Interview with Merle Davies
“You see I was about seven when the War ended, so there wasn’t a lot of money but they always provided well for us... We didn’t have television in those days. Listen to the radio. Playing out in the street, I remember playing skipping and hopscotch... Oh well, I knew I was different from other children. I integrated well with other children and some of them were very supportive. Others took the Mickey [laughs] but mainly they were quite supportive…” Born 14 November 1936
Educated Various including Gravesend Horticultural Training College; Thomas Delarue School, Tonbridge
Tape 1, side 1
Parents’ choice of name. Born in Wales. Mother was previously in service in Brighton. Father was foreman scaffolder on cooling towers. Home birth – lack of oxygen. Walking at 18 months but diagnosed as having CP. At eight, Merle went into hospital to have a heel operation. Playing with other children. Attitude of parents to disability. Discipline. Grandmother went to chapel three times on Sunday. At 14 Merle went to a horticultural training college for people with cerebral palsy, near Gravesend in Kent to learn a trade. After three years, Merle transferred to a Spastics Society school until she was 21. Passed GCEs in English language, English literature and history but failed commerce and bookkeeping. Offered a job with the Spastics Society in London.
Tape 1, side 2
Examinations. Merle’s uncle and grandfather were miners. Parents' chapel upbringing. Voting Conservative. Merle had a sister when she was 12. Grandmother had 13 children. Merle lived upstairs in a pub; mother had a part-time job there. Learning to walk with a toy dog on wheels. Dick Barton, Special Agent on radio.
Tape 2, side 1
Shorthand typing for The Spastics Society at Euston Road. Seven letters per day. Margaret Morgan head of employment services at Fitzroy Square. Merle was also offered a job as a house mother at Craig-y-Parc School in South Wales. Social Work Department. Merle organised cheques for the jewellery homeworkers scheme. Spastics Society holiday centres. Merle organised courses about Care in the Community at residential centres in Chester and the West Country. The Spastics Society as an employer of disabled people. Bill Hargreaves, Head of Holidays. Advisory and Assessment Service. Using a computer and hands-free phone. Importance of punctuality.
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Tape 3, side 1
Margaret Morgan offered Merle the job of holiday adviser. In 1996, Merle retired from Scope after 37 years. Disability Now. Tourism for All, under the chair of Mary Baker. Care in the Community work. Spastics Society Advisory and Assessment Service in Fitzroy Square.
Tape 3, side 2
Assessment team of occupational psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and doctors. Care in the Community work.
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Tape 4, side 1
Cruise holiday around the Baltic ports. St Petersburg with Saga Holidays. Friendships. Worked for Scope and organised a sponsored walk in Epping Forest. Social secretary of the 62 Club. PHAB Clubs. Committed Christian at age 22. Counselling. Sharing flats off Devonshire Street, in Chelsea, Maida Vale, Primrose Hill, Great Portland Street and in a tower block in Stratford. Spastics Society collecting dolls. Attitude to positive discrimination. Disabled actor in Holby City TV drama. Earl Carlson, doctor with CP. Reflections on childhood. Reflections on ageing process. Access to physiotherapy.
Download transcript of tape 4