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	TX: 27.02.09 - Disability Leaders - Mary Wilkinson PRESENTER: PETER WHITE

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. White Defying Disability - the Lives and Legacies of Nine Disabled Leaders - that's the title of a new book by Mary Wilkinson, who for more than 20 years edited the magazine Disability Now. In the book she profiles men and women who she believes have influenced and fundamentally changed the way disability's viewed in Britain. People like Bert Massey, of the Equality and Human Rights Commission; Paralympic champion many times over Tanni Grey-Thompson, she even saw fit to include a certain blind presenter of You and Yours, but apart from that the book's quite good. Throughout next week I'm going to be talking to four of her subjects about their careers and their philosophy. First though I asked Mary Wilkinson why she'd written the book. Wilkinson I thought there was a gap that should be filled. There are plenty of books from the medical and academic aspects of disability but there's really very little about the individual lives of disabled leaders. White So who are you aiming this book at? Wilkinson Well I'm aiming it anybody who has an interest in disability. So disabled people and their families and professionals in the field. But also non-disabled people who have an interest in pioneers and leaders. White And how did you choose the people that you did? Wilkinson I felt that they were all key leaders in the field and I wanted people with different disabilities and I wanted people who were coming from different directions, so actor, academic, politician, entrepreneur and so on. White I mean that's the interesting one - you mention actor, that was Matt Fraser - and I mean normally people associate the word leader with politics and you've got a lot of people whose involvement is primarily political here. So someone like Matt, how do you see him as a leader? Wilkinson Well I think he's a leader in terms of having changed people's attitudes, I think he's done it on two fronts. I think when he left being a rock musician and started in the disability arts scene he really leapt into it, there he was in his balaclava brandishing his gun and rapping away and I think he shocked young people but I think he also stimulated them and they thought gosh there's a cool, sexy guy and disability can be sexy. And people walking down the street apparently recognised him and said you're the guy on telly, they didn't say you're a freak, they said you're the guy on telly. White So does someone like Matt maybe in some ways have more impact than some of those people who've been beavering away on United Nations committees ... Wilkinson In the background. White ... Disability Discrimination Act and so forth, who wouldn't get recognised in the street. Wilkinson Well from that point of view yes, they wouldn't be recognised in the street maybe, Bert wouldn't be, but then I think they've had an impact in other ways. White Are there common themes - you've drawn nine people together - were there things there that you thought that they all had in common? Wilkinson Yes. I think they've all got a common concern for social justice and that has not always started from the beginning, I think some people that developed later. For example, Tanni has wanted to win races and become a Paralympic athlete, you wanted to get into broadcasting. White But it's interesting that you think that maybe quite a lot of the people set out initially to free themselves and maybe almost by implication or by natural progression passed it on to other people. Wilkinson Yes I think so, I think and as success happened I think then they moved on and disabled people looked up to them and then in turn they had an influence on mainstream ministers and civil servants and producers in 麻豆约拍 and so on. White What about you, personally, how did you get interested in disability? You're not disabled yourself. Wilkinson I - well first of all there was a job and I was interested to get it, after I'd been bringing up kids, so that was - that was one thing. But actually I have got an interest in disability because I've had elderly relatives who have mobility problems and I've seen the services they have or have not received and also my husband had for a long time a stammer and I saw what it was like for him and the discrimination that he experienced. So I did have some knowledge when I joined up. White So do you think the next generation of disabled leaders are going to be very different? Wilkinson I think times have changed, I mean we're out of that red hot time in the '90s when people were fighting for anti-discrimination legislation. So I don't see that there will ever be protests quite like that again, although I know protests have gone on for the independent living bill. I think more disabled people have the opportunities which they didn't have before for education and for getting qualified and I think therefore I would expect there to be more negotiation around tables, people in committees, rather than actually on the streets. White Mary Wilkinson. And on Monday you'll be able to hear the first of our series on disabled leaders, each one of them will be podcast and the first up is the thought provoking academic and one time stand up comic - I wonder what that's like - Dr Tom Shakespeare. 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