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

Her impairment seems not to have been a hindrance to participation or acceptance. While
she later describes encounters involving:
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kids who would come up to you and go “Oh, what‟s wrong with your eyes?” kind of
thing, and “Can you see how many fingers I‟m holding up?”, you know… (l.1.70ff.)
this was in the context of being included within local children‟s play. A perception of
difference as inferiority appears not to have existed. This idea is supported in a comment
made by Jennie, describing her own friendship with a girl who had Down‟s Syndrome:
I had come across that as a concept that other people could have that would cause
them problems in similar ways… but it was… you know, a problem that she had like
other people might have a problem with… say… being overweight, or not being
very good at maths, or whatever it was… (l.1.79ff.)
Impairment was perceived as something that might cause problems for the person concerned,
but was not considered a tragic circumstance that gave reason for avoidance.
Where, occasionally, disabled adults were seen this was not something a great deal of
thought was given to. Anne recalls:
walking around Glasgow with my parents for whatever reason… and we would see
someone begging who only had one leg… but you don‟t think of them as a disabled
person… you don‟t question it… it‟s just part of the scenery… you‟re more excited
about getting a bag of sweets than what‟s going on around you… (l.1:17ff).
Such accounts paint a picture of children too pre-occupied with the fantastic business of
being alive to be conscious of silly things like personal limitations. Physical difference does
not appear to have been considered significant until the onset of segregation, when suddenly
children with impairments found themselves separated from the other children they knew.
Lola describes a sense of difference that began to emerge at a very young age as a result of
being sent to attend a special school at a considerable distance from her home:
I can very clearly remember… erm… being very puzzled by this… that my school
was going to be twenty miles away from where I lived…I would be picked up in a
special bus… and I wouldn‟t go to school with my brother… I wouldn‟t be picked
up by my mum… so, of course, this awareness of difference and separation began at
that time… (l.1.23ff.)