Chapter 2 - continued

Around this time, the members of UPIAS began to talk about the social model of disability, as Ken explained:

“It came out of a very significant meeting which was held between the Union and the Disability Alliance and the publication which emerged at the conclusion of that meeting actually set down in words, for the first time, a social definition of disability that hadn’t been seen, as far as I am aware, any where else before and it was that, reworked and re-enacted in different organisations that flowed from that point.

“In 1976, the publication of Fundamental Principles was that analysis of the meeting between UPIAS and Disability Alliance, it formed and shaped the character of the movement from that point on. Not that there weren’t later influences that were equally powerful, but the social definition of disability that developed in the union was a milestone in the history of disabled people.”

A few years later, Ken and Maggie Davis would become founding members of the Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People during International Year of Disabled People (IYDP) in 1981. The coalition was born out of a conference in Derbyshire in February 1981 on the theme of Full Participation and Equality, which was the slogan of IYDP.

Ken Davis explained how local disabled people in Derbyshire decided to take over the county’s plans for the International Year:

“DAD, the Derbyshire Association for the Disabled, was a kind of umbrella of lots of village-based social clubs for disabled people and the main disability organisation in the county which influenced, to some extent, the county council’s policies on disabled people. It suggested that Derbyshire’s main event for the International Year should be a countywide craft competition to find out the best disabled basket weaver.

“That just seemed to be too much of a joke in the context of the slogan of the International Year, full participation and equality. Oh yeah, like who weaves the best basket?

“So, there were a lot of things going on that led to the coalition emerging and with the small organisation DIAL Derbyshire which had brought together the opportunities for disabled people locally to speak to each other.

“We were taking every advantage of that and we were bringing together a nucleus of people who were sufficiently keen to advance the idea of the formation of a Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People.”

Closer to home in Birmingham, in 1977 another new disability organisation was formed called the West Midlands Council for Disabled People (WMCDP).

The WMCDP was launched at Prospect Hall, in Selly Oak, by a small group mainly made up of professional disabled people such as Professor Edward Marsland, who was the vice chancellor of Birmingham University and a wheelchair user, Ruth Rolfe of the West Midlands Council for Preparatory Training, also a disabled person and members of the medical profession in the West Midlands such as Dr John Harrison, a gerontology consultant whose remit included the medical direction of the region’s rehabilitation service for younger disabled people based at Moseley Hall Hospital.

Shortly after its first meeting in Selly Oak, the WMCDP moved into offices at Moseley Hall Hospital where it would stay for the next 20 years, maintaining a close relationship with the health service and, in particular, with the rehabilitation service for large amounts of that time.

With its leadership resting initially within this, perhaps unique, alliance of health and education professionals, many of whom it is fair to say were disabled, the WMCDP in the 1980s could not have been described as an organisation of disabled people in comparison to the Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People, a grass-roots group that had grown out of the frustration and anger of disabled people, based around the principles of independent living and fully embracing the social model of disability.

Even so, many ordinary disabled people in the West Midlands were drawn to this rare beacon which offered advice, information and support across all types of impairment and on social issues such as welfare benefits and access to education, as well as the traditional medical and charitable approach to disability which was still dominating wider society.

Early members of the WMCDP included Hugh and Mary Barker. Here Mary describes the background to their involvement with the new organisation:

“I was working as a nurse for St John Ambulance and had gone to help out at the Polio Fellowship group in Westbourne Road in 1955 when I first met Hugh. We struck up a relationship and married in 1960.

Throughout the 1960s we were involved in the Polio Fellowship. When we were going out together, Hugh lived in Quinton Lane. He had one of the original old trikes in those days and I used to cycle all the way back to Dawlish Road from Hugh's house in Quinton in about 10 minutes so that I wasn't late home!”

From an interview between Mary Barker and Pete Millington published in Pinpoint Magazine May/June 2002 edition

Some years later, in 1977, Mary and Hugh attended the inaugural meeting of the West Midlands Council for Disabled People (WMCDP) at Prospect Hall. Hugh was a wheelchair user so, as a married couple, they had already developed a keen interest in disability issues, especially access issues around which they shared a strong belief that society could and should be made more accessible. Mary and Hugh decided to attend the WMCDP meeting having seen it advertised in a local newspaper.

“Hugh was one of the original executive members in the early years. The Chair back then was Professor Marsland and some of the other people I remember included Dr Beasley, John Harrison, Albert Weadle, Peter Low and Tommy Glasgow. Linda Foxall was the secretary and Theresa Jackson (Samuels) was the only paid member of staff.

“The work that everybody did in the early days of WMCDP was quite pioneering in terms of people with disability living and working in the community. With money that came from people with forward looking ideas in this field, a committee was formed with three-quarters of them being people with a disability.

“It wasn't an easy time and getting to places was always a big problem. Disabled people often had to rely on their carers to help them to get to places on time. The seeds were being sown in those days for the things that people with disabilities have today.”

The first newsletter of the WMCDP was published in February 1981 and, just like Ken and Maggie Davis and their colleagues in Derbyshire, the editor of the publication, which was called Pinpoint, took inspiration from the fact that it was International Year of Disabled People and that not a great deal was happening.

The title of the front page editorial of Pinpoint was Time To Disturb The Public and alongside it was the logo of International Year of Disabled People:

“What is happening! We read such headlines as ‘old and disabled hit by ban on centres’, ‘Social Services cuts influence the services to the old and disabled’, ‘Home helps and Meals on Wheels to be reduced’.

“This is 1981, the year designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Disabled Persons and in this country known as the International Year of Disabled People. One of the aims of the year is to increase public understanding of what disability is and awareness of the problems it brings.

“Such headlines as these only add further in reducing the quality of life of those people who need a greater degree of support for their well being. Surely we should be building not destroying.

“The second aim of the year is ‘the participation, equality and integration of disabled people’. Integration means the absence of social barriers, being treated like everyone else, the absence of segregation. Some of these barriers have occurred throughout history when it was easier to put ‘oddities’, be they homeless, poor or disabled, in an institution, our consciences were then absolved by our ‘charity’.

“It is only since the experience of the First World War that we have come to realise that disabled people can think and express themselves as well as those with no apparent disability.

“The ultimate goal would be that disabled people must have the same opportunities and equal rights as the rest of us. The right to go to work, the right to enjoy leisure time to the full and to go where they want, when they want. In fact the right of choice.

“If we are to communicate the message of the International Year, disabled people must not be seen to be seeking special treatment or privileges. They must express their views without any tendency towards self-centredness and consistently aim to overcome the problem within people of inherent ignorance. The public must be disturbed and made aware during the International Year of Disabled People.”

Another editorial on the inside page of Pinpoint, authored by Ted Marsland, Chair of the WMCDP, explained the reason for a local organisation working on behalf of all disabled people:

“There are many excellent organisations that provide advice and help for people with particular forms of handicap and others which provide a more general form of service, but those who work for the disabled in the West Midlands would, I think, readily admit that there remains a need for an effectively co-ordinated distribution of information on aids and services for the handicapped.”

Another article, Many Hands Make Light Work, written by Dr John Todd, also acknowledges this seemingly new trend for umbrella partnerships around service provision to disabled people with a nod in the direction of the participation of disabled people themselves:

“The council was seen as a group of people who either represented statutory or voluntary bodies concerned with disability, and who themselves were disabled or had a general interest in their problems.

“The early aims were to make statutory and other bodies more aware of disability, to make information available about services in the West Midlands and to encourage an educational programme for those people who may be involved.

“In the four years since the council started, it has certainly made people more aware of the needs and is now able to set up an information service; it will continue to run seminars on specific subjects. Much remains to be done particularly in support of other voluntary organisations, but this takes time and money.”