Lorraine Susan Gradwell MBE[1] (24 July 1953 – 3 September 2017)[2] was a British disability rights campaigner and athlete,[3] feminist writer[4] and poet.
She caught polio virus in the 1956 epidemic aged almost three and spent much of her early childhood in hospitals where she first used leg callipers, plus a little home education as an infant.
[6] In swimming, Gradwell represented England in the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in New Zealand (1974) and gaining a gold medal in the Wheelchair Slalom track race; and in later life achieved an Open Water (at sea) scuba diving certificate while visiting Tenerife.
[7] While being a single mother in the early 1980s she supplemented her income by hand-painting glazed designs on plain white plates and tea-sets for sale, which she fired in an electric kiln in her garage.
[6] As an activist advisor Lorraine Gradwell helped to set up the Equalities Unit in Manchester City Council and she also worked with Greater Manchester Housing Disability Group and the academic June Maeltzer,[9] to set up one of the early independent living schemes that used direct payments from a council's social services department in the 1970s and 1980s routed via the Irwell Valley housing association.
[21] On 3 December 2017 at Liverpool Museum, Lorraine Gradwell was honoured alongside Bert Massie at a Disability History Month event, her campaign t-shirts on display.