The Mike Oliver Memorial held at the University of Kent on 19 October 2019 was held in celebration of the life, work and overarching influence of Professor Mike Oliver. Over 160 people gathered to share their memories and the many ways in which Oliver had profoundly impacted their lives and work. Coordinated by Gerry Zarb, Mike’s friend and colleague, the memorial day gave a platform to those he met, inspired and worked with along the way. Baroness Jane Campbell, Len Barton, Colin Barnes, Michele Moore and Barbara Lisecki led a cast of speakers and performers drawn together to recognise Mike’s gravitas, his friendship, his humour, and the natural gift for leadership that he demonstrated within the disabled people’s movement since the 1980s.
During UK Disability History Month 2019, the University of Kent hosted an exhibition to celebrate Mike Oliver as both a Kent alumni, and a member of staff. This event was the last direct connection with Mike Oliver, who had contributed a great deal to the University of Kent both as a student in the 1970s, a staff member in the 1980s, and as an alumni. This article seeks to demonstrate how Mike’s academic experiences contributed to his activism, and how his activism contributed to his academic clarity. Mike studied for his undergraduate degree at Kent, and after completing his PhD in 1979, Mike was appointed Course Leader for a new MA course conceived for Social Workers working with disabled people. Mike led the degree programme in collaboration with Kent County Council staff until 1982. This MA is believed to be the first postgraduate course in what later became known as Disability Studies.
The posthumous exhibition launch took place on 26 November 2019. Gerry Zarb came back to Kent to open the exhibition, describing his work with Mike from a personal perspective, sharing some affectionate memories of Mike’s forceful personality and tenacious qualities as an academic and a polemicist. This web link below illustrates the University notice created for the launch of the exhibition in 2019; https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/staff-student-news/2019/11/15/disability-history-month-exhibition-mike-oliver/.
The exhibition show-cased extracts from writers who were influenced by Mike. The display contained some personal affects kindly lent by Mike’s widow, Joy Oliver, that illuminate his love of racing, football and boxing as well as some of his musical heroes; including Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Mike’s love for music was illustrated by two posters he kept on his wall in his front room; the Dylan poster was an illustration of the artist, and the Cohen poster was a Iyric taken from the song Anthem; ‘There is a crack, a crack in everything… that’s how the light gets in’.
Mike stepped back from his academic role in 2003 and enjoyed his retirement to full until his unexpected and untimely death last year. Kent staff have sought to maintain the links re-established with Mike during the last two years of his life, since he accepted an invitation to come back to the campus in 2017 to speak at our inaugural Disability History Month event. Mike was drawn back by the link to the campus he knew well. On a sunny day in September 2017, Mike and Joy visited the University of Kent in the middle of Welcome Week, to find themselves navigating through the Societies Fair in order to have his picture taken for the publicity brief. Mike and Joy were swept along in the disorder and mayhem of the day, and the link to his old stamping ground was renewed.
Mike Oliver at Kent
Mike Oliver had studied for an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from 1972 to 1975, at a time when the campus was widely inaccessible for a wheelchair-user. Professor Oliver told his story on camera for a self-titled film biography made at Kent in 2018 ‘Kicking down the doors; from Borstal Boy to University Professor’ where he was able to illustrate the lengths he needed to go to overcome the common obstacles to gain entry to seminars or to reach the offices of academic staff. Day to day problems such as collecting his mail from the college reception provided challenges most students would not have to contemplate… yet Mike had discovered a love for his subject, Sociology, and went into postgraduate study.
After the completion of his doctorate, Mike was appointed Course Leader for the MA in Social Work, and used his teaching materials to put together the manual for what became his first book, Social Work with Disabled People, published in 1983, which introduced the Social Model of Disability to a wider audience. The social model is based upon the principles published by the Union of Physically Impaired against Segregation in 1976 that rejected the charity model of disability, and asserted the rights of disabled people to make decisions regarding their own lives.
The funding was cut from the Social Work programme under the incipient Conservative government of the early 1980s, so Mike moved on to become a lecturer at the Avery Hill campus of what was then Thames Polytechnic. But in 1989–90 Mike took himself back to George Allen Wing of the University of Kent, so that he could access the University library and make the most of a sabbatical grant. The Politics of Disablement (1990) was the product of this period of research, which is now widely recognised as the critical text for placing disability studies within an academic and sociological context. Mike Oliver went on to become the UK’s first Professor of Disability Studies, the chair he held at the University of Greenwich.
Disability History Month
Mike Oliver had pioneered the Disability History Month agenda in tandem with Richard Reiser, Coordinator of this annual celebration of disability activism, and which this year enjoyed its 10th anniversary under the theme Leadership, Resistance and Culture. It was in part this connection to the DHM agenda that had enticed Mike to attend the programme being organised for Disability History Month 2017. Professor Oliver agreed to come out of retirement to deliver a Distinguished Visitor Lecture at Kent, titled ‘Bleeding Hearts and Parasite People’, in which Mike re-stated his opposition to charity model funding, advocating for the empowerment of disabled people, and a return to the values of direct action.
Having re-established his relationship with the University, Mike hosted a screening of the film ‘Defiant Lives’ in March 2018 for Kent staff, students and friends, supported by the Centre for Independent Living in Kent (CILK), an organisation he was working with right up until the time of his death, as a community leader. And in 2018, Mike Oliver was approached to create an autobiographical film of his life, and in recognition of his periodic association with the University of Kent, his memories of life on campus, and gave a long form interview at his home. The resulting film, titled ‘Kicking Down the Doors: From Borstal Boy to University Professor’: the title was in fact a play on words: Mike never went to Borstal…however, he was raised in the small village of Borstal, near to Rochester, Kent and he liked this association which made clear his path from Kentish lad to University don. The film biography was premiered at the University of Kent, Canterbury campus, during UK Disability History Month, 27 November 2018. The film continues to receive very positive feedback, and is now available on the University of Kent’s YouTube channel and has been viewed over 4,000 times.
Links to new projects at Kent
The University of Kent is privileged to host a Special Collections Archive of Mike Oliver’s paper and digital work which will be available in spring 2020. The Mike Oliver collection can be accessed via a dedicated PC in University of Kent’s Special Collections & Archives Reading Room, located in the Templeman Library of the University of Kent, Canterbury. Users need to book an appointment in advance of visiting by emailing [email protected] or calling 01227 827623. The Reading Room is located on the first floor of the library, with step-free access via an elevator, and is open Monday 13:00–16:30, Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday 09:30–16:30, Friday 09:30–13:00.
The University of Kent in partnership with Kent Union are working to improve accessibility, and so it’s fitting that we asked our Kent community to engage with the exhibition and reflect on what our current culture and barriers might be, and what we can do individually and collectively to address these. Kent Union officer Philip Crocker has led the adoption of the Accessibility Pledge, a concept derived at Oxford and Cambridge Student Unions, to promote access for all students and visitors. And the Kent Student Awards, which seek to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution disabled students make to the Kent student experience, has launched a new award for 2020: The Mike Oliver Award for Improving Accessibility. We wish to ensure a legacy for the next generation of staff and students of Kent, to adopt the example provided by Mike Oliver, and continue to strive for what one of Mike’s contemporaries, Johnny Crescendo, sang about in 1988 with his song ‘Choices and Rights’.