Disability : a new history. Wooden legs and wheelchairs. 7/10.

Radio documentary presented by Peter White entitled 'Wooden legs and wheelchairs'. Historian, Julie Anderson, and Peter White talk about the wooden leg made for the Marquis of Anglesey to replace his leg that was shot off at the Battle of Waterloo. He had many made and popularised wooden legs amongst the wealthy in Britain. Poor people, and children, usually had a peg leg or wooden stump which they may have made themselves. Wounded men were a common site on the streets due to the Napoleonic Wars but, equally, surviving the war with a missing limb was seen as a tangible display of having fought. Caroline Neilson, of Newcastle University, is amazed by the diary of the soldier, Thomas Jackson, who lost his leg in the Napoleonic Wars, because he gives such a vivid description of what it was like. In 1815, he became a Chelsea pensioner, was given a wooden leg, and went on to do a variety of jobs and live an independent life. Professor Amanda Vickery, Queen Mary, University of London, is interested in an account of a disabled woman in 18th century Bath, Mary Hartley. She suggests it is almost impossible to find evidence of what life was like for women with disabilities as their social status often means little information was left behind. Mary Hartley appears in a number of letters from a nurse who describes her suffering. Amanda Vickery is interested in why Mary went to Bath as, despite having money, as it doesn't appear she went for treatments or for anything that improved her mobility, such as a wheelchair.