Valerie Lang MBE found the medical label of cerebral palsy (CP) followed her into her education.
“The diagnosis was not helpful. They just followed the book, which said cerebral palsy included what was then mental handicap, and therefore they were constantly telling my parents I was ineducable.”
The doctors’ pessimistic prognosis about cerebral palsy made it difficult for parents to find a suitable education for their children.
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Michael Wilkinson’s childhood experience of operations and long stays in hospital (in an attempt to make him walk) were typical of the 1950s:
“I had 4 operations altogether. Before that I used to crawl everywhere. After that because my legs were different, I couldn’t crawl again for ages afterwards… It was autumn and I was getting really anxious that I was not going to get out before Christmas.”
For many children with cerebral palsy, the medical obsession with walking ‘normally’ was the cause of much frustration and agony.
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In the 1950s, doctors were white-coated gods who would pronounce on a disabled child’s future and set the course for the rest of their life.
The well-rehearsed diagnosis would go something like this:
“This child is spastic. Take her home. Forget about her. She’ll never be any good. You’re wasting my time, your time and everybody else’s.”
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Joan Ross, contributed to the Speaking for Ourselves oral history of people with cerebral palsy at the British Library Sound Archive. She died in January 2017. Using extracts from her interview, we celebrate her life.
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Alan Counsell contributed to the Speaking for Ourselves oral history of people with cerebral palsy at the British Library Sound Archive.
Alan has been a writer, teacher and trainer, but he was nearly denied an education because of his difficulties in walking. He went to school thanks to the moral (and physical) support of his family.
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Writer, counsellor and Methodist preacher Dr Lin Berwick MBE contributed to the Speaking for Ourselves oral history of people with cerebral palsy at the British Library Sound Archive. Here are some of the extracts from her life story interview.
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Psychotherapist and writer Antonia Lister-Kaye is a contributor to the Speaking for Ourselves oral history of people with cerebral palsy.
Extracts from her life story interview at the British Library Sound Archive are a fascinating insight into how attitudes to disability have changed during her lifetime.
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Disabled mountaineer and writer John Hawkridge was one of the people with cerebral palsy who contributed to the Speaking for Ourselves collection at the British Library Sound Archive.
In these excerpts, John remembers when he could run as a child and how in later life he tackled Ben Nevis.
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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”.
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When we created the Speaking for Ourselves oral history project, one of the disabled volunteers, Ann Pridmore, asked why we were focusing on people with cerebral palsy.
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Alex White writes 