The Queens Hidden Cousins on tv this week

[pigletmania]

I have just watched a documentary of two of the Queens cousins from her mothers side of the family, who were hidden away because they have learning disabilities. It was heartbreaking to watch, and I am disgusted at the way the Royal Family and Bowes Lyon family have treated these ladies. The eldest died, she had a paupers grave, with just staff attending . Nobdy from her family attended. It was also very interesting to hear of the history of learning disabilities and how they were seen 60-70 years ago. Just really

That is justabout even in the 80's things were not forward thinking really. With the right support she probably would have been fine in the community.

Oh God. This made for very harrowing viewing and I have to say, it's on my Sky Planner but I've not finished watching yet. After 25 mins, that was enough for me. I'll go back to it, but not without a stiff drink.

What a shower of shit our "beloved" Royal Family are. A disgrace. Our Queen knew of their existence. What did she do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There should be a public apology for their cruelty.

It is so , yes the RF are a disgrace, they obviously knew about them yet chose to do nothing. And here they are going to Church as if they are good Christians. I don't think so! Charity begins at home!

Another one that I'm a bit torn on. Obviously I don't agree with them being left there, but at the same time, it is unfortunately back then what society did. I suppose many many years ago family members of the monarch were a focus point of unrest, which meant that any that had any type of mental disability would have been a political target to be misused by many that were politically and financially motivated. So putting them somewhere out of public reach was probably not only in the interest of the monarch, but also served as protection for the disabled family member as well (although granted that probably wasn't the motive of the monarch ).

Currently, it does protect them from being approached by journalists who may be unscrupulous, but I suppose at the same time, private nursing/assistance may do the same thing. Nowadays, I would like to think that things would be handled differently, although obviously there are so many variables, it's just hard to say.

I do think that the royal family should have visited frequently, but at the same time, look at how many royal children went to boarding school or spent most of their time with their carers/nannies, as opposed to spending loads of time with their parents. To their way of thinking, perhaps this was an extension of that type of thing? I'm not really sure. It's hard to say as we don't know for certain who visited them and how frequently. I imagine it wasn't publicised when they did visit, so who is to say? A carer could say she never saw a member of the royal family visit, but if she never worked on weekends and someone visited on weekends, it's not like she would know about it.

Nah....they dumped them there and turned their backs on them.

I watched this with Dh - made me very angry. I can understand the attitudes towards them in the 30's but what about later on? Why didn't they have them living comfortably in a house on one of their estates with staff and nurses to help- it could still be kept secret if they were that worried about what we all know. They are a bunch of cold hearted inbred selfish people and I agree with what's been said about the queen mother too, there was nothing sweet and cuddly about her. And they interviewed the staff who worked with these poor women and they said no one came to visit after their mother died and they wouldn't even get gifts at Christmas or for their birthdays, utterly disgraceful!

It made for very harrowing viewing but actually royal family aside, historically it explained a huge amount as to why people with learning difficlties were hidden away.
Such a huge stigma to have a family menber with ld it does appear to be the norm, rich or poor that they were shut away from society.
Certainly makes things clearer to me regarding the social status of the disabled in society even today.

I agree, it was a sign of the times. We are more enlightened now except perhaps for Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle et al. But that's another thread, I think....

I think it was the fact these women were abandoned. No acknowledgement, no visits, absolutely nothing. And even today, the Royals will do anything to cover up, or try to, any kind of "scandal".

Yes, I'm not keen on opening up to people about DS2's disabilities either, especially as I've recently gotten the response that "oh well, he's not properly disabled then, is he?" Rather aggravating. Try living in our house for a day and see how much different it is.