Breaking Free Disowned and Disabled

In the 20th century, thousands of children found themselves rejected by society

They were often children who had been abandoned

by their families or who had physical or learning disabilities.

Today, we recognise the need to integrate such children,

but in the past, attitudes were very different.

'The boy might have been admitted to hospital many years ago,

'had Mr Harris had his way.

'I was inclined to agree with him.'

For many of Britain's disabled and disowned,

family life was replaced by a childhood in institutions

But 60 years ago, a revolution began to integrate

these children into mainstream society.

It was an aspiration which people are fighting for to this day.

To spend all day in the pissing rain, handcuffed to a bus...

it wasn't cos we wanted to do it as a bit of fun,

we were doing it because we were fighting for our rights.

Rights that can be easily taken away from you.

Along the way, there has been trauma, scandal, even horror.

'Up to five hours a day, tied to a post

'when he's being particularly difficult.'

Now the old institutions

are long gone, and we celebrate disabled people's achievements

In this film, we look at how disabled children growing up

after the Second World War challenged the old order

of patronising care and enforced segregation.

'Once upon a time, the world regarded the handicapped child

'as a social outcast, a beggar dependent on occasional charity

'The mentally disabled were called "mad".

'The physically disabled were lumped together under the general term "cripples".'

When the Second World War broke out, disabled children were still

treated much as they had been at the turn of the century

The trajectory of their lives was usually dictated by the medical profession.

Anne Rae was born in 1938. Doctors diagnosed her with cerebral palsy.

Like Anne, many children in the 1940s ended up spending

most of their childhood in institutional care -

be it a specialist day school or a residential home.

Generally speaking, life in institutions for disabled children

was harsh in the immediate post-war period.

The curriculum was often narrow

and not very inspiring. The discipline regime was very austere,

and there was a lot of bullying between staff and pupils.

So special schools were not always very happy environments.

In the 1940s and '50s, these special schools

and residences catered for every type of impairment.

'Of one thing I'm certain, I shall never forget the first visit

'I paid to a hospital for mental defectives.'

Mabel Cooper spent much of her life at an institution like this one

She was first taken into care after she

and her mother were caught begging on the streets.

Doctors later made Mabel undergo a psychological evaluation.

They took us to a big place in London and gave us a test.

And if you couldn't do the test they'd say you need looking after

all the time.

Doctors declared that Mabel was technically an "imbecile"

and sent her to St Lawrence's Hospital in Surrey, in 1957.

You think you're going to a loony bin.

They had bars up at the window and you could hear them...

you could hear them outside.

Oh, my goodness me, I said to whoever was with me,

I said, "Why are they making that noise?"

They said, "Well, they do it all day."

At the time, doctors believed

that in sending physically and learning-disabled children

to institutions, they were lessening the burden on parents.

'My concern was for Mrs Harris who was, in my opinion,

'fast approaching a complete breakdown in health.

'The boy might have been admitted to hospital many years ago,

'had Mr Harris had his way.

'I was inclined to agree with him

'and suggested that the boy should enter a hospital now.'

Another parent to receive such advice was the actor Brian Rix

In the 1950s, he was a nationwide celebrity.

He and his wife Elspet were famous for their popular farces

Oh, blast!

I must look keen.

I could be learning the language.

In 1951, their daughter Shelley was born with Down's syndrome,

a chromosomal defect which leads to intellectual impairment

and distinctive physical features.

There was a degree of the general public looking down on you

and thinking that you'd done something

either wrong or you had married the wrong person or whatever it might be.

I was asked if I was drunk, if I'd had venereal disease,

all these things which had got nothing to do with Down's syndrome at all.

Unsure of what to do,

Brian wrote to a Ministry of Health official for advice.

The instructions we were given was to put her away, forget her and start again.

And then he gave me a list of homes which were high-grade imbeciles

low-grade imbeciles, idiots, all these expressions used quite ..

sheets of paper issued by the Ministry of Health.

There was no education.

I was told, if I wanted any sort of additional welfare

I had to pay for it, there was nothing

on the National Health Service, there was nothing in the social services

available - it was a complete battle for every single parent in the land.

Brian decided to visit some of the institutions on the list

one of which was St Lawrence's where Mabel Cooper grew up.

They just used to shout and pull you around.

I don't like being pulled about

You know, you could get into trouble if you said anything,

so we didn't talk for nearly 20 years.

In the hospital, when I came out, I had to learn to talk again,

cos they use to keep telling us to shut up.

We were horrified.

There was maybe 3,000 or 4,000 people there, herded together,

shambling around the grounds, nothing to do - it was appalling.

Life could also be harsh for children with physical impairments.

Until the mid-20th century,

doctors' approach to physical disability was to try and cure it.

'Today, Maureen, convalescent from her operation, is being brought

'out onto the terrace for the first time.'

Treatment often involved

fresh air and sunshine, traditional remedies for tuberculosis

and polio, which were then the most common causes of disability.

'The hospital is designed

'so that natural sunlight can be used to the fullest advantage.

'Beds are taken out on the great terrace fronting the wards,

'and there the children can sleep, play and eat.'

In 1948,

David Bradford was sent away to be treated for cerebral palsy.

I was sent to a hospital at the age of four

and where it was considered presumably that they could do

something with me, and in fact what they succeeded in giving me

was pneumonia and bronchitis and nearly bumping me off because it's one

of the hospitals in those days that was a former TB hospital, and they believed very much

in fresh air and pushing beds outside come rain, hail or snow

'Clean, fresh air.

'Why even the schoolroom has one side open to the country.'

Put-them-on-the-mountainside job, and if they survived, they survived,

if they didn't, well, so luck..

That's probably being a bit mean to them, but it was a Spartan regime.

'Our children get every encouragement to use their limbs as early

'as they can, because life is ahead of them.

If doctors could not cure a disability, they saw it

as their duty, at the very least, to make a disabled child appear normal.

This could mean everything from encasing

a child in plaster to the fitting of various forms of walking devices.

'Here's Christine with her callipers on again, going to have another shot

'at the walking lesson.'

All the way through from the '3 s right through to the late '70s

there was a drive for children

not to use wheelchairs, so children would be walking in callipers

or using crutches and walking very slowly, very uncomfortably

because the wheelchair was seen as the sign of failure

'Such a new, strange thing is walking.

'These skis give him confidence '

In the years that followed the Second World War,

the Government became increasingly aware

that the treatment of disabled children left much to be desired.

The emergence of the welfare state and the National Health Service

brought with it a wealth of new ideas.

In 1944, a new Education Act had been passed,

which contained a revolutionary idea - that wherever possible,

disabled children should be educated in mainstream schools

But this idea of integration was way ahead of its time.

No resources were made available to implement that aspiration.

There has been considerable resistance to the integration

of disabled children due to the medical control

of special schools, the vested interest of teachers and psychologists.

'In one way, they are like all other children.

'They need the stimulus and companionship of school life '

Established institutions did what they could to resist

integration, and local authorities were often reluctant to put

the Government's new policy into practice.

Liz McPherson, born with weak and irregular bones, recalls

how hard it was for her parents to get her into mainstream school.

My parents obviously wanted me

to go to the school that was virtually next door to me,

and the education department and social work had different views

on that, and felt that I should go to the local special school

In Aberdeen, at that time, there was only one special school,

which took children with physical disability

but also catered for children with learning disability.

And, unfortunately, most of the populace of Aberdeen,

I would say, that if you said that you went to that particular school,

would automatically assume that you had a learning disability.

And, therefore, there was

no way my adoptive parents were going to accept that.

Liz's parents eventually won the argument.

But the reality of being educated in the mainstream was hard

for disabled children like Liz

Most education authorities didn t have sufficient resources

to cope with their needs.

I quite clearly remember, on at least three winters, having a plaster up

to my knee, having it wrapped in a poly bag and hiking up to school

in the snow.

So, you know, there wasn't an alternative - you just walked

or you didn't, and if you didn't walk, you didn't go to school.

Although mainstream school could be a challenge at every level,

the standard of education was far higher

than in the majority of special schools.

'Within the next three years more than ?1 million will be spent

'on new national schools and residential centres,

'including a centre for so-called ineducable spastics.'

You didn't learn all things that you need to learn out in the world.

They taught you to make puzzles and colouring and all that.

I don't want to do that. I'd rather learn something than do that.

Who wants to sit and do that when you're supposed to be at school

Disabled children in mainstream schools

received a better education, but they faced other challenges

I ended up in a class of 35 girls. Because some of these girls

were twice my size, some of them were bullies, some of them

threatened me every day, and they had no knowledge of me

so name-calling started, bullying started, and I just shut off.

And at that time, I think

I would have actually welcomed being in special school.

I think there would have been less bullying, I think it would

have been very small classes, I had an assumption that the teaching

would be equally as good, although I don't think it would have been.

In this bleak world there were however, some places which had

long been pioneers of a more enlightened approach.

Treloars School in Hampshire was set up by the Lord Mayor of London

in 1908, and the school still exists today.

'A crippled child need no longer be a lonely outcast.

'The cripple can be cured.

'That is the spirit of Treloars

'left behind by a man who loved children.'

In 1957, David Bradford

began his education here, at the school's former premises

It was run, in those days, in a similar way to what

I imagine a public school would have been.

It had absolutely brilliant, wonderful grounds.

And in those days, Treloar College had a headmaster

who was called a warden, who was a brilliant educationalist,

the sort of person who could read Bertie Wooster one day

and do all the actions and also the next lesson read

Animal Farm and explain all the characters were and what

the analogies were and stuff like that so he opened, certainly, my mind.

Historically, Treloars had always been funded through

charitable donations and fees paid by the children's parents

But David Bradford's education was paid for by his local authority

making him one of a growing number of disabled children

to benefit from increased welfare spending.

I think

Treloar opened up a whole new unforeseen opportunity in education

for me. I think had I stayed where I was I probably would have ended up

in a factory somewhere, maybe in an office stuck up in a corner.

MUSIC: "White Room" by Cream

In the 1960s, the first generation of post-war disabled children

came of age.

British society was experiencing huge changes - with the general

liberalisation of the time putting a new emphasis on civil rights

As a result, many disabled young people

like Anne Rae had high hopes for the future.

'This young man wants a job, a chance to earn a living.'

After the war, the Government had introduced a quota scheme

to get disabled people into work.

Companies were told that 3% of their staff had to be registered

disabled people, but as there were no penalties for those

who didn't follow the rules, the policy was ignored by most employers.

If you were disabled, you were supposed to register,

and they were supposed to find appropriate jobs for you.

I very much decided that I wasn't going to do that

I had probably heard stories that if you had registered you would only

get a job operating a lift or some really derogatory type of job that

probably wouldn't pay very well and I was quite interested in money

so I wanted a job that had good money, I wanted to go out

and enjoy my life.

For many disabled people with less obvious impairments,

the message from society seemed clear -

hide your disabilities, or face segregation.

I think a lot of people didn't realise

the degree of my disability, because they could only see a very

small part of it, and I was quite prepared to let them

see as little of it as possible as I felt that it would not be

in my best interest to really say to people the level of severity of it.

Not all disabled people, however,

had difficulty finding acceptance and employment.

David Bradford managed to find a job in the accounts department

of an electrical firm.

There were plenty of opportunities, and you could afford to do,

as I've done in my early days, say, "No, I don't think we're

"suited here, goodbye," and find somewhere else fairly quickly.

One of the things that you do need to be successful as a person

with a disability is a thick skin, because you'll no doubt get

called, in my case, a "spaz" and things like that -

in those days, that was common. Get on with it. If people think that

life is fair, they need to rethink again, because very often it isn't.

Some people have to fight harder just to be on a level playing field.

Despite the difficulties

and setbacks, young disabled people in the '50s and '60s

had more chance of making it in the outside world.

But for many,

the future still held no more than a life in institutional care.

Behind the closed doors of one of those institutions,

a young man was sowing the seeds of change for all disabled people.

His name was Paul Hunt.

Paul was a very quiet, reserved person.

He wasn't somebody easy to get to know, he was...

but he made a sort of big impression on you.

Paul was born with muscular dystrophy,

a condition marked by the progressive weakening

and wasting of the muscles, which often leads to an early death.

At the age of 16, he was transferred to a ward for geriatric

patients where he was expected to live out the rest of his days.

Pretty grim place, a very grim place.

He became very depressed, very withdrawn.

And then at some point, I think it was about 1955, he saw...

there was a television programme about the first Cheshire Home, Lee Court.

From no home to the building of this new Lee Court seemed to them

something of a miracle.

Lee Court was a private care home founded by Group Captain

Leonard Cheshire, a highly decorated World War II bomber pilot.

After the war,

he had set up a number of homes which offered disabled people

somewhere they could live with a considerable degree of independence.

All this started for me right out in the East over Nagasaki

at the dropping of the atomic bomb. and over there,

I conceived a great desire to play my small part, as best I could,

in contributing towards the peace that everybody had fought for so hard.

For Paul, seeing the Cheshire Homes by chance on television

was the answer to his prayers.

He moved to Lee Court in 1956 and joined an increasingly

autonomous community of disabled people.

A moment that was very exciting was the fact he could get in the lift

himself and get him upstairs from one floor to another.

Because it was designed for people in wheelchairs to operate it,

and that was like freedom.

Paul quickly got involved in Lee Court's everyday life,

taking part in a short film produced by the residents themselves.

'There are 39 residences

'and the noise in the dining room is sometimes past belief.

'Shop's open for half-an-hour twice a day. It serves us small

'necessities sweets - cigarettes, stamps, writing paper.'

But a few years after Paul's arrival,

the freedom of the residents came under threat.

The expansion of the Cheshire Homes had led to a much bigger

management structure, and tensions arose between the residents

and senior staff.

These were in part due to the regimented rules and regulations

imposed by the warden, who the residents nicknamed the Commander.

One of the issues was bedtime if people could put themselves

to bed, they didn't see why they should all go to bed by 10: 0,

or whatever time the management decided they had to be in bed by.

People shouldn't be going out to the pub - that was seen...it started

to be frowned on that they were being unruly,

they are getting a bit too drunk and unruly.

One ruling was that they shouldn t sunbathe in public,

shouldn't show their bodies, it was unsightly.

Paul rallied the other residents behind him

in revolt against the Commander and the management team.

It really became a big issue.

I mean, it became...it got a lot of publicity locally.

Cheshire was pulled in and he tried, you know,

to settle the difference, to come to some peaceful arrangement.

Leonard Cheshire managed to calm the conflict before it got out of hand.

Paul and the residents kept their autonomy

and were granted a place on the board of management.

This meant disabled people could continue to have a say

in how their Cheshire Home was run.

For Paul, the conflict was an inspiration

His ideas were born out of a conflict

with the management about how the home should be run

and the role that disabled people should have in that management

It was the place where Paul Hunt developed his ideas

about independent living and rights for disabled people

Paul left Lee Court in 1970

and began campaigning for the rights of disabled people as a whole,

soon becoming a leading figure in the movement.

It was a time when the integration of disabled people - and especially

children - was still proving hugely difficult to implement.

Despite the Government's best intentions, the institutional

care system continued to grow, and by 1972, there were nearly three

times as many children in special schools as there had been in 19 5.

One of those children was Ann Young,

whose parents had sent her to the palace school in Ely.

Ann spent most of her childhood in Ely.

As for so many who were sent away,

institutional living was a mixed experience.

In 1970, the year after Ann went to Ely

the Government passed a new Education Act, which abolished

one of the most negative aspects of disability policy.

Previously, children with learning disabilities had been classed

as unworthy of an education,

as were a significant number of physically disabled kids.

In 1970, that distinction between educable

and uneducable children was abolished which meant that children

could no longer be dismissed as being incapable of being educated.

As part of the drive to improve the expectations of disabled children,

careers advice was provided,

and in her late teens, Ann received a visit from a social worker.

MUSIC: "Heroin" by The Velvet Underground

As ever, changes in attitudes towards disability moved

slower than changes in policy.

But the speed of change was hastened by a development

that horrified the general public.

In the early '60s, several hundred children had been born

with very distinctive and profound impairments.

Many had missing arms or legs.

These disabilities could have been avoided,

as they were caused by a drug prescribed to pregnant women

against morning sickness and insomnia.

The drug was called Thalidomide

By 1972 a national campaign was well under way to draw attention

to the plight of the "Thalidomiders".

'Kevin Donnellon is 11 years old

'and lives with his family in a suburb of Liverpool.

'In the first few weeks of her pregnancy, Agnes Donnellon took

'five sleeping tablets.

'The tablets were called Distaval - they contained the drug Thalidomide.'

I remember as a kid,

being sort of put on this stage and looking at hundreds of doctors

in white suits, white coats, looking at us, as if we were

like, you know, guinea pigs on show, or like freaks in a show

I grew to resent them and hate them with a passion,

because they forced us into these bloody awful

artificial legs, prosthetics, which I really hated.

Thinking about it now, they meant well. In their wisdom, they thought

that if we were the correct shape, that we'd be accepted in society.

Campaign groups for the rights of Thalidomiders sprung up

around the country.

In Liverpool, a local school got involved, offering to provide Kevin

and a number of Thalidomide children with a mainstream education.

It was really exciting starting school - I loved it.

We went as a group, there was 12 of us, 12 Thalidomides,

and we were kind of like, you know,

a bit of a celebrity to the other kids, really.

And the kids would fight over the privilege of pushing me

round the playground.

For the school and the staff,

the Thalidomiders were the first disabled pupils they'd ever taught.

To be honest, they didn't really have a clue about disability,

but for example, in the reception class,

the desks were like really low for small kids, but I was wearing

prosthetic legs at the time, which I couldn't sit down in.

They didn't bend at the knee,

so I'd had to stand up all day be writing like this

and if I leant too far forward I'd actually fall over the desk

So the way they got round that was instead of bringing

in a higher desk, which you would think that was the obvious solution,

they actually tied me to the radiator.

And me back would be in agony, you know, just leaning over,

but when you're seven, you just kind of like don't complain,

you just get on with it.

While Kevin was growing up, his mother was part of the local group

who were campaigning for compensation

from the drug manufacturers.

Bizarrely she said to me, "When you grow up, you'll be voting Tory

"probably." I said, "Why?" "Cos you'll be very rich "

Which is, you know, ironic.

Considering the compensation I was awarded was 19 grand,

which is, you know, a pittance, really.

The court case might have fallen short in terms of compensation

but the campaign helped to transform public attitudes

to disability as a whole.

Thalidomide was important in raising the awareness of disability

in general, but other changes were happening as well -

the Chronically Sick and Disabled Person's Act, for example,

which started to improve the accessibility

of the environment also had an effect.

The Disabled People's Movement, as well, was beginning to gather steam

and so that was also working towards the same purpose

of raising the profile of disability.

By the mid-1970s, Paul Hunt,

having successfully fought for the rights of residents

at his Cheshire Home, was living in London with his wife, Judy.

Since leaving, they had been planning a campaign

to fight for the rights of disabled people as a whole.

Paul was influenced by the civil rights movement in his reading

and he was drawing parallels with the experience of black people

and disabled people.

And seeing, you know, making connections

with the segregation of disabled people into special schools,

special homes, special workshops.

In 1972, Paul published a letter in the Guardian newspaper,

calling for disabled people in institutions to fight the system.

"I am proposing the formation of a consumer group to put forward

"nationally the views of actual and potential residents

"of these successors to the workhouse..."

Paul Hunt's letter was the foundation

stone for a ground-breaking new organisation,

the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation,

or UPIAS for short.

It was an organisation of disabled people for disabled people

in contrast to earlier charities which were simply

for disabled people which assumed that they knew

what disabled people wanted, often quite mistakenly.

One of the first to join UPIAS was Anne Rae.

In 1976, UPIAS leaders Paul Hunt and Vic Finkelstein issued

a manifesto that was to have a profound impact.

At its heart was a revolutionary new definition of the causes

of disability.

It contained the idea that society now had the means available

for people to be integrated.

It was technically possible.

And because that was the case, since it was now possible, to deny people

access, participation in society was a form of social oppression

This idea later developed into what is called the social model of disability.

According to the social model,

people are not disabled by their impairments.

They are disabled whenever society does not take

their impairments into consideration,

for example,

when buildings are designed in a way that makes them inaccessible.

"Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments

"by the way we are unnecessarily isolated

"and excluded from full participation in society."

Hi, I want to get on to the bus please. You can't get on.

Why can't I get on?

The emphasis was beginning to shift away from simply reforming care

for disabled people to fighting for their civil rights

In 1981, a documentary film called Silent Minority

drew attention to conditions at St Lawrence's Hospital,

where Mabel Cooper had grown up

What it revealed caused outrage

Silent Minority showed the degradation with which people

suffered in such an institution

I'll never forget a load of shivering,

naked men in wheelchairs being wheeled into be, possibly

hosed down rather than given a decent bath or anything of that nature.

Another image that left viewers appalled was of a child named Nicky.

Hey!

'This time he knocks a chair over and looks for attention.

'It works again. The patience of the staff was evident.

'We knew, however, there were other solutions

'they employed to deal with Nicky.

'This is a solution.

'Up to five hours a day tied to a post when he's being particularly difficult.'

Silent Minority shocked a great many people,

and I suppose you could say that was a platform from which we were able

to build Care in the Community

although it was still going around by then,

but that gave an emphasis in as much as you could refer back to it.

The Government had first espoused the ideal of making all disabled people

part of the community back in 1 48,

but it was only in the 1980s that this aspiration started to become a reality.

Disabled people were increasingly being removed from special facilities

and integrated into mainstream society.

One of those affected was Mabel Cooper,

who left St Lawrence's in 1977

Oh, I was frightened, because I'd never known anything else.

I was frightened, but I got used to it after a time.

Once Mabel grew accustomed to the outside world,

she became one of the first people with learning disabilities

to record her memories of childhood.

In 1998, she took part in a BBC television series

called On The Edge.

In the hospital, you didn't get choice,

but out in the community, you get choice of all different things

Like choice for what you eat, choice like for what you can wear.

I think this story is to tell people that it's wrong to shut people

with learning difficulties away

CROWD: Rights, not charity!

The fight for disability rights was growing in strength

and it was not confined to Britain alone.

The United Nations declared

that 1981 would be the International Year of Disabled People.

"WORLD IN ACTION" THEME

Kevin Donnellon was filmed as part of the general media coverage.

He was now 19 years old and about to finish secondary school.

'On the last day of term, Kevin and his classmates went to the pub.

'They were pessimistic about finding any work in their own city.'

Forget all A-levels it would be a big step like, to get a job -

that's the only thing that will get you a job now is qualifications

Soon after the programme, Kevin got a call from the local council.

The local social services set up an advice service for the disabled,

and they rang me up and said,

"We need someone on the team who's disabled to give it credibility "

So I was their token crip, if you like, on their advice service for disabled people.

And I kind of didn't mind that cos, you know, at least I had a job.

I was grateful. It was in the days when I was very grateful for everything, really

MUSIC: "Sex Drugs Rock Roll" by Ian Dury The Blockheads

With help from the council, Kevin was also able to leave home.

He soon made the most of his new-found freedom.

I threw meself into everything you're not supposed to do,

like drugs, sex, booze, you know, erm, and just had a ball, basically.

When he was 22, Kevin met his first steady girlfriend

It was something many people, including his mum,

had thought would never happen

I said, "Well, I've got a girlfriend,"

and then she said, "What's wrong with her?" That was the first thing she said.

I said, "Nothing, Mother."

This is kind of like this negative attitude.

Me mother was a bit of a paradox, really,

because on the one hand she fought to get me educated

in a mainstream school, but on the other hand,

she listened to the doctors

quite a bit and she sort of took on their negative ideas

He'll never get married. That would be a physical impossibility anyway.

I can't see anybody marrying him.

INTERVIEWER: He is, in fact, sterile?

He's damaged down below, yes.

I found out I was infertile, apparently, because she said

in a documentary that I couldn't have kids.

When I left home,

when I got me first steady girlfriend, I just assumed

I couldn't have kids, so I didn t take any precautions and guess what,

lo and behold, within a matter of weeks, me girlfriend became pregnant.

My first reaction was to accuse her of sleeping with someone else.

You know, I was saying, "You slut, who've you been with "

And that was really bad.

But I did the gallant thing and I said to her,

"I'll support you whatever you decide."

But deep down, I was shitting meself at the idea of becoming a dad.

For Kevin's girlfriend's parents,

the thought of having a disabled son-in-law was too much to bear

They imagined all kinds of like you know,

"Will the baby be disabled?" etc.

And they forced her to get rid of the foetus, basically.

In 1981, Ann Young was in her last year at Ely College.

She too had been becoming aware of her sexuality.

The staff at Ely College noticed that Ann was having

a relationship with one of the boys at the school.

One day, the couple were caught together in an empty classroom

When Ann left Ely, like so many disabled people,

she was angry at the outside world.

I was always constantly trying to rebel

against society's attitudes with disability,

even before I was aware of the social model,

it was a very personal thing, really, it was like me and society,

and I was out to prove a point

And that's why I threw myself

into politics and went on all the demos in the '80s,

you know, the anti-apartheid demos, CND marches.

I was arrested for cutting the fences at an American airbase twice.

And it wasn't for publicity or anything like that -

it was just to prove a point that I had a mind of me own

and could be politically active

MUSIC: "Where Is My Mind?" by The Pixies

As the '80s drew to a close, the desire to challenge society

grew stronger within the disabled community.

When will be able to ride the bus? A simple question.

We want a straightforward answer.

Many more disabled people learnt about the social model

of disability, and started seeing the daily struggle

they faced with their impairments as something imposed on them by society.

I know this sounds a bit weird but you know,

cos I went to mainstream school and I interacted mostly with

non-disabled kids, I kind of like wasn't bothered about disability.

And even like if I was in the company of other disabled people,

I felt, like, really uneasy.

I used to kind of say, "I am not disabled.

"I can do everything for meself "

Once I found out about the social model, I could say

I was proud to be disabled, because I knew what disability was.

What have you done to the bus?

I've just chained myself to it with handcuffs.

MUSIC: "Spasticus Autisticus" by Ian Dury The Blockheads

Disabled people began to organise protests against the things

that, in their view, limited their involvement in mainstream society.

Ironically, their targets included some of the charities

who raised money for disabled people.

Every two years, ITV ran the Telethon, a 27-hour phone-in

to raise money for disabled and other disadvantaged people

This ?1 million cheque which we are giving to Telethon

so they can distribute it to local charity.

MUSIC: "Back To Life" by Soul II Soul

It became increasingly difficult to ignore the angry voices

of disabled people, voices which had been silent

and shut away for so many years

In 1995, the Government finally passed

the Disability Discrimination Act - it was, in many ways,

the culmination of 40 years of protest and policy change.

The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act broke new ground in Britain

because it was a piece of civil rights legislation

and because it used the concept of reasonable accommodation which had

to be met in order to make facilities accessible to disabled people.

The Disability Discrimination Act had a profound effect on the way

disabled children are cared for - an effect which endures to this day.

Over the last two decades, the special schools and institutions

of old have gradually become the exception instead of the rule.

But there is a recognition that while integration is the ideal

it doesn't always work.

Special schools are still needed

and mainstream education cannot always cope with children

who have very severe physical and learning disabilities.

Over the last 60 years,

the lives of disabled people have changed dramatically.

They now have better access to housing, work

and education than previous generations.

'They haven't found anything else yet that Albert can do,

'but chopping firewood, he can do as well as anyone.'

These were victories which disabled people had to win for themselves.

I get emotional when I think about access and politics.

Because it did take a struggle

To spend all day in the pissing rain, handcuffed to a bus -

it wasn't cos we wanted to do it as a bit of fun.

We were doing it because we were fighting for our rights

Rights that could easily be taken away from you.

Many worry that in harsh economic times,

disabled people may be left behind once again.

They are 30% more likely to be unemployed,

and one in five is living in poverty.

But the hope remains that in the future,

there will be no limit to what they can achieve.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd