Since 2010, the UK Disability History Month has highlighted the history of the struggle for equality and human rights for people living with disabilities.
To mark this year's Disability History Month, which runs from 14 November to 20 December, we have dedicated the history page in Haringey People magazine to two former residents who were prominent activists for disability rights and whose stories should be more widely known.
The activist and writer Paul Hunt (1937 – 1979) is remembered for spearheading the early Disability Rights Movement in the UK. He had suffered a degenerative physical impairment from early childhood and in the 1950s was forced to live in a hospital and then a home for 17 years. Campaigning for Rights, not Charity, he led campaigns against such residential institutions, advocating for independent living.
In September 1972, Paul wrote a letter to The Guardian from his flat at 61 Chettle Court in Ridge Road, N8. His published letter would have a far-reaching effect on the lives of disabled people, formulating plans for alternative kinds of care. He invited others to join him in creating a new organisation to address the discrimination disabled people faced in their lives. As a result, the Union for the Physically Impaired Against Segregation was formed.
With others, Paul had previously produced the important book ‘Stigma. The Experience of Disability’ (1966), analysing the experiences for disabled people and arguing for a different approach to the ‘medical model’ that defined those with disabilities, their self-representation and control of their lives. Although Hunt sadly died in 1979 when the movement was still in its infancy, his legacy lives on in the social model of disability which has been integral to the fight to overcome barriers in a disabling world.
Katherine ‘Kath’ Gillespie Sells MBE (1951-2023) of Maidstone Road, Bounds Green, was an activist, psychotherapist, writer, former nurse, disability rights campaigner and LGBTQ+ rights campaigner. Growing up in Tottenham, her brother is former Haringey councillor Vince Gillespie, and her son is the musician Daniel Sells-Gillespie (lead singer of ‘The Feeling’), both of whom are LGBTQ+ activists. In 1989, Kath founded REGARD, a national, volunteer-run organisation of disabled LGBTQ+ people that provides information, raises awareness and campaigns on issues affecting disabled LGBTQ+ people and helps to combat social isolation.
REGARD follows the social model of disability that Paul Hunt and others were advocating back in 1972, where society needs to change and remove the barriers to inclusion and equal rights. In 1996 she co-authored two pioneering books, ‘The Sexual Politics of Disability’ and ‘She Dances to Different Drums’. In 2010 Kath was Stonewall’s Hero of the Year, and in 2011 was London Pride’s Grand Marshall.
