In September 1992, a new centre opened in a section of the ground floor of an old public building in Birmingham which once used to be a school.
The school itself opened in 1928 and was known as Bierton Road Council School. Its intake of 86 pupils came from nearby Yardley Primary School. There are still many local people from South Yardley today who have memories of their school days from 1928 right up until it closed in 1985.
One can only imagine the excitement and trepidation for both children and teachers alike on their first morning at this brand new building with its magnificent and resplendent Birmingham City Council coat of arms positioned over the entrance hall from the main playground.
We can but speculate whether the children gained inspiration for their educational studies from gazing up at the sculpted objects which are, to this day, displayed on either side of the heraldic shield of the coat of arms, as they entered the school each morning or following play time.
On one side of the coat of arms are tools of industry, including an imposing anvil from the smith’s foundry, representing Birmingham’s industrial heritage and on the other side are the implements of leisure and the arts, representing the city’s cultural tradition. Or, perhaps, the pupils of Bierton Road were inspired by the city’s optimistic and self-assured motto, Forward, which was adopted at the very first meeting of the council in December 1838 and has, henceforth, adorned the base of its coat of arms.
What we can say with certainty is that very few disabled children would have passed under that beautiful crest in the decades between 1928 and 1985. In 1928 there were scant opportunities for disabled children, least of all access to academic education.
In the early part of the 20th century, if disabled children did not die in infancy or were forced to beg on the streets in order to survive, the majority were destined to spend their lives in long-term institutions, hospitals, workhouse infirmaries and even asylums. The luckiest of them might have attended a more forward thinking charitable institution where therapy and occupational training replaced academic study.
Even the guarantee of education for disabled children, provided by the 1944 Education Act, contained no mention of inclusion into mainstream schools like Bierton Road. Whilst there is no doubt that the introduction of special schools offered a great improvement from what had gone before, disabled children were still destined to spend their lives away from their peers with no prospects of gaining qualifications in readiness for the big wide world.
Perhaps there is some irony, therefore, in the fact that the new centre, opening on the old Bierton Road school site in 1992, was going to be one of the country’s first support centres not just committed to the inclusion of disabled people in wider society, but actually set up and run by disabled people themselves.
The conversion of a ground-floor wing of the school into a fully accessible centre known as Birmingham Disability Resource Centre was even funded by the same city council whose forward-looking motto and coat of arms acknowledging the firm foundations of industrial and cultural heritage still embellishes the front entrance hall at Bierton Road.
The most important story behind the launch of Birmingham Disability Resource Centre is that of the pioneering disabled people whose own vision of an inclusive future led to a seven-year campaign of lobbying, negotiating with, and working alongside, the local council. For the most part these were ordinary disabled people who had banded together in 1985 to form the Birmingham Disability Rights Group to raise awareness about disability and to campaign for greater access and equality of opportunity.
Most were people whose own personal experiences were not so greatly dissimilar to those of disabled citizens of the early 1900s – segregation, isolation, rejection, disadvantage, life on low income, medicalisation and discrimination.
Here is our own attempt to document, celebrate and recognise the legacy of the disabled people and their allies who set up Birmingham Disability Resource Centre. It is a celebration of the achievements of all those who have been associated with both the Rights Group and the centre in its 25-year history. In 1986 concepts like equal citizenship and social justice for disabled people were virtually unheard of and the vision of a centre in Birmingham run by disabled people for disabled people was an unachieveable pipedream.
This historical record would not have been possible without financial support from the Heritage Lottery Fund (West Midlands) which has recognised the importance of heritage to disabled people by funding the 18-month oral history project which has provided the material for the book.
This is much more than just a history of a building; a history of bricks and mortar. It is the story of Birmingham’s role in the wider change brought about by the international disabled people’s movement. A change based on inclusive living principles, user-led direction of services and the liberating “social model of disability”.
This is by no means the end of the road in this history of social transformation, but, if we are to continue to move forward, it is essential to pause every now and then to reflect on the rich and resourceful heritage we have been gifted from the past.
