many track sets.
One of his earlier jobs was up north working for the 57 variety folk, and he would never eat ketchup, saying if you knew what went in it neither would you!!!