She would sit in a little office – the PE teacher’s, presumably – and they would give her a small, rusting pot of white paint, a brush and, on the floor there would be a basket of these balls, scuffed and mucky.
And as we put on our games kit, grabbed sticks and clattered and chatted up to the sports field; as we battled it out on the hockey pitch, all flying hair, dirty knees, ruddy cheeks, she would stay inside and paint them.
It was something we all had to do, every now and then. But it's all she ever did. You can’t entirely blame the school. I don’t think the teachers knew what to do with her. So they did what they tended to do in those days: kindly shut her out, shut her away.
It was something we all had to do, every now and then. But it's all she ever did. You can’t entirely blame the school. I don’t think the teachers knew what to do with her. So they did what they tended to do in those days: kindly shut her out, shut her away.
Maybe she wasn’t bothered; maybe doing sport never occurred to her. Maybe the very idea of it was snuffed out by a pitying, patronising ‘can’t do’ society before any spark of desire could be kindled.
She was with us only for a half-term, a term at the most, and none of us made friends. I’m appalled when I think about it. She was a kind of distant celebrity of sorts - we’d never seen a girl our age in a wheelchair before. So we stared at her when we thought she wasn’t looking, we whispered about her.
Girls are cliquey at that early-to-mid-teen age. We were half-scared and no-one thought to encourage or explain. We even made jokes about being envious: we hated hockey - she didn't have to do it. And the barriers between us just grew and grew.
I don't know anything about her. I don't even recall her name. None of us, not even the teachers, I think, made any attempt to see beyond the contraption she sat in. She was ‘normal’ but she was different, she was strange, she was a visible, invisible girl, she was ‘handicapped’.
Girls are cliquey at that early-to-mid-teen age. We were half-scared and no-one thought to encourage or explain. We even made jokes about being envious: we hated hockey - she didn't have to do it. And the barriers between us just grew and grew.
I don't know anything about her. I don't even recall her name. None of us, not even the teachers, I think, made any attempt to see beyond the contraption she sat in. She was ‘normal’ but she was different, she was strange, she was a visible, invisible girl, she was ‘handicapped’.
That word. That awful word. I recall our primary school music teacher using it once before we got on a minibus to go on one of our sing-a-long excursions. We enjoyed these - it was a perk of being in the choir. We'd go round old people's homes, mainly, at Christmas time, and they would clap and sing along with us, and give us sweets.
This particular trip though was to a home where most of the elderly residents had severe disabilities. Again, there was no real explanation, no preparation. The teacher simply told us they were 'handicapped' and we were not to make jokes. We arrived nervous, we sang bug-eyed and left guiltily appalled, giggling and hot with embarrassment at what we'd seen. Forgive us, we knew no better.
And so, for us, 'handicapped' came to mean people to be scared of. It meant flailing limbs, it meant shouting, it meant sadness, it meant gawping, it meant looking away, it meant shame, it meant being ashamed, it meant pity, it meant people not fit to live among us, it meant people to be locked up.
That attitude still festers. My God, it does.
How do I know this? Because so many years later, I had you - my own disabled boy. And it became such an important thing to show you off, to make sure you were seen and heard, so that those people....especially the older generations - the ones who knew nothing...those who said to me 'isn't it a shame', and those ignorant others, those who pulled their children away from you, were made to see it wasn't a shame at all; that a different kind of life, a different kind of living could be just as happy, as fulfilling, as full of opportunity.
This particular trip though was to a home where most of the elderly residents had severe disabilities. Again, there was no real explanation, no preparation. The teacher simply told us they were 'handicapped' and we were not to make jokes. We arrived nervous, we sang bug-eyed and left guiltily appalled, giggling and hot with embarrassment at what we'd seen. Forgive us, we knew no better.
And so, for us, 'handicapped' came to mean people to be scared of. It meant flailing limbs, it meant shouting, it meant sadness, it meant gawping, it meant looking away, it meant shame, it meant being ashamed, it meant pity, it meant people not fit to live among us, it meant people to be locked up.
That attitude still festers. My God, it does.
How do I know this? Because so many years later, I had you - my own disabled boy. And it became such an important thing to show you off, to make sure you were seen and heard, so that those people....especially the older generations - the ones who knew nothing...those who said to me 'isn't it a shame', and those ignorant others, those who pulled their children away from you, were made to see it wasn't a shame at all; that a different kind of life, a different kind of living could be just as happy, as fulfilling, as full of opportunity.
I thought about the girl, in the office, painting, for the first time in an age recently, watching a BBC film about Dr Ludwig Gutmann, founder of the Paralympic Games.
Gutmann. What a man. He fled Nazi Germany after putting his own life at risk to save others and, once in Britain, fought to change the attitude to paralysed servicemen returning from World War II – men who would have been heroes if they’d been killed in battle, but instead faced a half-life, hidden away in institutions until they did the decent thing and politely died.
They were inconvenient, they were an embarrassment, they were unemployable, they were better off in care homes, away from society, so as not to offend delicate eyes.
There are such parallels here, between how the establishment regarded those soldiers and how, in many ways, we treated all our disabled - more shockingly, how we still continue to treat them.
We might deny it. We might protest it's not so. But it is so. It is so. From the easily-rectified issues of access to the unseen, unwitting, day-to-day prejudices that make life difficult and, in some cases unbearable for those who are subjected to them.
And equality of opportunity? Well, let's just say there's a long, long way still to go.
Gutmann gave his brave soldiers the will to live, the strength to be bold, the optimism to see there was a future, after all. And it is thanks to him and to all the others, the pioneers and campaigners who refused to stay out of sight, out of mind, that we have come as far as we have. We no longer, I’m sure, keep young girls cooped up in offices painting hockey balls just because they happen to need a wheelchair to get about.
Gutmann described his soldiers as 'the best of men'. We should regard our Paralympic athletes in the same light. They have climbed mountains to get where they are. They are not victims to be pitied but examples to us all. They, above all others, can surely show that anything is possible...for anyone given the proper opportunities.
Gutmann described his soldiers as 'the best of men'. We should regard our Paralympic athletes in the same light. They have climbed mountains to get where they are. They are not victims to be pitied but examples to us all. They, above all others, can surely show that anything is possible...for anyone given the proper opportunities.
They are dashing to smithereens the perceptions of many who still, albeit unwittingly, see the disability rather than ability, who still think 'it's a shame'......
And they are inspiring those young people who might, in the past, have been told ‘you can’t’.
* An abridged version of this article appeared in the Yorkshire Post on August 29.
And they are inspiring those young people who might, in the past, have been told ‘you can’t’.
* An abridged version of this article appeared in the Yorkshire Post on August 29.
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