Interview with Desmond Cox

Born 27 November 1955

Attended Bradstock Lockett, Southport; Exhall Grange, near Coventry;

Desmond was born at Wolverhampton Women’s Hospital (now West Park Hospital) on 27 November 1955. Named Desmond Alexander Cox by Irish priest who baptised him, because his parents couldn’t think of a name. Alexander is a family name. Desmond’s parents from Jamaica after WW2. Desmond had five brothers, one sister and was the first to be born in UK. Two of his brothers were born in Jamaica. Earliest memory of father who worked in building trade. Mother worked in the local hospital as Domestic Assistant. Desmond’s cerebral palsy. Doctors’ advice to parents to send Desmond to boarding school. Tests. Callipers. Exercises. Operations on legs. Desmond as the ‘sick one’. In Southport, first awareness of his disability. Using pushchair to get around. Family life. English upbringing away at school and Jamaican upbringing at home. Reading. Teacher, Mrs Downs. Interest in pop music from school. Desmond went to Bradstock Lockett boarding school in Southport aged 4-11.

 

 

Bradstock Lockett closed in 1966. Layout of school and dormitories. Teacher Mrs Downs and the nurses were called ‘Auntie’. Seaside at Southport. School library and the Southport town library. Moon landing. Journey to Southport from home in Ewan Street, Wolverhampton. Trams in Queens Street, Wolverhampton. Southport became to feel more like home. Sometimes looking forward to going to Southport and Liverpool. Daily routine: got up around 7-8, washing, dressing and morning assembly. Headmistress Mrs Kirkby. Letters and phone calls home. Desmond failed 11+. Exhall Grange, school for disabled children and children with visual impairments, near Coventry. Desmond was in Canterbury House. School uniform. Housemaster Mr Barham and his wife. Swimming and bronze life-saving certificate. School clubs and discos at weekends. Cubs and scouts.  Getting round school by wheelchair but encouraged to walk. Disliked maths; liked English and pottery, woodwork. PHAB – weekly youth club in basement at Coventry Cathedral. School trips.

 

 

 

Desmond rode tricycle to get around his neighbourhood. Children in the school had a wide range of impairments. Love of reading. Clay-making. Listening to the radio for school plays. Evening classes as an adult. Jeffrey and Desmond used to play and watch television together. Science fiction. Meeting non-disabled children and becoming aware of difference. Desmond’s brothers went to the local school. Playing marbles. American comics, ‘Super Heroes’, ‘Sparky’, ‘Dandy’ and ‘Beano’. Lived in Ewan Street, near Five-Ways, in Wolverhampton was “United Nations Road until his early 20s. Memories of being only black child - reactions. Desmond’s father was refused work, threatened by Teddy boys. Days before central heating and cold British weather. Father saving to buy house and car. Father’s work as a crane operator in building trade. Desmond’s mother started in domestic work, latterly in hospitals. Going out and listening to music, and learning to drive. The Jamaican community in Wolverhampton. Desmond went to Coldsely? near Coventry for assessment prior to his childhood operations. Aged 10, Desmond was filmed at Wicket Hall in Wolverhampton walking in his underpants, with his sticks, for the doctors. Desmond went to Selly Oak Hospital, at age 13? for his first orthopaedic operation. In plaster to the hip and in enormous pain. Lessons in hospital. Learning to walk three times: as a baby; at Bradstock Lockett, and after the operation. Attitudes of doctors and nurses.

 

Teacher Mrs Downes invited Desmond home for weekends in Southport. Her husband became a Police Superintendent. English teas. ‘Auntie Sue’, a nurse at the school, also invited Desmond home for weekends. Jamaican meals like rice and peas and curried goat, or yam and banana. Jamaican patois. Relatives called Desmond “The English One” or “The Sick One”. Exhall Grange, Coventry from 11-16. Little careers guidance. Day centres. Wolverhampton Job Centre sent Desmond for three months to Lancaster to an Assessment Centre, aged 16.  Second Assessment Centre for a month in Preston. First wage packet. Woodwork and engineering. Employers’ attitudes.  Training schemes in electronic engineering. Jobs in the building trade with Carvers. Sub-assembly work at a bench. Weighing and re-packaging. After four years, Desmond was made redundant. In the late 1980s, Desmond trained at a games company, May Games, working on games circuit boards, checking transistors and learning soldering. Worked at C&C in the packaging industry. Job centres and the Disability Employment Advisors. Working in a

Library on a training placement. Education classes, drama, games and crafts at Moreton Day Centre and Ferndale Day Centre, Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton. Printing Christmas cards and invitations.

Download transcript of tape 2

 

 

Left Bradstock Lockett School in 1966. Riding a trike. Love of pop music. Headteacher Mrs Kirkby. Range of impairments at school. Double operation at Coldsley hospital at 12 or 13 to straighten legs. July 2005 - five months in New Cross and West Park hospitals in Wolverhampton because of diabetes. Attitudes of doctors and nurses. Portrayal of disabled people in the media. Fiftieth birthday party at The Black Horse in Parkfields Wolverhampton. Family background in Jamaica. Mixed race marriages. Visit to Jamaica and access issues there. Relationships with women. PHAB Club at age of 13 at Coventry, and later in life a branch opened in Wolverhampton. The Happy Society. Monday nights at the social club. Evening classes. Internet. Desmond’s grandparents. Devil Mountain in Wales. Driving. Living with father. Brought up Catholic. Sunday School. Politics.

 

 

 

Download transcript of tape 4