Disability Voices
Entwistle, Pat (Part 2 of 8). Speaking for ourselves: an oral history of people with cerebral palsy
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Type
sound
Duration
00:31:19
Shelf mark
C1134/24/01-04
Subjects
Cerebral Palsy
Recording date
2005-04-04
Interviewees
Entwistle, Pat, 1940- (speaker, male)
Interviewers
Smith, Richard (speaker, male: interviewer)
Speakers
Bennett-Gibson, Leona (speaker, female, facilitator)
Abstract
Part 2 (Tape 1 Side B): Installation of central heating and lift at Bleasdale House. Teachers and carers. School photo. Eat, slept and played in one dormitory room. Staff. Fights. Most pupils from Singleton Hall went on to Special Training Colleges. Pat went to Queen Elizabeth Training College, Leatherhead, Surrey. Gardening for two years. Aged 18, in 1958, went to a Children’s Reception Centre, Bamber Bridge, near Preston. Employment Exchange. Disablement Resettlement Officer. Worked 7.30am, to 9.30pm, cutting flowers, weeding, boiling beetroot for Bury market. Pat worked 7 days a week for £2. Later sent to a ‘Home for Incurables’, near Darlington, run by Brothers of St John of God. Stayed with “Foster parents” in Denton (Manchester). Messenger boy at Oldham Batteries at 19. Later worked in Welfare Dept as Chief Petty Officer. New boss’s disablist attitude. Pat sacked for swinging at boss. Just married with a new daughter: 6 weeks’ wait for dole. First contact with Spastics Society. Mrs Muncaster, Welfare Officer, found Pat a job at Dunlop Rubber Works in Manchester for 5 years. Heavy industrial cleaning. Collapsed. 1974 approached by RADAR [Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation] to become a member of Transport Users’ Consultative Committee [TUCC] for the North West. Disability access on British Rail. ‘Mark III Train’. 1986 awarded MBE. In 1974, Nigel Smith, Regional Manager of The Spastics Society, invited Pat to speak at a conference at Manchester County Hall. David Blunkett spoke at conference about access problems of visually-impaired people. ‘Speaking bus-stop’ made by company in Bournemouth. ‘Kneeler bus’ and ‘Ready bus’. Launch of ‘Ready bus’ with BBC newsreader Robert Dougall and Ken Livingstone. Spastics Society report ‘Can I Get There’?’ De-regulation of buses. Spastics Society animated disability-awareness video called ‘The Land of Droog’. Visited 60 infants’ schools in Preston in 6 weeks, with Nigel Smith and Peter Clarke from the Spastics Society.
Description
Interviewed for the project 'Speaking for ourselves: an oral history of people with cerebral palsy'; a project conducted by Scope in partnership with the British Library, financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund
Related transcripts
Pat Entwistle interviewed by Richard Smith: full transcript of the interview (PDF)
Related links
'Speaking For Ourselves' project website, including resources, information for schools and news
Metadata record:
Entwistle, Pat (Part 2 of 8). Speaking for ourselves: an oral history of people with cerebral palsy
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