Beautiful Lives

Throughout this narrative, Stephen frequently reflects on his own son, wondering how his life would have played out if he had been born in the eras described. It is a heartbreaking yet ultimately empowering call for dignity, understanding, and structural change, written with a combination of rigorous historical scholarship and deep parental love.

• A letter to Joey:
• Introduction – From metaphor to reality

Part 1: innocents

• Chapter 1: Sparta’s fatal chasm
• chapter 2: All god’s children
• Chapter 3: Madmen, changelings and fools
• Chapter 4: The idiot boy

Part 2: Menaces

• Chapter 5: ‘I miss him so’
• Chapter 6: A social menace
• Chapter 7: ‘Lives unworthy of life

Part 3: Humans

• Chapter 8: Christmas in purgatory
• Chapter 9: A normal life
• Chapter 10: ‘we’re people first’
• Chapter 11: valuing people?

Part 4: Citizens

• Chapter 12: Diagnoses and labels
• Chapter 13: Medicine and healthcare
• Chapter 14: Communication and speech
• Chapter 15: ‘No child is ineducable’
• Chapter 16: Adulthood

Part 5: Beautiful lives

• Chapter 17: ‘Change the world: it needs it!’
• chapter 18: A philosophical interlude
• chapter 19: ‘Nothing about us, without us’
• chapter 20: Mind your language
• chapter 21: Parents and families
• chapter 22: A moment of hope
• Conclusion – The golden smile
• Acknowledgements:
• Further reading
• References:
• index:

Stephen Unwin is one of Britain’s leading theater and opera directors. He founded English Touring Theater in 1993 and opened the rose theater Kingston in 2008, which he ran until 2014. He is the author of ten books, including guides to Shakespeare, Brecht, Ibsen and twentieth-century drama for Faber, Nick Hern Books and Bloomsbury. Stephen’s second son Joey has severe learning disabilities and Stephen is a campaigner for rights and opportunities of people like Joey.

“Tizard and O’Connor articulated an evidence based opposition to institutionalization, and their insistence that many people could hold down jobs was foundational. Their most important research was Tizard’s 1958 Brooklands Experiment, which monitored the progress of thirty-two severely learning-disabled children transferred from the Fountain Hospital into regular settings, demonstrating definitively the value of non-institutional living.”