Identity

Ronald Leedham: Shame

Ronald Leedham was born in 1929 in India. His family moved back to England in 1931after Ronald contracted Polio. Ronald spent some years in Hospital as a young child after contracting Diptheria. When he was six he returned home to Catford for a short while to live with his father, eventually ending up living in ‘homes for crippled children’ run by the Shaftesbury Society, until he was sixteen.

Here Ron describes his sense of self-identity as a young person.

  • Ronald Leedham
  • Ronald Leedham
http://howwasschool.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/shame.mp3

Transcript

I can remember those days and you felt – you felt shameful and I’m now very conscious of the fact that I have to wear a calliper with a surgical boot if – if I see somebody else coming along and they’re wearing a calliper I nip into a doorway in the street. I’m sorry. You get very, very – it’s a weird thing, you never really get used to – you are different. You are different.