Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain review â have attitudes changed?
Cerrie Burnell explored Britainâs treatment of disabled people over history, from the Victorian workhouses for the âfeeble-mindedâ to the activists and trailblazers of the modern day
Cerrie Burnell with activists Jane Campbell and Alia Hassan in Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain. Photograph: Tom Hayward/BBC/Blast! Films
Cerrie Burnell with activists Jane Campbell and Alia Hassan in Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain. Photograph: Tom Hayward/BBC/Blast! Films
Tue 19 Jan 2021 17.00 EST
Childrenâs TV presenters are often at the forefront of social change. Perhaps this is because â as one of the people interviewed in Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain (BBC Two) remarked â âchildren are much better at inclusionâ than their angry-letter-writing, Ofcom-complaint-making parents.
Disability rights activist outside Scottish Parliament, 30 March 2013. By Brian McNeil - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link.
David Matthews is a lecturer in sociology and social policy at Coleg Llandrillo, Wales, and the leader of its degree program in health and social care.
Beyond the COVID pandemic, the relative global burden of communicable disease has declined. Non-communicable conditions such as strokes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have increased as causes of global mortality. They have also contributed to the growing prevalence of disability. In 2017, an estimated 80 percent of all disabilities globally were caused by non-communicable diseases, with lower back pain, headaches, and depressive disorders the leading causes.
Do you consider yourself to be a disabled person?
Yes: ☐
Prefer not to say: ☐
Yes. Because forms like this – and questions like this – always throw me into confusion, and sometimes into complete mind-stoppage. You appear to be asking a closed question, but ‘consider’ is a word I would use to open up a question. Forms are full of such questions, presenting themselves as straightforward logic gates, which on closer inspection turn out to be impossibly multivalent. Rather like everyday speech. You haven’t been specific enough, so I’ll just have to throw everything at you – at least then some of it will be what you’re looking for.