Early Life

Angela Smith: My Left Foot


Angela was born in 1962 in London. Her parents came to England from Guyana and settled in Walthamstow where Angela lived with her eight brothers and sisters. At age five Angela went to a local special school. Then from the age of ten she attended two residential special schools run by the Spastics Society (now SCOPE), in Lincolnshire and Kent.

Here Angela talks about her life at home as a child.

  • Angela Smith
  • Angela Smith
  • Angela Smith
https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/my-left-foot.mp3

Transcript

The film My Left Foot, have you seen that? His family remind me of my family, the way they treated him you know, not leaving him out because I had a kind of boisterous time you know, joining in everything, not being protected, because there were too many of us for my mum and dad to just focus on me so, I grew up quite robust, you know, fighting and getting up to mischief, and my brother, sisters and I've still got the scars to prove it, 'cos I didn't have a wheelchair until I was seven or eight, which is another story, I didn't let that stop me, so I used to crawl in the street, so I got hard kneepads.

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