Our History
CHILDHOOD
Murial Britain
Murial talks about life in a Barnardos Home, and the anguish she felt in later life when her children had to be fostered.
Margaret
Margaret tells the harrowing story of the physical abuse she suffered as a girl and a childhood spent in institutions. She eventually escaped by marrying a man she didn't love.
Illness had a huge impact on her school days.
Mark Wormesley
Mark discusses his years at a special school, and how they impacted on his adult life.
Keith Roads
Keith talks about growing up as a disabled person. He discusses the difficulty of forming sexual relationships in a special school.
Stephanie Ash
Stephanie was
frightened of her disabled piano teacher as a child. She also discusses
attitudes towards disabled people in the 1950s and 1960s, during her school
days.
Betty Gooch
Betty went to a secondary school run by Quakers, who were very kind and considerate towards her.
In infant school Betty's teacher hit her because she couldn't write properly. In secondary school her head was always faster than her fingers!
Betty was sent to the Waifs and Strays Society Home for Crippled Children. She was sent to bed for a month when she spoke up too frankly at a church appeal meeting.
Her father took her to trade union meetings and told her; 'always fight for everything you need.' So began her career as a disabled people's rights activist.
%20copy.jpg)
Ian Winterbourne
Ian talks about playing football as a child at mainstream and special schools.
Ian's teenage love life.
Ann Young
Ann remembers her first day at boarding school, aged four, and the attitudes of the teachers.
Ann talks about the impact boarding school had on her family relationships.
Ann describes leaving special school and entering 'the big bad world'. 'It took me ten years to adjust to able bodied society and learn to accept myself.'
Ann argues that an integrated education might have prepared her better for adult life.
Colette Adamson
Colette remembers going to school in rural Ireland and using a slate to learn to write. As the only partially sighted child in her class, she had to rely heavily on her hearing and sense of smell.