Bill Hargreaves: Can You Manages Stares?

When Bill Hargreaves was born 2 months prematurely in Australia in 1919, he weighed just 2 and a half pounds. His parents were told that, because he had cerebral palsy, he would “never walk or work or wed”.

Bill recalled: “My father tells me I was so small that I could be placed quite easily within the confines of a pint pot… For the first 6 weeks of my life I was wrapped in cotton wool, fed with a fountain pen filler, and bathed in olive oil. My parents were told that because I had cerebral palsy, nothing could be done for me and the best thing they could do would be to place me in an institution or keep me at home, where I would probably be a liability to them throughout my life.”

From soap to showbiz

Bill had experience both as a disabled employee and employer. He had run his father’s soap making factory until the Royal Air Force requisitioned it during World War Two.

Undaunted, Bill “counted nuts and bolts” in an aircraft factory, before becoming a ventriloquist entertaining the troops and a warden of a youth hostel with his wife. After the war, he found a job in a drawing office at a Corby steelworks.

Can you manage stairs?

Bill search for work had never been easy. At one interview, after he had climbed three flights of stairs, the first question that greeted him was: “Can you manage stairs?” This ridiculous question became the title for a BBC radio programme highlighting Bill’s struggle to find work as a disabled person.

In 1957, Bill took a new role as an industrial liaison officer for the princely sum of £900 year. Walking “like a drunken sailor” and in the days before disabled passenger assistance, Bill wore himself out travelling the country persuading employers that disabled people could work.

The Ministry of Labour asked him to visit all 150 Disablement Advisory Committees. After five years speaking in 247 towns and cities, Bill “began to feel like a “human tape recorder” but he had found 1,500 disabled people their first jobs and had influenced many companies to recruit their first disabled staff.

From work to holidays

Bill created the ‘62 Clubs, an international self-help movement that saw disabled people in control of leisure activities they chose. This led to offering disabled people the chance to go on an overseas holiday of their choice, and not just the well-meaning trip to Lourdes. 

In 1978 Bill was awarded the MBE for his services to his fellow disabled people.

Bill had been keen to write his autobiography and had recorded interviews with his friend, Gesine Gretscher. She brought me a suitcase of 47 cassette tapes and Bill’s papers. It was a daunting task to turn this into a book, but, thanks to volunteer transcribers’ efforts, I created a narrative that retained Bill’s voice and story.

Sadly, Bill died before we were able to publish Can You Manage Stares? in 2002, but he knew the book was on its way.

Can You Manage Stares? is available on Kindle.