Karen Sheader - Home Truths PLUS NEW SONG!

This piece is written almost entirely from memory, so any factual errors relating to the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network campaigns and procedures are mine. I was unable to find any coverage of this demo at all, so have tried not to include details of any individuals who were present as I can’t verify the facts. The piece contains strong language and the song No Place Like Home is a powerful depicting of conditions from the imagined perspective of one of the people who died as a result of the shameful practices and lack of care provided at Cawston Park Hospital, which some people may find upsetting.
 
 Newcastle City Centre, Gray’s Monument, 2001
 
‘Our homes, not nursing homes! Our homes, not nursing homes…’
 
Over and over, the words shouted by the voices of angry people split the air, some in wheelchairs, some with guide dogs, some signing the words, some wearing black T-shirts with ‘Piss on Pity’ flashing across their bodies in shrieking pink. Occasionally a lone voice would holler ‘Free our People! And the chant would change.
 
‘Free our People! Free our People!’
 
It was thrilling to see the gathering of disabled people at Gray’s Monument in Newcastle, many clutching white crosses which were being handed out by Direct Action Network (DAN) officials and whose number represented the number of people living in nursing and care homes in Newcastle and Gateshead. A shaven-headed beauty with a Mohican and a studded dog collar told us to hold on to the cross as we would be planting them in the ground later to acknowledge and pay respect to those disabled people who were living in these homes without their consent or agreement.
 
With my former partner Neill, who was my accompanist, and poet,actor and performer Lisa Dennis, we stood in front of the imposing tower of the Monument and began to play,
 
‘I woke up this morning with a bad pain in my head
In came a care assistant, to drag me out of bed
They tell me it’s for my own good,
that I must go for training
I’ve been training twenty-seven years,
besides, it’s fucking raining”
 
The Fugertivs No-hope ATC (Joyful Noise)
 
Continuing with ‘The Bus Driver’, then Melissa, I remember feeling elated and choked when the crowd joined in when we chanted,
 
‘We want rights, not charity, we want rights, we want rights, not charity! Rights, rights rights not charity, cos charity keeps me where you think I should be!’
 
The Fugertivs Rights Not Charity
(Joyful Noise)
 
We finished to an enormous round of cheering, and, still holding our crosses, were invited to the head of the line behind an enormous DAN banner bearing the Free Our People campaign colours. Neill began playing as we walked, and the crowd, led by Lisa, who wrote the song, began,
 
Oh-oh-ay-oh
Oh-oh-ay-oh
Oh-oh-ay-oh
 
Let’s riot on the buses!
Let’s riot on the trains!
Let’s riot in the taxis!
And on the planes!
 
The Fugertivs feat. Lisa Dennis, Let’s Riot (Joyful Noise)
 
The crowd behind us took up the chant and again I was overwhelmed at the feeling of belonging. Following orders from the DAN officials, we moved to the middle of the road, and settled down to annoy the Saturday afternoon drivers, all the while shouting ‘Free our people!’ as leaflets were handed out and some people gave us nods of encouragement, while others just made their displeasure known!
 
Lean on your big horn, you fat bastard
Curse me across the road,
The blind school never taught me
How to use the green cross code!
 
Karen Sheader Band, Planet of the Blind (Planet of the Blind)
 
When we had made our presence felt sufficiently, we moved off towards the gardens by Eldon Square. Silently, people placed their crosses in the earth in rows which reminded me of the cemeteries of Flanders. I can’t recall exactly how many there were, but certainly the number was in the hundreds, symbolizing hundreds of fettered lives, open to abuse, ignorance, ill-treatment and sheer boredom, unable to live, love, indulge their own dreams and desires. We stood silently for a couple of minutes. Then somebody broke the silence and the sombre mood.
 
‘Play the Bollocks song!’
 
I wondered for a moment if it was disrespectful to sing something so irreverent, but the crowd were having none of it!
 
‘Play the Bollocks song!’
‘Play the Bollocks song!’
 
So we struck up again, in the cold sunshine which was beginning to fade, with the crowd joining in delightedly at the end as scandalised shoppers gave us a wide berth:
 
‘You reckon that you’re our champion
Defender of all poor crips
Well I just can’t believe the crap that I’ve heard
That comes pouring out of your lips
You like to keep us where you think we belong
With sentiment and prejudice
Well I hope that some tosspot talks shite about you
Next time you go out on the piss!
 
Bollocks to you, and Bollocks to you, and Bollocks to you
And Bollocks to you….
 
The Fugertivs, Bar-room Bollocks, (Joyful Noise)
 
The chorus went on and on, disabled people venting their frustration and anger in a shared musical protest. Then this happened.
 
The people in chairs, people with dogs, and sticks, and those with their PAs and family members and friends, and those who shared our identity without visible impairment, and our non-disabled allies, gathered round us.
 
‘Long live The Fugertivs! Long live The Fugertivs!
‘Long live The Fugertivs! Long live The Fugertivs!
 
It was a moment I could have stayed in forever. Thanking everyone after the impromptu performance, one guy in a wheelchair beckoned me over and showed me ‘Bollocks to you’ tattooed on his neck! What an honour!
 
Writing this from a distance of more than 20 years it seems almost unbelievable that all this happened.
 
And sadly, for the residents of Winterbourne View,(closed in 2010) Whorlton Hall (closed in 2019) and just this year, 2021, Cawston Park, it might just as well not have happened.
 
Upon seeing the events at Cawston Park, Norfolk, being exposed on the BBC Six O’clock News I cried to think that after all this time these horrific places still make colossal amounts of money whilst torturing and killing their ‘guests” or ‘victims’
 
I wrote this song, No Place Like Home shared in the video below, in response to the report I read in Learning Disability Today, which you can find here (please refer to the content awareness statement at the beginning of this article)
 
https://www.learningdisabilitytoday.co.uk/report-urges-government-to-act-after-three-people-with-learning-disabilities-died-at-a-private-hospital
 
The lyrics are below the video, which is just underneath this text.

No Place Like Home
 
I can’t say it very well, but in my eyes you can tell -  I’m terrified!
I talk with my hands, and they say they understand me but they lied
They claim that they’ve heard, but they don’t understand a word
They crash in through my door and they pin me to the floor
They put a needle in my arm and they tell me it will make me calm inside
 
Before I used to love to sing, my very favourite thing was karaoke
And every time I got the chance I loved to dance, even the Hokey cokey
Now they hardly use my name, and every day is just the same
We sit around and watch tv, but nothing that I want to see
There’s nothing else to do, and sometimes I don’t make the loo and they prod and poke me.
 
Chorus
Who’s going to get me out of here?
Maybe it’s my Mum
I ask her please, take me back home
Every single time that she can come
She doesn’t know what goes on here
Cos they all act like everything’s so good
If she knew what it’s really like
She’d come to take me home, I know she would
 
 I’m not doing all that well and I wish that I could tell them how I’m feeling
No matter how I try, I’m always left to lie and stare up at the ceiling
My chest begins to heave, and I struggle hard to breathe
Stuck here by myself with nobody here to help
Today I messed my bed, and then they slapped me round the head, said stop your squealing
 
Who’s going to get me out of here
Cos I feel really bad.
I ask them with my eyes, please listen,
I just want to see my dad!
They tell him that I’m ok, I’m doing fine,
I’m just under the weather
Now all I wanna do is close my eyes
And drift away to sleep forever.
 
 
Who is going to get them out of there
Cos it sounds a lot like hell
Who is going to open up and speak
For the ones who just can’t tell?
Who is going to open up the doors
And lead them out into the day?
Cos if we all do nothing, then in hell is where they’re gonna stay.
 
Karen Sheader Band No Place Like Home