OBIT: Children's friend Maureen Oswin

Subject: Children's friend Maureen Oswin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 07:02 PM

A friend whom I haven't seen in years has just died. When I heard she'd died, I realised she was just about the person I most admired in the world. She was called Maureen Oswin, and if you read this piece from the Guardian you'll see why.

Here's the opening couple of paragraphs (and I'm not posting the full text, because, unlike some papers the Guardian keeps it's archives open free to all permanently):

No one did more than Maureen Oswin, who has died aged 70, to bring about the demise of Britain's looming, imprisoning, long-stay learning difficulty hospitals. Her book, The Empty Hours (1971), drew back the curtain on the deprived life of disabled children in institutions.

She had travelled the country at weekends, staying in institutions and researching the book, while continuing to teach at Queen Mary's hospital for children, Carshalton Beeches, Surrey. She had seen children potted at 4am in cockroach-infested wards, and boys, dosed on tranquillisers, propped against one another on benches. Other children lay on mattresses on the floor, or were littered around the walls of rooms, listless and unoccupied, many of them with no contact with their parents. Patients were rushed, naked, one behind the other, through shower rooms.

And here's a link to a song I like to sing on occasions like this,Over teh Edge of the World.

Subject: RE: OBIT: Children's friend Maureen Oswin
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 01 Aug 01 - 07:24 PM

What wonderful work she did. Your admiration is well placed.

Subject: RE: OBIT: Children's friend Maureen Oswin
From: M.Ted
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 10:58 AM

It is disturbing to think that the horrible conditions that she opposed persisted for so long and were defended so vociferously. Also disturbing to think that for most of here life, she stood alone. If human-kind has made any progress, it is the result of the lives of a few people like her--

Subject: RE: OBIT: Children's friend Maureen Oswin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Aug 01 - 01:11 PM

The really thought provoking thing is that the kind of institutionalised "hospitals" which Maureen and others exposed and fought to abolish - often at great personal cost weren't ancient hangovers from distant history. They were the product of relatively recent innovations by people who were seen as reformers.

The same is true of such things as sterilisation and even "euthanasia" for people with disabilities. They weren't survivals of mediaeval times or anything like that - they were the products of the new "scientific" barbarism of the 20th century. Similar in a way to chattel slavery, in its day - seen as nice and shiny and modern and forward looking.

I sometimes wonder what nice shiny modern and forward looking innovations in our time are going to be seen in the same way in a couple of generations.