A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

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Sadie used to do amazing things… cos, like, we‟d all had hip replacement surgery,
and she used to say, “If you keep practicing straddling a chair, you‟ll be able to have
sex...” … she used to tell us wonderful things like that… who else would tell us...
the staff wouldn‟t…(l.1061ff.)
After a year outside during which she attended the local further education college back
home, Lola had what she describes as a nervous breakdown which led to a suicide attempt.
When her impairment flared up she found herself again within the medical unit (l.1.1050;
l.1097). She recalls at this time the arrival onto her ward of a girl named Violet who was to
have a major impact on her ideas about sex and identity:
She‟d never been to special school… significant… although she‟d had arthritis since
she was six… but she‟d managed… she‟s twenty, I‟m nineteen… so she‟s been in
the real world… very significant, I think… she‟d had some very serious issues with
her impairment, life-threatening… her version of arthritis was slightly different and
tended to make her very ill very quickly… so she was on a long recovery period…
but we… erm… that was it… Violet changed my life… absolutely… and I would
say we politicised each other… erm… within three months of meeting we‟d even
changed the way we looked, we shaved our hair, we‟d both become very punky…
(l.1134ff.)
While Lola and Violet soon decided that they wanted to get out of the medical unit and to
share a flat together (l.1:1172), this was a process that took four years to achieve (l.1:1218),
involving a gradual process of transition, during which they spent less and less time in the
medical unit:
That was the other strange thing, because we weren‟t children any more… it was
interesting, then… you‟re the cast-offs by then, and if their system hasn‟t worked on
you… fuck you, then, kind of thing… (l.1:1223).
Lola first encountered Tuppy Owens and the Outsiders Club around the time she and Violet
were sharing a social services „test flat‟, being assessed for life skills (l.1:1229). This took
place during the late 1970s, during the flourishing of punk rock:
I was really punky looking… erm… and I dressed with much more awareness of my
body… to exaggerate it and flaunt it and… I remember Violet shaving the sides of
her head off and writing Fuck off… that kind of thing… and I had very short,
cropped hair and a little baby Mohican… quite a Siouxie Sioux look… and wore a