Searching for Walter Ridpath
Attracted by spotting some distinctive drawings, Gillian Doherty goes in search of Walter Ridpath, who was once at resident at Normansfield Hospital.
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Our volunteers have been working hard and having great adventures along the way. Browse the stories below or click on an individual image to see more from an individual volunteer.
Showing items tagged with "editors-pick"
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The long view
A snapshot of some landmarks in the lives of deaf and disabled people across the world since the 13th century – from oppression to work, education and choice about where to live.
The politics of disability: from 6th century China to the Industrial Revolution
Anna Fairley attends a talk by Roddy Slorach, who argues that whether you are ‘disabled’ depends on the society surrounding you.
No drinking, brawling or blasphemy
Some of the rules imposed on those using almshouses were common sense, others seem draconian to us now, but places were limited, and people who were accepted probably felt very lucky.
Liberation architecture: Maggie Davis and the birth of independent living
Ken and Maggie Davis were told it was impossible for them to live anywhere except in an institution. But 40 years ago today, they moved into the home they designed themselves. It marked the beginning of the Independent Living Movement.
Restless sleepers
An epidemic of ‘sleepy sickness’ swept through the US and Europe between 1916 – 27, immortalised by Oliver Sacks’ ‘Awakenings’. Some survivors attended the Guild in Bristol, with a variety of post-encephalitic symptoms. Grace Morgan-Tait investigates.
Going to hospital, medieval style
Centuries before the NHS, monasteries were a refuge for the sick. Ann Newman is researching the records of one such place, St John’s Canterbury.
Operation Etsy: valuing craftwork over time
Basket-weaving: the beautiful product of skilled labour valued by the well off, or low status work for disabled people, replacing an education? Esther Fox discusses how, at different times, it has been both.
Institutional propaganda and ‘educative convalescence’
Grace finds that what institutions like the Guild said about themselves and what their members thought were sometimes quite different things. She also hears about the rehabilitation of WWI soldiers.
The medieval equivalent of Boots?
In which Ben McLoughlin finds the good bits in the ‘spectacularly dry’ Chronicles of the Maison Dieu, so you don’t have to…