We wish to thank Leslie from Great Barr for donating a series of old photographs recording a decade of activities of the Cripples Car Circle in Birmingham from 1949 to the late 1950s.
The post card sized photos were issued to members from the C.C.C. committee at Chistmas time. Leslie's father Ron Inshaw was a disabled person himself and was the co-ordinator of CCC activities in Sutton Coldfield and the north of Birmingham.
The name of the organisation reflects the terminology and therefore perhaps the attitudes towards disability in a bygone age. Even so, the photographs give us a valuable insight into the lives of local disabled people in the late 1940s and the 1950s.
There were clearly strong charitable objectives to the organisation, for instance beneficiaries of the organised trips were referred to as 'patients'. However, we should not disregard the participation of disabled people themselves, like Mr Inshaw, in the running of the organisation or dismiss the social value to the disabled people and families who took part in the activities.
In the modern age, where many disabled people are feeling isolated and marginalised by government cuts, widespread and ruthless examination by the benefits system, large-scale closure of support services and demonisation by the popular press, some might argue that the innocent and caring community spirit of post-war Britain was a relatively better place to be? Economically times were harsher, there were less opportunities and attitudes were unarguably paternalistic back then, but at least there was possibly a sense of optimism and progress as it seems that out of such groups evolved self-directed organisations such as Disabled Driver's Association and the campaigning groups of the 1960s like DIG.
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