The language of ‘cuts in disability payments’ is extreme. It is left versus right; Labour fluffy hearts versus Tory stony hearts; adversarial and impassioned.  Benefit scrounger versus tax payer. There is no middle ground, no meeting place for calmer debate. It’s ‘give us the money’ or ‘you’re an evil bastard’.

Sue Marsh in particular has written a series of eloquent impassioned articles describing wheelchair bound claimants marooned for all eternity in their ‘homes’ by the heartless decision to leave payment for mobility cars to the local council – who prefer to provide a vehicle for all the residents rather than individual vehicles.  She complains that:

More to the point, they never consider who will employ us! With our vomit bowls and syringes and blackouts and seizures, do they really think an army of employers are just waiting to take us eagerly into the workplace?

That paragraph stuck a particular chord with me. It was a Labour government who drew up the battle lines – if you ticked the right number of boxes you could claim disability living allowance, and you were officially unfit to work. The expectation of modern life that everything was perfect, rosy cheeked employees who could be portrayed on the front of the business plan, in open plan offices, efficiently carrying out their duties in a risk free environment. Or sick, below par, dependent, reliant on the state. It was not always so.

Let me introduce you to Maddog. I had called on Maddog several times. He lived in a row of five or six terrace houses hidden in a forest, high above a disused coal mine. The house was always silent, no sign of life. On perhaps my fifth attempt, a neighbour was washing his car outside. He expressed surprise that I was knocking at the front door – did I not know that Maddog ‘lived out back’? He led me round the side of the houses, past an immaculate, truly immaculate and prolific, vegetable garden, to what appeared to be an ordinary garden shed at the bottom of the patch.

‘Have you met Maddog before’ he asked. ‘No’, I replied. ‘I’ll stay and help you understand if you like’ he volunteered.

Inside the shed was a vast Coalbrookdale range belching smoke. I dream of it still, an architectural masterpiece. A pan of bacon sizzled on top. Two foot away was a cast iron bath of the double ended variety, with a hot water cylinder balanced at one end. The top was covered with a board and a collection of bedding. Wedged between the two was Maddog, a tiny, possibly less than five foot, wizened Welshman with a profound curvature of the spine. He did not speak but waved happily at me and gave me a thumbs up sign by way of greeting before turning his attention back to the bacon.

My ‘guide’ told me Maddog’s story, interrupted only occasionally by Maddog pulling some piece of paper out of a drawer to authenticate a claim made by his neighbour, or bounce in his seat and give me another thumbs up when something said pleased him. It was obvious that he could understand every word spoken.

The front door that I had been knocking on had belonged to Maddog’s grandfather. Bought with his life savings from the coal board when the mine had closed. Maddog’s Mother had been granddad’s much loved daughter – the Father was reputed to come from a ‘good neighbourhood’ but now’t else was known about him. Maddog was not her only child, she had given birth to another child; both she and the child died shortly afterwards.

It so happened that the coal board, still the owner of the house at that time, was about to commence substantial upgrading of the houses, just at the time that daughter was pregnant for the second time. The old man was not enamoured of the idea that strangers should encounter his family shame. He moved the range and the bath and hot water cylinder into the garden shed with the aid of his neighbours and commanded his daughter to remain out of sight whilst the work was carried out. He took Maddog to work with him.

Maddog was then fourteen, old enough at that time to work legally, but physically disabled, and suffering from profound, as we describe it today, learning disabilities; there was not a lot he could do in the tough world of coal mining. Never mind. Grand Dad had a plan.

Deep in the mine was a canteen that the miner’s would retire to when the whistle blew for a scant ten minutes tea break. Little enough time to sear parched throats with tea, never mind make it and clear up afterwards. Maddog was commanded to make himself useful in the canteen. When the whistle blew, the tea was ready, the cups from the last break washed and refilled, and every man had his ‘bate box’ carefully laid in front of his usual seat. The foreman was delighted – and Maddog was given the job of canteen manager.

He was paid, by the mine owners. Probably the lowest possible wage, I cannot remember the figures, but sufficient to attract National Insurance payments, which 40 years later had allowed Maddog a full pension. Every Tuesday Maddog would walk to the nearest post office, make his mark, for he did not write, and transfer the money to his saving account, as his neighbours had told him to do. Once a year he would withdraw sufficient to pay his rates bill, as his neighbours had told him to do. The balance amounted to several thousand pounds.

For Maddog had no need of money. His grandfather, who had died shortly after his Mother, had left him the house. He had continued to maintain the immaculate vegetable garden – and knowing of his interest, the miners had continued to give him seeds; letters were produced from as far afield as New Zealand and South America from long emigrated Welsh miners who thought of Maddog every Christmas and pushed a few seeds into a Christmas card for him. He kept them all. Neighbours traded bacon for vegetables.

The few miners who remained in the area, continued to call for Maddog en route to the mine, and he worked until the day he was 65, and collected his pension.

I was curious about the house, and my guide asked Maddog if he could show me. We entered through the back door, and the first thing I saw was the kitchen, brand spanking new, down to the blue cellophane covering the stainless steel sink. A perfect example of 1950s modern kitchen (economy version) right down to the electric cooker. Sited next to it was a bathroom – obviously never used. The sitting room and the bedrooms upstairs were as Maddog’s grandfather had left them, the family bible still on the bedside table – but all was freshly polished and spotlessly clean. One of the miner’s wives came in once a week and cleaned it all – with a bucket of water she brought with her – for the water supply had never been connected to the house again, it still ran to the garden shed.

Maddog, you see, had decided that he was happier in the environment he knew, and in the total absence of social workers or outside interference, his neighbours had respected his wishes. He slept on top of his bath – rarely used bath, I suspected. He was warm, he was financially independent, he was well fed, he was happy – and he continued to be protected by his neighbours and be a viable part of his little community deep in that forest.

I was very torn when it came to writing my report – it was my job to report what I had seen, but I was terrified that this might lead to the Nanny state interfering in Maddog’s life. Whether it did or not, I know not. I hope not. Nor do I know whether Maddog is still alive today.

You cannot imagine such a tale occurring today. A disabled man with profound learning disabilities working down a coal mine? An employer giving a job in such dangerous surrounding to so vulnerable an individual? Living in his garden shed? Never drawing a penny of his ‘entitlement’ as a victim of a cruel and heartless society? The Daily Mail would have a field day, the Guardian disappear up its own vortex. Today, Maddog would be living in a council run facility, drawing his full disability benefits, taken to the garden centre once a week in the council provided mini-bus; costing the tax payer thousands – and be profoundly unhappy.

I am not suggesting that as a result of the ‘cuts’, the disabled should all be usefully employed down the nearest coal mine – but I am saying that perhaps the gulf between being an employable member of society and being ‘disabled’ could and should be bridged without the divisive rhetoric we currently employ.

2Mac January 22, 2011 at 17:46

Nature is cruel, and survival is ALWAYS of the fittest, the world is not
perfect, why do the Politically Correct keep spending taxes and legislating
for an idealistic utopia that exists only in their pressure group/department/
committee meetings.

If the Councils/Politicians/Pressure Groups/Do Gooder media, etc continue
to ruin this country the way they have for the last 50 years.

We will all be learning Chinese and sewing for 15 hours a day in a factory
7 days a week for our new Chinese owners and getting paid nothing.

We were on top, through hard work and struggle. We have lost it all through
idealism and wankers running/ruining the country with wishy washy ideas about
health and saftey, diversity, equality and multiculturalism.

Ed Butt January
21, 2011 at 20:00

Before I was a disabled person I implemented several systems that enabled
my consultancy’s corporate clients to work from home, hooking their PFC up via
an ISDN or ADSL line to the office internet .

Once over the major illness that disabled me I was appalled to find I could
not work from home doing web consultancy or something for a few hours a week.
The bureaucratic obstacles and the apparent collusion between government and
insurance companies draws a thick black line between disabled and not
disabled, entitled and not entitled.

What we should have is a flexible system so people may do what they are
capable of.

Andrew P Withers
January 21, 2011 at 07:42

When I first started out in the construction industry, every gang of
Irishmen I ever saw had an ‘old fella’ who made the tea, fifty odd years of
work having wrecked knees and other joints. He was paid a decent wage, still
enjoyed the craic, and more importantly he was shown respect.

The State put an end to all that nonsense on H&S grounds

Gloria Smudd
January 20, 2011 at 19:34

When I hover my cursor over the title photograph, it says “z36 happy
miners”.

I can see only five.

Is my computer not working properly or is my eyesight worse than I
thought?

Dave H January 20, 2011 at 19:38

The rest are underneath them.

Gloria Smudd
January 20, 2011 at 19:54

Ah yes, of course. The other z31 of them must still be down the mine,
perhaps on a different shift.

But can we be sure they are all smiling too?

Dave H January 20, 2011 at 18:23

I was thinking of the case of the woman in Bristol about to put her child
into care. Once upon a time some of her neighbours would probably help out by
watching the child for a few hours. Now they’d need to be CRB checked, do a
safety audit and fit approved locks, cameras and other junk, probably a bit
more vetting for good measure and have an Ofsted-approved education plan for
the time they spent with the child. As for offering to look after the child
overnight – instant branding as a paedophile, with a public tar and feather
ceremony presided over by the local council Jobsworth.

Big Society is a grand idea in principle, but we’re going to have to dig a
lot of shit off the path to get to it.

SadButMadLad January 20, 2011 at 20:10

This is also the problem with businesses. Many wouldn’t want or be able
to cope with a disabled person. But those that do have to go through a mile
thick pile of beauracracy, which means that they really really want to use
the disabled person.

SadButMadLad
January 21, 2011 at 13:32

And just to prove it here is a story – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349191/Charity-boss-blasts-barmy-bureaucracy-completing-4-500-pages-forms-teach-250-people-basic-IT-skills.html

Ed P January 20, 2011 at 15:53

Another moving story, thank you Anna.

I particularly like the Guardian..vortex. From now on I’m going to call
irritating & vexing people a vortex (or vortices) – much nicer than an
a**ehole!

will January 20, 2011 at 15:33

The UK approach to ‘welfare’ is to ‘give everyone their own place’ which
actually means uproot and isolate them completely.

fake January 20, 2011 at 14:28

Well, for me it does.

I’ve had to cancel payments to charities as i can’t cover my bills, but i
pay several hundred pounds a month in taxes.

JuliaM January
20, 2011 at 16:30

Don’t worry, your tax payments are still probably going to charities.
Just not ones you yourself would ever choose to fund…

Dave H January 20, 2011 at 18:19

Although some of the ones that get the tax money shouldn’t really be
considered charities at all, especially when they pay their top 28 people
over £70k/yr and spend as much on fund raising as they raise in funds.

JuliaM January 20,
2011 at 14:27

Yes, I think it does. Look at how many people’s first comment underneath
any story in the ‘Mail’ or ‘Guardian’ is ‘The government/council/NHS needs to
do something…’

Engineer January 20, 2011 at 14:03

Perhaps the more that ‘government’ does, the less that ‘community’ feels
obliged to do. “I pay my taxes so that someone else can take
responsibility.”

Does ‘big government’ stifle humanity? I have to admit that I can’t answer
my own question.