The revolutionary charity that started in a Glasgow living room

But it wasn’t easy. This was the 1960s. People with learning disabilities were often classed as unteachable and most weren’t in school. Many thousands were also in long-stay institutions that were incapable of meeting their needs. Public attitudes had a long way to go too.

Lesley’s mum Anne remembers how some people reacted when she was out and about with Lesley, who has Down’s Syndrome. “People would stop and say ‘how’s your baby?’” she says, “But nobody wanted to look at your baby. I think they thought there was a little monster in the pram.”

Bill and Anne set out to find what kind of help was out there, and there wasn’t much. But there was a young charity that had been set up in a living room in Glasgow by a group of young parents who wanted to change attitudes to learning disabilities. From that beginning, it grew into a nationwide organisation and this week it is celebrating its 70th anniversary with an exhibition at Glasgow Central Station focusing on some of the many people it’s helped.

Bill and Anne Learmonth with their daughter Lesley (Image: Enable)

Bill, who’s 86 and from Baillieston, says he couldn’t have coped without Enable. “I clung to it like there was no tomorrow,” he says. “I joined when it was young enough that I met the parents who founded it and I thought the world of them. They were inspiring people.”

The founding parents included physicists Joan Curran and Samuel Curran, whose daughter Sheena had learning disabilities. Joan invented what became known as Chaff, the strips of silver paper that were dropped from aeroplanes to confuse enemy radar during the Second World War and was vital to the success of D-Day. Samuel was the first principal of Strathclyde University.

Their son James says his parents would be extremely proud of what they achieved in helping to found Enable in 1954 and what it has become now.

“My parents were one of the five families who came together and decided that something needed to change and both of them were really dedicated to giving young people in particular opportunities” he says.

“Having my elder sister, who had quite severe learning disabilities, gave them the impetus and the motivation to do everything they could throughout their lives to help those who were challenged with learning.”

James says his parents would be particularly impressed by Enable’s Breaking Barriers project, which was established in 2018 and creates opportunities for people who have learning disabilities to access higher education. “My parents would be so delighted,” he says.

The founders of Enable (Image: Enable) One of the people who’s benefited from the project is 26-year-old Connor Meechin, from Kilsyth who was born with quadriplegic athetoid cerebral palsy and features in the exhibition, Our Past, My Future. Talking at the launch at Grand Central Hotel this week, he spoke through a voice generator and computer about the opportunities Enable had given him, including a spell working at Scottish Power. 

“Every aspect of my life is dependent on at least one other person to some extent,” he said. “But I’m grateful that I got the chance to show everyone what I’m capable of – it’s so much more than people expect of me. I’ve loved experiencing university the same as my sister and brother – I did need a lot of support but I did it.”

After graduating from Strathclyde with a certificate in applied business skills, he now has a job as an admin assistant at Enable, based at Eurocentral in North Lanarkshire. The tech giant Microsoft is also working with Connor to adapt his computer to operate its Office programs in the office using his eye movements. 

Connor’s mother Angela Meechin says going to university and landing a job has been a huge boost for her son but said there are still huge barriers for people with disabilities.

“In principle, the barriers should have disappeared with all the legislation there’s been,” she said, “but the reality is most employers do the minimum they can to meet the criteria – that doesn’t help someone like Connor. It’s employers that need to take the next move and look at how they can be more inclusive in what they do.”

The fact that more change is needed is one of the themes of the exhibition at Central Station but it also shows how much has been achieved over the 70 years Enable has been in existence, not least the closure of the big institutions where many people with learning disabilities ended up.

One of them is Hughie McIntyre, who spent 16 years of his life in Lennox Castle, Glasgow Corporation’s hospital for the "mentally deficient" that was built in the 1830s and didn’t close until 2002. Hughie knows personally the damage such institutions can do.

“I was brought up by foster parents but they took no well, they had to put me in the castle,” he says. “16 years of my life.

“I didn’t have any visitors come to see me. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters come to see me and I didn’t know who I really was. I thought I wasn’t going to survive, I thought I wasn’t going to live. It was horrible.”

Hughie McIntyre (Image: Enable)

He says life is much more positive now he lives in the community. “Since I’ve come out of the castle, I feel like my whole life has been free. I felt like William Wallace. I always feel free.”

Among its other campaigns, Enable was at the heart of the campaign to question the role of the big institutions such as Lennox Castle and helped bring about many of the changes that have been made to the law and disability rights. It’s also grown significantly from that small start with the group of parents in Glasgow and now employs 2,500 staff, has 12,000 campaigners and members, and supports more than 13,000 people to live independently.

Its CEO Theresa Shearer says she is proud of what the charity has achieved but, like Connor’s mum, says there’s still a lot of work to do in the future.

“We have built many of the blocks we need,” she says, “but too often these are not explained clearly or appropriately to those who have the right to the support. Self-directed support is still too often presented as a process for local authorities to make decisions for people – this needs to change, so that we can truly deliver person-centred individual opportunities rooted in human rights.”

Bill Learmonth, who still remembers the words of that doctor who said his daughter Lesley would never be able to do anything, is also happy to report that, thanks in large part to Enable, Lesley, who’s 55 now, has a busy and fulfilled life. She has her own flat two doors down from her parents and works three days a week in an office.

Bill is also still involved with the charity that helped him all those years ago when he didn’t know where to turn. “I tried to give back,” he says. “I thought I’m going to make great demands of these people, therefore I must make a contribution.” He worked as volunteer for Enable for more than 45 years.

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Looking back, Bill says he can see how far we’ve come in the 70 years of Enable’s history and also how far we’ve still to go. But he thinks the founding parents would be amazed at what’s happened to their charity and wider society.

“More provision is there for people with learning disabilities,” he says, “and new parents don’t have the battles that we had. Things have improved in lots of ways and for the better.

“The founders had the pioneering spirit of people who had to fight to achieve what they thought was necessary.  I’m convinced they would look at it now and be astonished.”

Our Past, My Future can be seen on the main concourse of Glasgow Central Station this weekend.