Chapter 3 - continued

One of the earliest members of the BDRG, Maria Mleczko, recalls her initial involvement:

“That is what started me off, because I actually got fed up with the way people treat us. Not everybody, but the majority. You know, if you are with your carer they will talk to the carer and not to you first. Sometimes when you ask for something they look at you as if to say that you shouldn’t have it. So I got involved – I was quite innocent when I was 19 and 20.

“Originally it was just a monthly meeting and we talked about demonstrating, about public transport and whatever issue was around at the time.

“I can’t remember how I first got involved. When it started they used to do a lot of mailing and there were things in the library. Once a month we met in various meeting rooms in Birmingham, a couple of times it was the voluntary place in Digbeth.

“I remember feeling quite scared actually because, like anything, when you join a new group a lot of people are experts and they are all talking and, initially, you are thinking ‘I don’t think that this is for me’.

“So you gently have to be led in – even if it is something stupid. I remember Bob saying to me ‘say something – even if I disagree with it, say something to me, as you have got to learn to try to express yourself’. Bob made quite a good impression on one, I would say, as he started the ball rolling. I often wish that he was around to kick a few people now.”

An early BDRG flyer of 1985 invited potential members to attend monthly meetings and to join the new organisation. The flyer was illustrated with cartoon images representing disabled people in both positive and negative situations, including images of wheelchair racing and disabled people living independently, alongside images of people being discriminated against and being given poor access to public places.

The editorial of the flyer was written in a very forthright manner, terms which seem perfectly reasonable 25 years later, but, at the time, were without doubt very radical:

“Over the last few years, a new uncompromising mood has developed where people with disabilities have seen it as important to reject the passive acceptance of our situations. Instead, we have started taking a pride in ourselves and our bodies and coming to see ourselves as handicapped, not by the nature of our conditions, but by a society which is still not prepared to cater for our needs or regard us as equals.

“It is time to destroy the myths and assumptions made about people with disabilities. It is wrong to reduce people to an all-inclusive label: The Disabled.

“We are people who happen to have disabilities which may or may not affect our lifestyles. We believe society’s division between those classed as disabled and those who regard themselves as normal or able-bodied is based upon values which are oppressive to the majority of people within our society.

“Such divisions lead to false expectations, the under-evaluation of people’s capabilities and the denial of basic rights and needs.”

The flyer went on to deal very directly with inferences from the wider community that disabled people organising their own groups must have chips on their shoulders, but also emphasised that the BDRG was ‘not anti able-bodied people’.

Ultimately though, what was very radical, both in a local and national context, was that the BDRG was going to be run by disabled people:

“We feel it is important that BDRG is run by people with disabilities and that meetings where policy is made are not open to the able-bodied. Full membership is open to people with disabilities which includes voting rights and associated membership for our able-bodied supporters.”

Amongst the intended activities of the newly-formed Birmingham Disability Rights Group, expressed on this early flyer, was to publish a newsletter which would keep members informed and ensure that those unable to attend meetings could, nevertheless, participate in decision making. Within a few months Bob and his growing team published Building Bridges, the newsletter of BDRG.

Produced in its early years on a very tight budget, sometimes two or three sheets of typed and photocopied A4 paper held together by a staple in the top left-hand corner, Building Bridges generally made up in content what it lacked in design impact.

The editorial of the September 1986 edition drew parallels between apartheid, which still existed in South Africa at that time and the experiences of disabled people in Britain. Such a powerful comparison may still be difficult for many people to understand, even today:

Britain's Apartheid?

Many of us must have seen the awful pictures from South Africa and felt that terrible pain of helplessness when we see what is happening there. We, the majority of us, have no idea what it is like to live in such an oppressive environment, but most of us have witnessed a form of oppressive apartheid in Britain.

People with disabilities are still treated like second-class citizens. We see access and opportunities denied us. Some are exploited as cheap labour or refused enough money to meet our needs. We are, therefore, an oppressed group living in a society which fails to allow us a voice and adequate resources.

BDRG was formed to help to change this situation and to fight for equal opportunities and rights for all people with disabilities. We feel that it is time to let the public know the truth about our position within society.

We believe we should organise a lobby of a council meeting where we can explain to the city councillors why we feel we live under a form of apartheid.

All over Britain local groups of disabled people were expressing similar ideas to those written in Building Bridges. Sheffield-based rights activist Linda Laurie explained her moment of enlightenment as a disabled person:

“I met somebody, who I suppose was my mentor, his name was Simon Brisenden, unfortunately he is no longer with us, but he was an amazing person, a disabled guy, a writer and poet. I went along to a meeting, I think I was cajoled into it by him.

“At that meeting people were speaking from Hampshire Centre for Independent Living and they talked about the social model of disability and about the discrimination against disabled people being a civil rights issue and it was just like ‘wow, well yes of course it is’. Once I knew about the social model and began to learn about it, there was really no going back, you can’t accept being treated as a second class citizen any longer.”