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 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.
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.
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?
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.
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 …
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%
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.
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.
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.
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.
