Lorraine Gradwell

Lorraine Susan Gradwell MBE (24 July 1953 – 3 September 2017) was a disability rights campaigner and sports person, feminist writer and poet.

Gradwell was born Lorraine Susan Mahoney in Middlesbrough, the middle child with two brothers. Her mother, Inga (née Blythman), worked on a market stall. Her father, Tom Mahoney, was a steelworker. She caught polio virus age two and spent much of her childhood in hospitals and first used callipers and later as an adult a wheelchair. She married Les Gradwell, with whom she settled in Manchester and had two children, John and Jenny. The marriage ended in 1983. She met Tony Baldwinson in 1985. They moved in together a year later and married in 2006. She was appointed MBE in 2010.

In swimming Gradwell represented England in the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games in New Zealand (1974) gaining a gold medal there in the Wheelchair Slalom track race; and later achieved Open Water (at sea) scuba diving certificate.

Gradwell was a founder of the Disabled People's Organisation, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People and in 1986 was its first paid development worker. Gradwell founded the Manchester-based Disabled People's Organisation Breakthrough UK, which supports disabled people to live and work independently. As chief executive for almost 15 years, she led its growth to a £1m-plus annual income and 40 staff, 70% of them disabled. She also 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, to set up one of the early independent living schemes in the 1970s and 1980s. Gradwell was a Disability Rights UK trustee and Member of the co-production group at Coalition for Collaborative Care.

• Gradwell regarded as a high-point in her work her contributions to the 2005 Life Chances of Disabled People report and plan for change produced at the centre of UK government by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit; and a low-point was how this plan was systemically dismantled by the subsequent Coalition government of 2010-2015.
• Gradwell promoted the Social model of Disability and Independent Living.
• She was a Plenary Speaker and specialist Parliamentary Adviser to the House of Commons Speaker's Conference on the under-representation of MPs who are disabled, from BAME communities, LGBT+, and women.
• She campaigned with other activists for first accessible transport including black cabs, Disability Discrimination Act and direct payments to disabled people to support independent living in the 1980s.
• A draft list of Lorraine's collection of campaign t-shirts. 2017 Lorraine Gradwell – Campaign Clothing (draft v2) including involvement in the disabled people's Direct Action Network (DAN) and chaired the Buses for All - Europe international conference in Manchester in 1995.
• Represented GMCDP on the national committee of the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People (BCODP).
• Gradwell also supported and followed campaigns in the US for disabled people's rights led by the American group ADAPT.
• Disability Employment Advisory Committee (DEAC), the Ministerial Advisory Committee at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): member for 5 years till 2010.
• Small Business Council (SBC); Ministerial Advisory Committee at the Department of Trade and Industry, as was (DTI): member for 4 years and SBC 'Disability Champion'
• North West Equality and Diversity Group, 'sponsored' by the NW Regional Assembly: member for 2 years.
• The Manchester Board, now the Leaders' Forum 'shapes and drives the work done by its partners': member since December 2007.
• A committee member of the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People and campaigned nationally for the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill in 1994, which was replaced by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
• Represented the UK internationally at events organised by the Disabled People's International (DPI) organisation in 1980s.
• 1988 Disabled Peoples Arts Conference Report, Manchester, August 1988
• A member of the Disabled Members self-organised group within the Unison trade union, including as a delegate to the annual national conference with speaking rights on stage.

A Celebration of Lorraine's life was held on 2 October 2017 at Gorton Monastery A tribute in the Disability News Service ( 5 pages ) 2017-09-08 Tribute to Lorraine Gradwell in DNS She also had an obituary published in The Guardian newspaper.

• 2008 Birthday Honours

• Wrote numerous articles on disabled people's issues for Community Care and Coalition magazines, later collated into a book - A Life Raft in a Stormy Sea: Everyday disability politics rooted in the social model.
• Thriving and surviving at work
• Is disability a political issue?
• Sometimes only rain will do (2014). A book of haiku poems.
• "What Was That?" A poem for heart attack survivors.
• More Together Than Ever - Disabled women's experiences of involvement in a self-organised group A post-graduate thesis.
• "the musings of a knackered activist"