Historical Writing

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Book: Worth Saving: disabled children during the second world war
Book chapter: Holiday camps, castles, and stately homes: the residential option for the evacuation of disabled children during World War II, Sue Wheatcroft
Book chapter: Cured by Kindness? Child Guidance Services during the Second World War, Sue Wheatcroft
Journal article: Children’s Experiences of War: Handicapped Children in England During The Second World War

1. Book: Worth Saving: disabled children during the second world war (2015)

This book contains the first detailed study on the experiences of disabled children in England during the Second World War. It examines the lives of those who were evacuated into residential special schools within the reception areas and compares their experiences with others who, for various reasons, were not evacuated, who returned home early, or who spent time in hospital. Through the use of official documents, newspapers and personal testimony the book shows that for many disabled children the evacuation was a positive experience but one which depended largely on the attitudes of the authorities and of the general public, and perhaps more importantly, the attitudes and quality of the teaching and nursing staff, who were responsible for the children on a daily basis. The book reveals how the government evacuation scheme worked for certain groups of disabled children and how it failed those most vulnerable. Worth saving serves as a social commentary of a time when attitudes towards disabled people in general were changing, and demonstrates the impact that wartime conditions had on special education both during and after the war. It introduces a new area of research to a range of disciplines including Disability History, Childhood, Social Policy, Special Education, the Voluntary Sector, and the Second World War/Evacuation and is written in a style that is accessible both to academics and to the general reader.

2. Book Chapter: in ‘The Blitz and its Legacy: wartime destruction to post-war reconstruction’ (2013)

The Blitz, its experiences, its consequences, Mark Clapson and Peter J. Larkham
La ville éventrée: or, how bombing turned the city inside out, Lindsey Dodd
Holiday camps, castles, and stately homes: the residential option for the evacuation of disabled children during World War II, Sue Wheatcroft
A service forged in the flames: the Blitz, wartime firefighting and the National Fire Service, Shane Ewen
Between destruction and reconstruction: London’s Debris Clearance and Repair Organisation 1939-1945, Robin Woolven
The people’s peace: the myth of wartime unity and public consent for town planning, Susanne Cowan
Reconstruction constraints: political and economic realities, Catherine Flinn
Destruction and dispersal: the Blitz and the ’break-up’ of working-class London, Mark Clapson
Tradition and modernity: architecture in Japan after Hiroshima, Neil Jackson
Reconstruction civic authority in post-war Germany, Jeffry M. Diefendorf
Bold planning, mixed experiences: the diverse fortunes of post-war Birmingham, David Adams and Peter J. Larkham
Planning the reconstruction of war-damaged Plymouth, 1941-1961: devising and defending a modernisation agenda, Stephen Essex and Mark Brayshay
Destruction, revival and reconstruction across Alsace and Lorraine, 1939-1960, Hugh Clout
Problems of blitz reconstruction in Japan: the case of Sendai, Junichi Hasegawa; Index.

3. Book Chapter: in ‘Disabled Children: Contested Caring 1850-1979’ (2015)

Table of Contents

Introduction: Disabled Children – Contested Caring, Anne Borsay, Pamela Dale;

Chapter 1: Club Feet and Charity: Children at the House of Charity, Soho, 1848–1914, Pat Starkey

Chapter 2: Insanity, Family and Community in Late-Victorian Britain, Amy Rebok Rosenthal

Chapter 3: The Mixed Economy of Welfare and the Care of Sick and Disabled Children in the South Wales Coalfield, c. 1850–1950, Steven Thompson

Chapter 4: The Question of Oralism and the Experiences of Deaf Children, 1880–1914, Mike Mantin

Chapter 5: Exploring Patient Experience In An Australian Institution For Children With Learning Disabilities, 1887–1933, Lee-Ann Monk, Corinne Manning

Chapter 6: From Representation to Experience: Disability in the British Advice Literature for Parents, 1890–1980, Anne Borsay

Chapter 7: Treating Children with Nonpulmonary Tuberculosis in Sweden: Apelviken, c. 1900–30, Staffan Förhammar, Marie C. Nelson

Chapter 8: Health Visiting and Disability Issues in England Before 1948, Pamela Dale

Chapter 9: Spanish Health Services and Polio Epidemics in the Twentieth Century: the ‘Discovery’ of a New Group of Disabled People, 1920–70, José Martínez-Pérez, María Isabel Porras, María José Báguena, Rosa Ballester

Chapter 10: Cured by Kindness? Child Guidance Services during the Second World War, Sue Wheatcroft

Chapter 11: Education, Training and Social Competence: Special Education in Glasgow Since 1945, Angela Turner

Chapter 12: Hyperactivity and American History, 1957–Present: Challenges to and Opportunities for Understanding, Matthew Smith

4. Journal Article: in Twentieth Century British History, Volume 19, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 480–501, (now Journal of Modern British History)

Children’s Experiences of War: Handicapped Children in England During The Second World War

Abstract

The experiences of children during the Second World War have attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular. Not all children however, have received equal attention. Handicapped children are conspicuous by their absence from all types of literature, both on evacuation and on children’s experiences of the Second World War. This article restores these children to the story of wartime England and assesses their experiences. It examines the plans that were made for their evacuation and how they were carried out, and compares their lives, both individually and institutionally (i.e. in the various types of ‘special’ school) with those who, for various reasons, were not evacuated. It also compares their experiences, to a lesser degree, with those of their non-handicapped counterparts. The article argues that for many handicapped children it was a positive experience but one which depended on specific aspects, such as the attitudes of the authorities and of the general public, and perhaps more importantly, the attitudes and quality of the teaching and nursing staff, who were responsible for the children on a daily basis.