Speaking for Ourselves: travel experiences of people with cerebral palsy

After visiting a school for pupils with cerebral palsy (CP), Bill Hargreaves said:

“It’s all very well giving people a piece of paper to say they’ve got an examination pass, but have you told them how to deal with buses? Have you taught them how to use an outside phone? Have you taught them how important it is to get the work done on time? Academic learning is not enough.”

62 Clubs

Bill Hargreaves set up a series of self-help clubs, the ‘62 Clubs, where disabled people organised activities they chose for themselves.

“The first thing they did, which was a breakthrough, was they decided they wanted to go on an outing to Westcliffe-on-Sea. The Secretary rang me and said, “We’d like you to order a bus.” I said, “I’m not ordering a bus. You’re the Secretary: you order the bus.” (She gasped.) “They won’t bite you know. You pick up the phone…”

“One parent turned up and demanded to speak to the able-bodied escort, only to discover that there were only disabled people present. He protested but was told by the other passengers that they were all adult and were quite capable of making up their own minds as to their leisure activities.”

Holidays

Bill did not stop there. Many of the people he came across had never been on holiday. Bill remembered:

“For the first time in their lives many could go back home and talk about the time they were abroad, what it was like to be in another country, the adventures of going up a mountain in a cable car, of shopping in another currency, in trying to make oneself understood in a different language. Not only were these holidays a great morale-booster to the young disabled person concerned, they were also a tremendous comfort to the parents or those who care for them in their everyday lives. One parent said, “Mr Hargreaves, you know what you did for Paul?”

I said, “Yes, I took him to Spain.”

“You did much more than that,” she replied. “For the first time in my life I found out my son could exist without me. I am getting on in years and you had to take Paul a thousand miles away in order to prove to me that he could survive on his own.”

Going to Lourdes

If disabled people had been abroad before Bill’s holidays, it was not normally their choice, as Judy Smart recalled:

“It was started up by a Catholic organisation, and they only went to Lourdes, but then it broadened out. They said it was for ‘the sick and handicapped’, which I hated… Initially, when they started, they had to take a doctor and a priest, and a nurse with them on every holiday and we were treated like invalids.”

Concorde

Dr Lin Berwick MBE began to travel more when she got married:

“We had a fantastic honeymoon in York, and our life really took off: quite literally, because Ralph took me to Israel, France, Ireland, Scotland, by plane…

“And when my career changed direction yet again, and I started to study to become a homeopath and 2 years later, I passed my first diploma, and then he asked me what I would like to do, and… I jokingly said, ‘I’d love to go on Concorde,’ and, lo and behold, we had a champagne lunch and a flight on Concorde, which I will never forget, as long as I live, and I’m so pleased that I did it.”

Peak experience

John Hawkridge was even more adventurous. At 25, he decided to tackle Ben Nevis for the first time:

“By 7 o’clock I were out and away and heading up Ben Nevis. Initially there was no one else about, and I had the route to myself, but as time progressed it wasn’t long before people started overtaking me.

“Throughout the day I made really steady and positive progress, and up through a place known as ‘the Red Burn’, and then the massive, steep zigzagging path that went to the sort of summit ridge, or plateau, and then finally across this, where there were still snow and an ice field to be crossed towards the summit, and I ended up, I arrived on the summit about 4 o’clock.

“There were a few people there, and one that stood out were an American chap who, when he saw me coming, started dancing up and down, shouting, ‘What the Hell? I’ve flogged my so-and-so guts out getting to the top of this mountain, and what do I find when I get here? A so-and-so cripple. You’ve ruined my day.’ At which he screwed his stars and stripes up, shoved it back in his rucksack, and stormed off muttering to himself; ‘And I don’t know how the hell I’m going to get back down again,’ and I leant over and shouted to him, ‘That makes 2 of us!’”

The quotes in this blog come from Speaking for Ourselves, the oral history of people with cerebral palsy.