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You and Yours - Transcript 大象传媒 Radio 4 |
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TX: 27.02.09 - Disability Leaders - Rachel Hurst PRESENTER: PETER WHITE |
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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 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WHITE And now for the next in our series on the disabled leaders featured in a new book about the lives and legacies of nine people who have defied disability. Rachel Hurst has a long history in the disability rights movement. Back in the 1980s she chaired the British Council of Disabled People. She went on to found an international information network on disability and human rights called Disability Awareness in Action. A wheelchair user, Rachel Hurst is renowned for organising very public protests but set out to be an actress, only giving up when her disability increased. Peter White asked what that had meant to her. HURST Oh it was completely devastating, I really minded very much indeed but I'm a very optimistic person so I did what I could. You know I got married very quickly which from the marriage point of view wasn't a frightfully good idea but - so I then had - went on to have children and that was wonderful. WHITE And what was it about acting which so fulfilled you? HURST Oh showing off, I should think, like I do now. WHITE And I mean you make that point that as you do now, you said, about showing off, I mean have you taken that into your political activism? HURST I think what I learnt as an actress has been invaluable. The book mentions the European Parliament, well producing plays is no different, it's the same thing as producing an enormous political show, as that was. WHITE Looking for other kind of roots to your life, you were sent to boarding school, I think at the age of two, what effect did that have on you? HURST I did cope with it, as my mother said, but I realised actually that it had quite a deleterious effect on me. You've got to remember that it was the war and we'd been bombed out of London, my parents had really little choice and I survived, like so many disabled children have when they were sent away to special schools at the same age. WHITE And so do you think that's what's made you able to bounce back from problems, from disagreements in politics? HURST Well I think it's my natural temperament - I'm a bouncer back. WHITE And as far as your own experience of disability is concerned what were the things that got you so mad that you thought that you had to do something political about them, rather than just write to the person concerned or whatever it was? HURST I hated being treated as different because I didn't see myself as different. I immediately almost, within about three or four months, decided that I had to do something about society's attitude to disabled people and I thought initially that the best thing to do would be to go and talk to children in schools because I'd been a teacher. So I did that. But then I realised that I've got to join with other disabled people and do something, I couldn't do it on my own, you can't change the world on your own. WHITE You've always been quite prepared to have a pretty upfront style of politics, you're known for your protests and confrontations, such as the one - the very public one - in the European Parliament, do you think you achieve more by being bolshy rather than politely negotiating behind the scene? HURST I think all these things have to be done. I've also politely negotiated behind the scenes but it suits my character to perhaps be bolshy. I will not forego my principles, so I could never be a politician, I could never go into either a local or national political chamber and follow a party line because the party line may be deviating from what I believe to be right. WHITE Some people have described you as being impatient, and that's been a fairly regular aspect of your career, do you think that impatience has sometimes been counterproductive? HURST I wouldn't say I was impatient actually because very little has in fact been changed and it always takes an awful lot of time. WHITE You said something very interesting there, you said nothing much had changed, do you really believe that, you know after all the DDA, anti-discrimination legislation, the commissions, the various work that's been done in order to make people more a part of society, do you really think that nothing much has been achieved? HURST We have got many more words and we've got much more legislation throughout the world, which is extremely helpful but the reality of disabled individuals lives at the grass roots is, if anything, slightly worse than it used to be and I'm talking about the UK now. Housing waiting lists haven't changed an iota, there are still thousands of disabled people living in homes that are completely inaccessible. Disabled people are still living below the poverty line. WHITE And why do you think that is, given the number of organisations you've been involved with, the amount of effort that's been put into changing it, why do you think it's changed so little in your view? HURST Well because change of this sort requires an awful lot of effort and an awful lot of years. I mean the fight for equality for women or for equality for black people has not really gone as far as it should do. WHITE But is that failure to change things - is that the immobility of the establishment or does it have something to do with the way the fight's been carried, I mean there's always been a lot of competition between different disability groups, especially the ofs and the fors, have they spent too much time fighting each other rather than fighting against oppression? HURST Yes I think but then that happens always, I mean look if - one of my sort of yardsticks has always been the progress of the ANC in South Africa, they spend an awful lot of time squabbling. So this sort of thing always happens, it's human nature. WHITE But I suppose what is evident is that as you said the organisations are as volatile and often spend as much time infighting as many of the others. You, yourself, have been the victim of that, you know, you were ousted as chair in the BCODP, you must have felt fighting shoulder to shoulder with people and then to have that happen. What were you own feelings about that? HURST If you don't like the heat in the kitchen get out. All political, with a small p, I don't mean party political, all political activity means brushing shoulders with aggression and people don't always have the same objectives as you. WHITE You said if you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen but some of those who've worked with you, you've been called dictatorial, controlling - is that fair, do you recognise all that? HURST Yes I should think so. I don't think I'm a control freak though. I do listen, strangely enough, and I'm very happy to change my mind but I don't tolerate compromising on something which will mean that the ultimate cannot be reached. WHITE One of the reasons that Mary gives for choosing the people that she did, whether you approve of the choices or not, is the legacy that people have left, what legacy do you think you have left? HURST That's a terrible question, have you answered that yourself? WHITE No. HURST I hope that one of the legacies would be that people understand the importance of human rights. And I think that's a very good legacy, that's absolutely splendid, if I can be seen as somebody who banged on about human rights for disabled people and our right to live decent ordinary lives then that's fine. WHITE Rachel Hurst and tomorrow Peter will be talking to Lord Jack Ashley, who was the first deaf MP. The whole series will be available as a podcast from our website later in the week. Back to the You and Yours homepage The 大象传媒 is not responsible for external websites |
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