David’s Place
I was 26 when I left my work as a country parson to take up the prestigious position as the Minister Cheltenham Church of Christ Victoria. This Church had the reputation of being a very large and alive Church. But that was a mirage. The reality was quite different as this young country parson was soon to discover. The life of a suburban Minister has some real surprises.
Back in the nineteen sixties the Cheltenham Church of Christ was very much like the rest of the community when it came to it’s attitude towards the disabled. During the nineteen sixties the most reasoned and intelligent response from the community towards those who were disabled was simply – out of sight out of mind. There were a number of big community charities which had undertaken to care for the disabled and the community was willing to pay for them to do that on behalf of the community. The only requirement was that the disabled be kept away from normal community activities and functions. Consequently we developed a series of Homes for the Disabled, Sheltered Workshops and Spastic Centres where children and adults could go, learn some skills but be kept away from the rest of the community’s life.
The most enlightened thinking of the fifties and sixties was that they who were disabled should be given every opportunity to express themselves in their own place in the community, but their own place wasn’t our place.
During the life of Jesus the sick, the infirm, the disabled, the paraplegic, the blind and the deaf often came to Jesus. He attracted people to Himself because of His compassion and care. It is still the same with the Church. The disabled feel the Church is a place of compassion and care and so throughout my ministry I found large numbers of disabled making their way into our midst. I am sorry to say that like most of the rest of the community we did not have a special place for them. It was during my years at the Cheltenham Church of Christ that I realised that all of this had to change.
The most frequent group of disabled in our midst were those with hearing loss. The deaf used to come to Church in considerable numbers although they did not want people to know they were deaf. I found over the years that it was the usual practice of people who suffered profound hearing loss to sit at the back as though they could hear quite well and didn’t need to sit forward. Any attempt to encourage people to sit closer to the front where they could hear better was always met with a cross response. Out of a sense of compassion to the deaf in the early sixties we equipped the Church with deaf hearing aids. In every second or third row there was a special little volume box with a nob on it and a small speaker which could be placed up at the ear to provide additional sound. The young people of the Church loved them and children thoroughly enjoyed sitting on the floor with a deaf aid to their ear. However, the only people not willing to use them were those who were profoundly deaf. I said to Mrs. O.B. Smith one day when she complained that she didn’t hear a certain announcement and therefore had missed out on a function she was keen to attend, “Why don’t you use the deaf aid?” She looked round at me and snapped “What do you think I am, deaf? I don’t need to use a deaf aid. If only you would speak up louder, then we could all hear.” Mrs. O.B. Smith didn’t realise that because she couldn’t hear well, she thought no one else could and consequently would yell at us. Her comment would always be heard across the foyer of the Church by everyone who was visiting. There was no doubt about it, people knew that Mrs. O.B. Smith couldn’t hear even though Mrs. O.B. Smith thought she was being inconspicuous by sitting at the back and just shouting at others.
The deaf aids never were popular and after a period of time we pulled them out.
We then tried the new “Loop System” and ran a special loop around the interior of the Church so people could switch their hearing aids to the “T” for telephone switch and pick up the loop signal. That was a great improvement and indeed all public buildings should be so fitted. But our compassion for the deaf was not moved by the Mrs. O.B. Smith’s of the Church but rather by the twins Alice and Elaine. They were two beautiful girls. Their mother dressed them identically and even in those days was quite ahead of fashion dressing them in what I guess we call a “country style”. The twins wore velvet and lace and beautifully polished patent leather shoes and were really a picture. Both were profoundly deaf. The challenge of these two young girls lay with our Sunday School teachers and I was thrilled to see that over a period of years Sunday School teachers dedicated themselves to helping the girls lipread, by keeping them in a very small class where they could receive a large amount of personalised attention, and by a number of our teachers and other young people who learned “signing” and were able to communicate with them well. A number of times during services I had them read or “sign” the scriptures and had other people “sign” for those who could read busy fingers.
Another group of disabled people in our community were those who were sight impaired. They also used to sit at the back and we found that we needed to encourage them to come close to the front where they might see better what was happening. Many of them could never read the order of service and couldn’t see the hymn numbers so consequently just opened the hymn book at random and never felt comfortable joining in the singing even though many of them had fine voices. We added a couple of special downlights in one part of the Church which increased the illumination of that area and that seemed to help people who had trouble with their sight.
In each of the four parishes where I have served over thirty five years we always had a few “Down’s Syndrome” children, but none of them was like Joy Belle. Joy Belle was a dynamo of energy. Like most “Down’s Syndrome” children she had a lovely smile, a winsome way, a delightful way of giving you a cuddle and holding your hand. Her mother and father found it hard to keep up with Joy Belle’s energy level, until one day I asked if she would pick up some of the hymn books that people had left behind in Church and return them to the hymn book cupboard. It was a simple request and Joy Belle took to it with great gusto. Thereafter that was her job in the Church. After every service she would go round and collect all the hymn books which had been left behind and take them and stack them neatly in the hymn book cupboard. If you think that this was a very simple routine task which would not have disturbed the rest of the congregation then you are wrong. Joy Belle managed to turn it into a major production. In a crowded Church where every seat was taken and usually we had chairs in the aisles, movement after the service wasn’t easy. But as soon as the last Amen was said to the Benediction, Joy Belle was off like a rocket. She didn’t wait for people to leave the hymn books behind. She would grab them out of their hands, stack them up high in her arms and then head like an Exocet rocket toward the hymn book cupboard. Nothing would stand in her way. She zeroed through the aisles with people being pushed to either side as she made for the hymn book cupboard. This was her responsibility and no one had better stand in her way. The Church members took it with a great deal of good humour and good nature and instead of Joy Belle picking up the remnant hymn books that had been left behind, Joy Belle now trained people to leave their hymn books behind or to give them to her rather than take then out themselves. But over the years it became her special task and she felt very much loved, wanted and appreciated in the life of the Cheltenham Church of Christ.
But my attitude toward people with disabilities was turned on it’s head the day David arrived.
We used to have multiple morning services – three services one after the other and in between times I would stand in the foyer farewelling members of the last congregation as they went out and greeting members of the next congregation as they came in. The foyer was always crowded, full of people greeting one another as they were either coming or going. One morning standing beneath the high bell tower, one of our stewards came to me and said “There’s a lady outside with a boy in a wheelchair”. I went to the door and he and I picked up the boy in the wheelchair and lifted them up the four steps into the foyer of the Church. I welcomed the elderly lady and the young boy who was suffering cerebral palsy into the Church. Our crowded foyer was not made for an angular wheelchair with many sharp edges and it took us some time to get the wheelchair and David through the foyer and down the aisle to the appropriate place. The aisles were narrow and because of the crowds we had to have chairs in the aisle at the end of each row and that made it impossible for a wheelchair to get through. I suddenly realised that morning while pushing the boy through the crowd and manoeuvring the wheelchair into the aisles and then having to pack up all of the excess chairs to get the wheelchair down a little that we had a problem on our hands.
Most people suffering from cerebral palsy lived in a spastic centre down at Frankston. You would see the buses go by with Spastic Centre written across them. There was no attempt to integrate people into the life of the community.
After that first Service I spoke to David’s grandmother Hazel and told her that next week we would be better organised and asked if I could come round and see her during the week to find out ways in which we could help David in our Church.
Hazel lived in a very small and plain house. I had not met her previously nor had I seen her or David in our community. Then I discovered the story. Between torrents of tears Hazel told me how David’s mother and father had split. Neither of them would accept responsibility for David. They had placed him in an English psychiatric asylum. Hazel was convinced her grandson had nothing wrong with him mentally, it was just that the cerebral palsy was affecting his mobility. She got him out of the psychiatric asylum and came to Australia to start a new life. She had spent every penny she owned on bringing David to Australia and getting this little house. Now she was determined that David should be brought up in a community not in the asylum. “You see Mr. Moyes, I want him to grow up in as normal a life as possible. I want him to go to an ordinary school and I am having quite a fight with the Education Department now about accepting him. I want him to go to Sunday School with other boys and girls and to learn about Jesus. I want him to go to Church with me and to grow up to be a good moral young man. His parents won’t help and I am determined to spend the rest of my days seeing he gets every opportunity possible.”
My heart went out to Hazel. Like all grandmothers, she wanted the best for her grandchild and she was determined that he would have it.
I drove back to the Church that day and decided that we would do everything we could to help David be a normal part of the life of the Cheltenham Church of Christ. I stopped the car in the car park and decided I would walk over the route that Hazel would wheel David and see if there were any impediments in the way.
It was an eye opener to me. Before I had travelled thirty yards I had crossed about half a dozen major impediments. I realised we would need a special car parking space reserved just for her neighbour who was bringing Hazel and David to Church. No one else should park in that spot because we needed plenty of room on either side of the vehicle to get the wheelchair out and to get David out and into the wheelchair. I marked a suitable spot which we would have painted up with the reserved sign. I then started to walk around to the front door of the Church. The Church was set on the top of a hill and was built up even so from the ground. There were three wide steps coming up onto a large concrete apron where, between Services, a hundred people or more would gather in the Melbourne sunshine. I realised we couldn’t get David’s wheelchair up the steps. Then we walked over to the bell tower and the big double doors of the Church. There were three or four more steps up into the tower. Then once in the entry way of the Church the foyer was always too crowded for a wheelchair and then the aisles were too narrow and there were two lots of double doors and then there were the extra chairs on the end of each row. It was impossible to easily get a wheelchair in. I looked at the other exits to the Church. At the side front of the Church there was a fire exit which was never used. It consisted of double doors which went out onto the side footpath of the Church. There was no step, it was just that these doors were never used and were regarded as being for use in an emergency only. They did not have adequate locks or handles to be operated from the outside, only emergency push bars from the inside. That day I called Campbell our builder who was one of the handiest deacons in the Church and asked him to alter the double doors so that we could have ease of access. If we could use the doors both from the inside and the outside then we could bring David in, in his wheelchair. There was still no room for the wheelchair until I realised at the very back of the choir there was a pew made exactly like the others but reduced in length to fit into an alcove. We replaced the front pew near the piano with this shortened pew and that left a nice big open space where David’s wheelchair could go. Now we had the car parking, no need of ramps, no steps, double doors access and a place for his wheelchair to go and a seat kept alongside for his grandmother.
What about a toilet? There was no Church I knew off in those nineteen sixties which had special toilets for the disabled but – it was if an electric light went on in my mind when I started to think of the options – but between two toilets we had a cleaners room which was used as a store. It was quite a large room easy enough to get a wheelchair in and out and because it was between the male and female toilets there would be no difficulty with plumbing. Within a couple of days we had the store room cleaned out, the shelves taken down and placed in another area and had installed a toilet pan together with grab rails on the walls. Very proudly we had a sign printed on the door saying “Disabled Toilet”. It was a moment of achievement and the cleaners room now repainted, tiled, fitted with grab rails and a toilet pan with plenty of room on either side became a sign to David and Hazel that they were welcomed here.
During that week I chased up Ray Patterson, the father of Alison and Elaine. He understood the need of special care for the disabled from his own twin daughters. Ray was a teacher in a Technical Institute and was in charge of training teachers for our Sunday School. I asked if he could second a couple of good teachers to work especially with David. He jumped at the opportunity of doing a special disability training program and bringing a special class of the Sunday School for the disabled.
Ray’s enthusiasm knew no bounds. He visited grandmother Hazel and found out from her just exactly what David had been taught. She had been teaching him at home until she got approval from the Education Department to have him attend class. He knew the alphabet well and could read although he wasn’t able to repeat the words. Ray asked her if, as he couldn’t write, he could teach him how to type. Hazel readily agreed but doubted whether there was a way in which David’s very crooked hands could ever work a typewriter. “No” said Ray, “I’m not thinking of him working a typewriter with his hands, I’m thinking of teaching David how to type by using his chin or his forehead.” Hazel looked rather puzzled. “But how would he be able to put in the paper and how would he be able to pull the carriage back if his hands can’t do that”. “Leave it to me” said Ray. “There are new electric typewriters out these days and you can do things simply by pushing a button. I think I could teach David to type if I had an electric typewriter.” Ray brought his problem and shared it with me. My response was immediate. “If you want an electric typewriter I’ll get you one. I’ll share David’s need with the fellows at my Rotary Club this Wednesday and I am quite sure we’ll get a type writer for you.”
On Wednesday I told the fellows at Rotary about the need for an electric typewriter for David. The response was immediate. There was a quick whip round the table and we had several hundred dollars which enabled us to purchase a brand new IBM electronic golf ball typewriter. It was the most fancy piece of electronic engineering I’d ever seen. Ray invented a woodpecker for David – a long point on a headband that went round his forehead. David would just nod his head at the appropriate key on the typewriter and punch it with the woodpecker and the typewriter would spell out whatever letter he touched. Soon David became very adept at tapping out his name and then other sentences. He might not have been able to speak and his mouth was so twisted and his teeth so deformed that speech was impossible but now he could communicate through typing. The idea was that he would have the electric typewriter at his home for the rest of the week and then it would come to Sunday School with him where in a special room the two Sunday School teachers would go through the lesson and David would type out his responses.
It worked brilliantly. David was like a young teenager who suddenly found new skills and abilities and capacities within himself. Within a matter of hours he had mastered the keyboard and within a matter of days was writing long sentences. The teachers were absolutely amazed as David’s progress rapidly sped on. It was a very moving moment in Church on Sunday morning when instead of having our usual prayers of intercession where people came on roster and prayed for the needs of our world, our community and our Church, I stepped to the lectern and carried with me a couple of pages of typed prayers that David had prepared for the world, the community and our Church. I read them, but they were his words and his prayers. David was now not only a worshipping part of our Church but a participating part of our Church. Someone came and on the polished wooden end of the shortened pew painted in beautiful gold lettering “David’s Place”. David certainly had a place in the life of the Church and in our hearts. I discovered through these people that the disabled often felt powerless, uninformed, lacking right to privacy, the right to marry, to express themselves sexually and to become parents even though it was possible for them to do so.
The International Year of the Disabled was still fifteen years away and to most people in the community the rights of the disabled were light years away.
But from the time I met Alice and Elaine and Joy Belle and David in his wheelchair I began to look at life with different eyes. Every public building I entered I now looked at with the eyes or ears of the disabled. On a trip to Sydney I visited the wonderful new Sydney Opera House and recognised that this was a nightmare for people who were disabled. Public access was difficult and stairs and steps were everywhere. When I left the Cheltenham Church of Christ to come to Sydney in 1979 one of the first tasks we undertook was to rebuild the toilets in the Lyceum Theatre, to widen corridors in Wesley Centre, to build in ramps, and to campaign for access for people with disabilities.
The new Lord Mayor in those days, Douglas Sutherland, had instant rapport for the disabled because he walked with a stick. He had ramps installed at the side of the Town Hall to enable wheelchair access and I felt very proud that he should ask me to speak at the opening of the Disabilities alterations at the Sydney Town Hall. In the following years at Wesley Mission we brought to Australia Terry Wyles, that remarkable young English advocate for the disabled who had been born without arms, without a leg and without an eye because of Thalidomide, who had been left in an orphanage only to be rescued by Leonard and Hazel, two remarkable elderly people whose lives brought mobility, education and opportunity to young Terry. We premiered the film of his life “On Giants’ Shoulders” in the Lyceum. Then Joni Ereckson Tada visited us – that beautiful young lady who had broken her neck in 1967 and had become a paraplegic. We premiered her film “Joni” to inspiration crowds and as scores of wheelchairs left the Theatre that night I saw disabled people leaving with new hope in their hearts. Since that time Wesley Mission has developed a whole range of programs for the disabled, caring for paraplegics, quadriplegics, mentally disabled, physically and intellectually delayed people, employing social educators, providing more than thirty houses in the community to enable people with various forms of disability to become independent, establishing Wesley Home Maintenance and Modification Service to carry out the changes in houses that disabled people need and that we had learned to do when we brought David into our Church and converted the cleaners room into a special toilet. All of those programs developed because years ago Alice and Elaine, Joy Belle and David became an active part of the life of the Cheltenham Church of Christ.
That night in my study I spent some time writing up my journal and looking out of the window at the never ending stream of cars stopping at the traffic lights at the corner of Nepean Highway and Chesterville Road, that wide intersection that was dominated by the lovely white Church with the high white tower noting down the events of another day as a suburban minister.
GORDON MOYES