“I really felt that I’d been put on the scrapheap. The things that they suggested, like making artificial flowers, and possibly to be going to residential training for employment, were totally unsuitable for me.” Joan Ross, author and Scope London Partnership Committee member
Born 18 December 1939
Attended Vale Road School for Physically Handicapped Children, Southgate Technical College, Middlesex Polytechnic
Read about her autobiography at I Can’t Walk, But I Can Crawl
Interview summary
Tape 1 side 1
Born in Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales. Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool. Brain damage. Great Ormond Street Hospital. Physiotherapy and electrical treatment twice a week. London Underground. Article in ‘The Lancet’ on physio Eirene Collis. Friends Margaret and Norma. Difficulty in finding a school. Had a sister Margaret at age 12. Girl Guides. Running a Brownie pack. RSA Stage One English at the Royal Society of English. Poor handwriting affected exams. Electric typewriter. North London Spastics’ Association. Teaching training course. Middlesex Polytechnic mature student.
Tape 1 side 2
Teaching English language. Applied for Social Services job in Haringey. Manpower Services. Working with library and information officer of Islington Social Services. Citizens’ Advice Bureau training. Advice and Rights Centre for the Handicapped. Greater London Council. International Year of Disabled People. Worked for 17 years as advice officer for Haringey Disabilities Consortium. Learning to drive invalid car. Holidays in Westgate in Kent near Margate. Mini Mayfair. British School of Motoring. Writing autobiography.
Tape 2 side 1
Born 18 December 1939. Learning to crawl aged 3. Pneumonia at six weeks. Great Ormond Street in 1942. Electrical massage. Wartime London. Dad became an army instructor and Andrew Cruickshank and Jack Hawkins were in his regiment. Queen Mary’s Children’s Hospital in Surrey. Physio Eirene Collis. Joan’s closest friend was Dorothy. Hospital in Carshalton. Won competition with I Spy book. Infants teacher Mrs Ilkley. Sunday school. Queen Mary’s Hospital. Vale Road School for Physically Handicapped Children. Holidays with grandparents in Wales. Birth of sister.
Tape 2 side 2
Girl Guides and running Brownies pack. Helping at Sunday school. Teacher training. Southgate Technical College. Exams and typewriter. Worked for Social Services for the Information Officer. 1970 Chronically Sick and Disablement Act – Disabled Person’s Act. International Year for Disabled People. Writing autobiography, I Cannot Walk But I Can Crawl. Paul Chapman Publishing.
Tape 3 side 1
Southgate Technical College. Degree in Humanities – English and History. Relationship with Phil. Disablement resettlement officer. Interview at Social Services Department in Islington. Special Temporary Employment Programme. First job assisting the Information and Librarian Officer at Islington Social Services. ARCH (Advice and Rights Centre for the Handicapped). Melvin Kinnear, disabled person who had a spinal injury. Driving an invalid car. Haringey Disabled Association. Going on strike. North London Spastics’ Association, later to become The Cerebral Palsy Association. International Year of the Disabled People in 1981.
Tape 3 side 2
Haringey Disabled Association. Independent Living Fund for Joan’s mother. Going on holiday to visit a friend in Canada. City Literary Institute in Holborn.
Tape 4 side 1
Birth. Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool. Great Ormond Street Hospital. Crouch End. Infants’ school. How friend Margaret protected her. Eirene Collis. Vale Road School. Thorpe Bay. Stanton Hill Cripple Home. The Spastics Society’s Thomas Delarue School. Girl Guides. Running a Brownie pack.
Tape 4 side 2
Sunday school. Exams. Middlesex Polytechnic. Brownies. Teacher training. Borough of Islington ‘Special Temporary Employment Programme’ STEP in the late 1970s. Social Services Department (Research and Development Department). ARCH (Advice and Rights Centre for the Handicapped). Haringey Disability Association. Autobiography, I Cannot Walk, But I Can Crawl. Invalid car.
If you are over 50 and have cerebral palsy and would like to tell us your life story, please contact us.
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