Interview with Kay Bath
“He was able bodied and a part time DJ and he used to go down and help and if they had a disco he’d do it. And I met him there and we went out for two years we’d been going out together for about a year and he suggested going on holiday. [laughs] So, put it to my dad and he said, ‘Yes. I’ve got absolutely no objection to you going away as long as you get engaged first.’ [laughs] Which was really funny ‘cos what the difference an engagement ring was going to make I really don’t know. So we went, we went away. We had the big white wedding up at the local church and then about two years later, I had my son… But that was still the time when disabled people weren’t supposed to be having sex…”
Born 19 October 1954
Educated Claremont School, Bristol; Monks Park Comprehensive, Bristol; Hereward College, Coventry
Tape 1, side 1
Born in Bristol Maternity Hospital. Diagnosis of CP at age of one in front of medical students. Demand for places at Claremont School, Bristol. Headmistress Miss Ram. KB not allowed to walk until age 8. Plaster casts. Half a day a week at mainstream Henry School. Taxis to Monks Park Comprehensive, Horefield [ph]. Bullying. Glandular fever at Bristol Royal Infirmary. Certificate in office studies. KB’s first Invacar. Work for National Westminster Bank in their registrar’s department dealing with stocks and shares dividends. Flexible work times and special parking place. Met first husband at a special club for disabled people in Old Market, Bristol. He was able-bodied and a part-time DJ. Had to get engaged to go on holiday. Married and had son Kevin in 1977. Spastics Society local social worker. Maclaren buggy pram.
Tape 1, side 2
Learning to drive. Health visitor. Daughter Katie. Kevin’s school friends’ attitude to his disabled mother. At AGM of the local Spastics Society group KB volunteered to be an assistant secretary and then became chair. Became manager of the disability advice centre in Canningford House. Post-viral fatigue syndrome (ME). Dismissed on grounds of ill health. Download transcript of tape 1
Tape 2, side 1
1990-93. ME and Prozac. Herbalism, acupuncture, cranial osteopathy, hydrotherapy. Reaction of children to ME. 2000 Husband and daughter left KB to live alone. Tape 3, side 1 Family business was an electrical contractor. Spastics Society social worker. Positive experience of childbirth. Living in a split level bungalow. Learning to drive. Invacars. Lobbying against nursery closure. Blizzard at time of daughter’s birth. Voluntary work for the local spastics group. Became manager for disability information centre in Bristol. Part-time secretary to a social worker in the Spastics Society. 1990 KB became ill. December 1992 dismissed on grounds of ill health. Download transcript of tape 2
Tape 3, side 2
Children’s attitudes to KB’s illness. Living on benefits. Death of KB’s father and mother’s reaction. At Brunel College Kevin did a three-year catering course, got a job as a waiter in Harvey’s restaurant and left home. KB’s grandchildren. 12-month waiting list for Occupational Therapist. Second marriage. Download transcript of tape 3
Tape 4, side 1
Holiday in France. Met Trevor, who lived in a three-bed bungalow on an estate built by Habinteg. Personal Assistants. Cooking. Shopping on the internet. Direct Payments. Vitalise centres: Churchtown in Cornwall, Jubilee Lodge in Essex and Netley Waterside at Southampton. Gardening.
Tape 4, side 2
Wheelchairs. Access to shops. Trouble with taxis. Low-level buses. Problem with a bus driver who refused to use ramp. First Bus. Disability Discrimination Act. Access to local surgery or dentist. Download transcript of tape 4