Great Disabled Britons

[TwistofFate]

I don't know if a thread was started on this yet, so ignore if there has.

The BBC has decided to run a Great Disabled Britons (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/yourspace/gdbprofiles.shtml) poll, and the contenders are as follows

Douglas Bader: invalided out of RAF after plane crash in 1939, rejoined, made Squadron Leader and Wing Commander, captured by the Germans in 1941 and ended up in Colditz for 4 years until the end of the war.
David Blunkett, MP: Jumper wearing bearded Leftie, UK Home Secretary, and Britain’s most famous guide dog owner.
Lord Byron, Renowned poet, Infamous shagger.
Sir Winston Churchill: War time leader, “followed around by a big black dog.”
Ian Dury : Lead singer of the Blockheads, great songwriter, dribbled when he nibbled.
King George VI: The Last Emperor, overcame his stammer.
Tanni Grey-Thompson: Multiple medal winning Para-olympian, 5 time London marathon winner, and was pretty good on The Weakest Link last night.
Stephen Hawking: Lord of the Bling.
Lord Nelson: Ruled the Waves without the use of an eye and with only one arm.
Mike Oliver: Professor of Disability studies: To quote Tom Shakespeare "Not a household name maybe, but in turning the social model of disability from a radical slogan into a coherent approach to the world, he has changed the lives of disabled people in more ways than most."


Personally, I’d vote for Stephen Hawking.

[jjimm]

I'd go for Bader, Hawking, and Dury (the latter is a very partisan choice).

Though knowing the way most of these polls go, I bet the Irish will get James Connolly on the list and he'll win. ;)

[Kal]

I'll vote for Douglas Bader.

[TwistofFate]

Though knowing the way most of these polls go, I bet the Irish will get James Connolly on the list and he'll win.

Well, he was tied to a chair and unable to walk when he was excecuted by firing squad :)

[yojimbo]

Connolly wasn't invalided for long ;)

Bader would be high up there on my list but it should be said that during the 100 greatest Britons is was said that he was a right wanker and person who you would not want to spend any time with and everybody that voted for him was most likely voting for Kenneth Moore and not him (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0049665)

Hawking is a contender for the title aswell but I reckon Bader will win it with the popular vote.

[micilin]

I'm very very sorry for this, but I read the thread title, and immediately thought : 'Great disabled Britons Batman! It's Stephen Hawking!'

Again, my apologies.

[micilin]

Come to think of it, didn't the boy wonder say 'Holy whatever!', not 'Great whatever!'. In which case my previous post makes no sense? I think I should go back to lurking.

And wasn't Nelson high up in the original Great Britons?

[yojimbo]

Yep he was in the top 10 and Churchill won it (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/greatbritons/index_final.shtml)

[longjohn]

Blunkett's a leftie?

Maybe once. Not any more.

Sad that Evelyn Glennie isn't on the list. She's a very talented blind percussionist.

[The Clawman]

Whither the drummer from Def Leppard?

Hadn't heard the "black dog" Churchill reference before. The Manic Street Preachers song of the same name now makes much more sense!

[yojimbo]

Churchill was also what is called now a functional alcoholic. Strange to think that nowadays he almost definitly wouldn't have even entered politics due to his lifestyle.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Right now Ian Dury and Stephen Hawking are locked in titanic head to head battle for first place with everone else mere specks of dust. Tune in for more updates .....

[jjimm]

Originally posted by longjohn
Sad that Evelyn Glennie isn't on the list. She's a very talented blind percussionist. Deaf.

[yojimbo]

Most recent scores:
Douglas Bader: 9.0%
David Blunkett: 5.0%
Lord Byron: 2.7%
Sir Winston Churchill: 4.8%
Ian Dury: 29.7%
King George VI: 1.9%
Tanni Grey-Thompson: 11.8%
Stephen Hawking: 26.1%
Lord Nelson: 4.4%
Mike Oliver: 4.8%

So I was talking crap for a change ;)

[Xerxes]

Sad that Evelyn Glennie isn't on the list. She's a very talented blind percussionist.

I agree it's a shame she isn't on the list, but isn't she deaf. Either disability would make it difficult to be a percussionist (it seems to me) but deafness would seem to make it harder. I personally think she's absolutely amazing; a musician of the highest calibre.

[TwistofFate]

She's not completely deaf, IIRC, I think she's classified "Profoundly deaf".

here is a rather good explination of Evelyn's hearing from her official site.

http://www.evelyn.co.uk/hearing.htm

[cart]

Surely it's got to be Churchill - if he is the greatest Briton of all, then he's the greatest of any subset of Britons that includes him.

Some of these supposed disablements are very dubious. I don't understand how Churchill or Byron qualify - presumably they are categorising substance abuse as a disablement. Counting "stammering" seems ludicrous.

Blunkett is definitely disabled, but I don't see how he could be considered "great". A surprise omission for me is Frank Williams (Formula One team owner).

Still, it beats the "greatest Britons" list. At least nobody in this list is fictitious or foreign.

My personal choice would be Nelson. I think Churchill was probably "greater", but I don't consider him to be disabled.

[Xerxes]

Thanks, TwistofFate. I particularly liked this:

To Evelyn, her deafness is no more important than the fact she is a female with brown eyes. Sure, she sometimes has to find solutions to problems related to her hearing and music but so do all musicians. Most of us know very little about hearing, even though we do it all the time. Likewise, Evelyn doesn't know very much about deafness, what's more she isn't particularly interested. I remember one occasion when uncharacteristically Evelyn became upset with a reporter for constantly asking questions only about her deafness. Evelyn said: 'If you want to know about deafness, you should interview an audiologist. My speciality is music'

(hope I'm not quoting too much; this would be about 1/10th of the interview).

[irishgirl]

Cart, Byron had a clubbed foot. minus corrective surgery, that counts as pretty definitely disabled.
and Churchill suffered from life long depression, which is a pretty big disability.

don't know if i'm so comfortable with the list.

i consider one of my friends to be a great athlete, because he has competed in the commonwealth games, and is going to run 150 miles (including 50 miles in 48 hours) in Mongolia for charity.

the fact that he is blind (and owner of the world's most useless guide dog) is kind of beside the point.

the disabled britons shouldn't need a list of their own, their achievements should stand alone.

[TwistofFate]

The problem is Irishgirl, none of the people who were in for the "Greatest Briton" and "Greatest Disabled Briton" (Churchill, Nelson) were there because of any triumph over adversity, they were voted for by the public because they were Famous.

the poll is to highlight Disability Awareness, so they chose Famous (well famous-ish) people from the Disabled Community both past and present that are British as contenders for the "Greatest Disabled Briton" not as as indication of their struggle against a disability, but of the impact they had on society, regardless of their disability.

AFAIAC, the only person who is on the list because of overcoming their disability to achieve greatness was Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Everyone else can be said to have had an impact upon the community, AND have a disability.

[cart]

Originally posted by irishgirl
Cart, Byron had a clubbed foot. minus corrective surgery, that counts as pretty definitely disabled.
and Churchill suffered from life long depression, which is a pretty big disability.

Thanks, I didn't know about Byron's foot. I was aware of Churchill's depression. Though I'm sure neither of these things are much fun, my personal view is still that neither can be considered disabilities as such. For me, you're disabled if you're missing senses, limbs or the use of limbs, things of that magnitude. Obviously you, the compilers of this list and no doubt many others have a different definition.

the disabled britons shouldn't need a list of their own, their achievements should stand alone.
I totally agree. And in fact this list is mainly composed of those whose achievements do stand alone, not just in a patronising "not bad, considering their disablility" way. All except for Tanni Grey-Thompson have achieved their greatness outside of artificial "disabled-only" categories.

[TwistofFate]

The problem is, in todays society, their achievement DON'T stand alone. they aren't recognised by the public unless it is pointed out to them.

A poll like this can do nothing but raise awareness.

[Guinastasia]

Queen Alexandra was deaf and had a pronounced limp due to a genetic condition (forget what it was called.)

She was so popular, people began to imitate her limp and called it "The Alexandra Limp."

And then there's Joseph Merrick.

[cart]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
And then there's Joseph Merrick.
Whatever happened to him? He made that one great film, then nothing.

(Frank Skinner's joke not mine, credit where credit's due)

[jjimm]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
And then there's Joseph Merrick. I thought his name was John? Or was that a nickname?

[manwithaplan]

Can I vote for Joe Swail, the deaf mediocre snooker player, who isn't really British, or should I wait for the Top Ten disabled sorta British snooker players poll?

[cart]

Originally posted by jjimm
I thought his name was John? Or was that a nickname?
It seems to have been a mistake (http://www.who2.com/josephmerrick.html) by the surgeon who wrote about Merrick in his memoirs.

[Deptford]

This poll may well be patronising , it's certainly ridiculous.

OK Douglas Bader is disabled. missing his legs. Fine, fair enough.

But Lord Byron qualifies as disabled because of a club foot?This is the same Byron who travelled freely over Europe, slept with women (and some men) by the hundred.Whose hobby was long distance swimming and who famously swam the Hellespont. I should be so lucky.

Churchill, because he suffered from fit's of depression. Probably self induced by his vastly unhealthy lifestyle.

George the VIth is disabled because he has a stammer? Yes i know stammering is unpleasent for those who have it but it's hardly in the same class as Motor Neurone disease.

Lord Nelson? Who grew up perfectly healthy and lost his eye and arm to battle injuries.

[Guinastasia]

His stammer was so violent it rendered him speechless many times. It was thought to have been caused by being forced to use his right hand when he was left-handed. Not to mention he and the Duke of Windsor were abused as very small children by their nanny-for years until King George V and Queen Mary found out.

And of course, there was his little brother, the youngest of George and Mary, Prince John, who suffered from such severe epilepsy he was forced to live apart from the family. The only one who ever spent time with him regularly was his grandmother, Queen Alexandra.

[Sir Doris]

Originally posted by yojimbo
Most recent scores:
Douglas Bader: 9.0%
David Blunkett: 5.0%
Lord Byron: 2.7%
Sir Winston Churchill: 4.8%
Ian Dury: 29.7%
King George VI: 1.9%
Tanni Grey-Thompson: 11.8%
Stephen Hawking: 26.1%
Lord Nelson: 4.4%
Mike Oliver: 4.8%

So I was talking crap for a change ;)

The scores are reflecting the short memories and poor knowledge of history of the general public. I guess a lot won't have heard of Bader. Steven Hawking is easily the most famous, followed by Ian Dury (no doubt helped by recent publicity :( ) . I think if there are documentaries things might change and Bader will be in with a chance. Especially if David Beckham backs him :D


Originally posted by Guinastasia
Not to mention he and the Duke of Windsor were abused as very small children by their nanny-for years until King George V and Queen Mary found out.

And of course, there was his little brother, the youngest of George and Mary, Prince John, who suffered from such severe epilepsy he was forced to live apart from the family. The only one who ever spent time with him regularly was his grandmother, Queen Alexandra.

Prince John was the subject of A BBC drama documentary shown recently. No mention of abuse . Lala (?) was portayed as a serene and devoted nanny to Prince John.

[Guinastasia]

Because the abusive nanny was long gone by the time little John came along. She was fired when it was just David, Bertie and Mary*. I think only David and Bertie suffered-they weren't fed properly, and the nanny used to pinch them right before taking them to their parents, so they'd be crying and whining when their parents saw them. Then, the King and Queen would ask that they be taken to the nursery, and the nurse would have them all to herself. Some kind of weird Munchausen's by Proxy, perhaps. I'll have to look it up.



(Duke of Windsor, George VI and Princess Mary-the children were not always called by their first names and as Kings, Edward VIII and George VI used names of popular previous kings that were one of their middle names).

Prince John was the youngest of what-six? Let's see, David, Albert, Mary, George, Henry and John. Okay, yeah, John was the sixth and youngest child. (there may have been another that was stillborn or died as a baby, I don't remember off hand).

[Sir Doris]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
the nanny used to pinch them right before taking them to their parents, so they'd be crying and whining when their parents saw them. Then, the King and Queen would ask that they be taken to the nursery, and the nurse would have them all to herself. Some kind of weird Munchausen's by Proxy, perhaps. I'll have to look it up.


Ok that was never mentioned in the drama-doc and the articles about it sort of gave the impression she'd been involved with them all.

Want we call abuse is what the upper classes would have called call character forming. That's what public schools were for. I expect some would argue the young royals obviously didn't get beaten enough - chaps don't blub, dontcha know!

Looks like <b>Ian Dury</b> is winning at the moment.