The Disabled

 

I'm nearly sixty and many of us grew up with a lot of people who were disabled. Every class at school had a polio victim and many of us knew people in our parent's generation who had lost limbs and eyes in the two World Wars.

I don't know, but I suspect with medical advances we now have fewer of the less disabled and actually more of the seriously disabled who lead full lives. Does this mean that we are actually more intolerant than we used to be as we don't meet disabled people as often as we did fifty years ago?

I also remember about twenty years ago, we were interviewing a man for a job. As we gave him the job, he then asked if it mattered that he was disabled. Neither of us had read what he'd written on the form! I suspect now that employment policies are so written down and restricted, that anyone outside of the narrow frame for the job ever gets the interview.

As to Guthrie, we told him he'd managed to get to the interview and as the job would be nearer to his home, we didn't expect any problems. He went on to be a valuable member of the company.