‘Some [Girl Guide] accounts eulogize girls who were models of patience. One girl who had to lie in bed all the time made friends with the birds who flew in. In 1946, Daphne was presented with the ‘Badge of Fortitude’. She spent all her life in a plaster bed but could still do gardening from her spinal chair was ‘the friend of all the children in the neighourhood’. Nevertheless, pictures and stories of girls [with a disability] at camp also emphasized the value of the outdoor smells, sounds and relative freedom to blind girls, or how ‘”higher-grade”’ defectives’ were almost the same as other Guides, and badge requirements should remain the same …’
Tag: disability
Big Society: Supporting People
One of the top news stories this week has involved a family who has asked for their daughter, who has severe disabilities, to be taken by social services after they felt unable to care for her without greater support. The…
Blogging Against Disablism
Yesterday was ‘Blogging against Disablism’ day, where bloggers everywhere are called to speak out against discrimination against those with disabilities. With that in mind, I began to think about what historians know about women with disabilities in the British past…