I have just watched The Incredible Lucy on channel 4, a follow up on the winner of last year’s The Piano.
It made me very emotional.
I am a retired nurse for people with learning disabilities and I have always thought that anyone who doesn’t care about/ judges / looks down upon disabled people would soon change their attitude if they actually got to know how the vast majority of those they don’t see as being of any value to society actually are in real life.
I had no plan at all to become a nurse. I was going to train as a riding instructor but through sheer chance because I urgently needed some extra cash to pay a vet bill I was offered a part time job in a small private residential home for adults with learning disabilities. There I met a wonderful man called Norman who was one of eight residents. Norman additionally had a physical disability and used a wheelchair. His speech was very hard to understand until you really got to know him. We became friends and he did me the huge honour of telling me his life story.
Norman’s disability had been caused by a traumatic forceps delivery. As a baby he looked very different so his mother put him into the large local asylum as it was then called. It was a big rural walled hospital with a selection of “villas” for groups according to the sub divisions allotted by age and type of disability so there was one for children and babies, for profound physical disability, for difficult and disruptive behaviour, for elderly people etc. Each was then divided again for males and females.
As Norman grew up he realised he was more mentally able than the others he lived with but that his cognitive ability was being judged by those in power based on his speech difficulties and his physical appearance.
He told me about his moves around the hospital as he aged, about never being able to leave the building let alone the hospital grounds. He never saw his family.
All the residents were put to work and his job was cleaning the floor and he would be lifted out of his chair and sat on the floor to do this.
He never had his own clothes as all clothing was communal even under wear. He shared a ward style bedroom all his life. There was no privacy not even on the toilet as residents were lined up naked waiting for their bath or shave whilst another used the toilet in one huge bathroom.
He had never had his own money but was taken to the hospital tuck shop where residents earned credit from their jobs.
He had one great friend who had lived with him for many years. His friend had a significant learning disability but was physically able so together they operated as a pair each helping the other out in their very restricted life.
Bullying by staff (and sometimes outright cruelty) was always present and Norman had to learn how to manage the situation and become a bit of a favourite to escape this mistreatment.
At the ripe old age of 62 he had been told he was moving out of the hospital as part of something called “Care in the Community” and he had been brought to the residential home where I met him. His great friend had moved with him and they now shared a bedroom.
Norman told me he was so happy now because he had been given a radio in his room, he got pocket money and once a week they were taken out in a minibus to a cafe or for a trip.
There was not a trace of self pity in any of his story. He was a very funny and entertaining raconteur and made jokes about the horrors he described.
It was a huge turning point in my life and I felt that after a life feeling different and much more at home with animals I had finally found my people and I wanted to fight for them as best I could.
I trained as a learning disability nurse in what was left of the very hospital where Norman grew up.
I met the nicest, kindest, funniest people throughout my long career and having met literally thousands of adults and children with learning disabilities I can honestly say I could count on one hand those I didn’t really enjoy being with. Many became my friends out of work when I moved jobs so a personal relationship was permitted professionally.
I read a comment on mumsnet that some ignorant lowlife had recently described a learning disabled person as a “useless window licker” which clearly says much about that individual and I would suspect such a stone cold sociopath is unlikely to ever have a change of heart, assuming they have one of course. But I think it must be worth trying with those whose views are purely ill informed as opposed to downright disgusting.
So I am hoping that The Incredible Lucy and the story of my friend Norman might chip away a bit at some of the negative misconceptions.