the last bus home so l thumbed a lift. A car stopped just up the road and I asked the driver if there was any chance of a ride. He nodded, I got in. and he drove off — straieht into the grounds of a nearby psychiatric hospital. I thought: What the hell's going on?
The driver got out of the car, lifted the bonnet, and said the clutch had gone. This was bullshit. I'm engineer; I know when a clutch has packed in.
It turned out he was a mental nurse, and before I knew it I was marching up a path into the hospital itself. The nurse was lying to me about having to see a friend of his. A matron opened the door and I was led through to an office.
'Good evening, doctor,' my nurse escort said to one of the ocupants, 'is this one of yours?' It was disgusting. It's one of the things you have to put up with as a spastic. Even socialists say: *Oh, poor boy. It's really important that people understand.
LAUGHED I went to the local infant school for a year. I remember the other kids laughing at me — they used to call me "Wrigley's Spearmint Gum' because l couldn't keep still. They understand about my disability, and neither did important things you have to learn is the nature of your disability, and how to cope with it.
also the teacher shouting at me. It was a year betore they or 1 realised I was partially deaf as well as spasuc. Alter thal t went to a special school for the physically handicapped where 1 got on a lot better.
It was great to realise that I wasn't the only disabled person in the world!
Luckily, our doctor told my parents not to molly-coddle me but to let me lead as normal a life as possible. So from an early age l played in the street like the other kids, and got into more than my fair share of fights with the mickey-takers!
My dad even taught me to ride a bike. Many disabled rest of the world, but if this happens they are likely to be less self-confident or even anti-social.
From school I went on to a sort of further Coucaron COULSC physically handicapped people, away from home. SESeV taught us a lot about office work, which was pretty useless to me, but also how to cook, sew, and so on, to generally be more self-sufficient. This was usetul.
However, at that time I was really wanting to go to work and went to a work centre near home. I was then aDoul coat-hangers for 17.1 was which I was paid £1.50 a week. The same work in a factory would have paid about £17. Today I believe the work centres pay about t4 a week.
This is not because handicapped people can't produce the quantity as ordinary workers. It's just outright exploitation! BELCI dHyUnC trouble is that coming from physically can push a button.
handicapped school you don't have much option. Instead of feeling you have the right to work, you are supposed to be lucky to have a job at In fact, I was perfectly happy at the aisablea worksnop because. sense, they didn't know any better. This is not to say that anyone from a disabled workshop can get a job outside. That's the problem Socialist Challenge 30 November 1978 Page 14 didn't most knowing how to react and being sociable in some respects.
My dad was working at British Leyland and he got me an interview there. I was really excited when he wrote and told me. I've kept his letter to this day. I got the job, and I've been there ever since — that's 11 years. I received the normal rate rent irom the start, because the union insisted aSaD eG WOrKeS De LIVCH LuC same rate as everyone else.
Tor ue oine. me cea aru dune, anu the chronically ill.
FRIENDLY WITC The plant makes lorries and I'm on the production side, making parts for engines and chassis. My main work is connecting piston rods to the engine block.
Some jobs I find difficult but others same I can do. It's main v automatic work You put in a component, OULU dne CaRO C DuOi ant The that's it. With some jobs you've got to how mne macnne. particular machine, the only person WRO KHOWS IES BIC.
In terms of my handicap, the other workers are very friendly When they didn't know me they were inclined to be patronising, but now they let me get on with it - and give me a bollocking if I do anything They treat me like anyone wongelse.
They' re inclined to take the piss, equipment. They don't tully take m) views on the political level, though!
That goes reactionary way on a political level. You don't anywhere else, themse ves regard about it.
DICOSC AnC WILn onc can be soul-destroying.
CHALLENGE
-to me.
Metal Mechanics at first, but that was but about humanity rather than my they were cancelled. disability. They take the piss about anything 1 do wrong, rather than at I'm into electronics. I read a lot of disablement issue, hi-fi and audio magazines, so people come to me and ask about different The attitude on my politics is: "Oh, held a yellow card, that spastic. Who's going to take any notice of him. In other words, most of the workers respond to me in a hear much about the union. disabled people's rights in the unions because both FIGHTING ordinary workers and the disabled work handicapped as a privilege. If you are lucky enough to have a job, the last thing you should ever do is complain You are not encouraged to be trade union minded. It you want difterent or better conditions, you start to worry that there is something wrong with you; that you are ungrateful. It effect.
branch did not I was in the National Society of I'm the teller a waste of time. The branch had a reactionary chairperson who didn't bother to hold branch meetings for the most part, and then didn't tell me where they were being held or when people words, who again. yet people Nine monshs ago I joined the Union and since 've society. been in it I've been fighting on a which ve now won for myself but not for others.
1 discovered that another brother, also a spastic, held a red card - - the ordinary membership card - while I which classified me as 'chronically sick or disabled'. I was paying 25p a week dues instead of 30p, and it meant that if I fell sick, I woulan t be entuea to sick pay trom Like many disabled people, l've had hardly a day's sickness in my life And in the case of the chronically sick, it means that those who are most nkely to neca sick pay are une ones who don't get it. Some of us wanted to challenge the rule book over this. and moved that our branch should send a letter to the AUEW journal to this I got myself a red card, but my carry our motion.
Perhaps other AUEW members who read this will take up the issue.
for the branch counting votes at meetings. We have raised the issue of the National Front. Kacists were panng nasty icuel: about immigration into the union journal, and we proposed In Enc branch that this be stopped. We got a Group. Southal, for the simple reason that i joins so many organisations together. 1 Inink that une socialst worker. Party should join Socialist Unity. I'm not in a group myself.
I prefer to call myself physically handicapped, because 1 feel the wor 'disabled' implies you are not able, i handicapped, but there's nothing mean.
aren't encouraged to self-confident, because, if they were, they might take the same attitude as other oppressed groups, and start demanding their rights.
While blacks are treated as a threat by our society, and women and gays as a joke, handicapped people are those you must feel sorry for. In other SWC EINCI the mosi patronising treatment going, more or less on a level with domestic pets Apart from anything else, 1 think people should educate their children more about what it is to be physicall nanacaooea. con envv anvont is handicapped child. wouldn't like to go through that As with women, the law serves to reinforce the myths. For example, we nave 10 nave our parent's and doctor's permission to apply for a driving licence. Whenever we apply for a job, we must have a medical check-up. Then there are the spastic and sick jokes made to make us look incapable. And just as gays and blacks are missing from TV shows, so are the disabled.
IMAGE The left's record on this question is very pool but understandably so, since apart from Jack Ashley's group une paysically nandicapped naven" done much to organise themselves What upsets me most is when acuve OVC oppression, such as gays or women, laugh at me. I have experienced this quite often. I feel they should know better. After all, they have analysed sex stereotyping, so it should be pretty obvious to them that most disabled people don't exactly fit the image of sexual desirability projected by this It is also annoying to be ignored. ] have speech difficulties, and people often don't really bother to listen, socialists included. hope don't sound self-pitying part of the problem is that people aren't aware of these things.
It's great for me to have the chance to communicate like this, and I want to paint things as they are. I woulc like to say that I do also meet plenty ol people who understand my situation I think the physically handicapped need to get together to articulate ou operession, m oracr to come to termi: self-cour dendicapse co to deselss and to develop sen-con neence. ways of fighting for our rights, such as changing that AUEW rule. Also it would help us in our fight against patronising attitudes, our equivalent to sexism or racism.
The trouble IS that disabled socialists are few and far between, so l would very much like to hear from other disabled readers of Socialist Challenge, especially if they live in London, in order to get such a group off the ground. Tiseussions beiveen T Y anda ted This article is based friends. Write to Tony c/o Socialist Challenge if you are interested in forming a Physically Handicapped