Incredible as it may seem today, says Richard Hawkes, it was only 60-odd years ago that disabled people were still deemed uneducable. For decades, even centuries, they were pitied, shunned or ridiculed, and despite the best intentions of the charities that sprang up to look after them, the way they were treated seems quite asinine when viewed through the prism of today’s progressive world.

The solution that was favoured by the undoubtedly well-meaning people in charge of those charities - in line with the established practice of the day - was to accommodate, and later educate and employ, the disabled people under their care alongside other people that shared the same impairment.