Save the Scouts

A couple of years ago, Simon Barnes wrote a moving piece in this magazine about how his son Eddie, who has Down’s syndrome, had changed his mind about political correctness. Political correctness might be met with derision, he wrote, but it was also what made his son’s life bearable. In the not-so-distant past, Eddie would have been shut away and people like him made fun of in everyday conversation; now he is received everywhere with kindness and consideration.

Simon was right. I am in the same position as him: I have a daughter, Eliza, who has grown up in a world of kindness that is a world away from that in which I grew up. I hate to think of the bullying and abuse she would have to endure if she were transported back in time to the 1970s classrooms I knew. My generation of children mocked such people because we didn’t know them; they were hidden away, looked after in some institutional world of their own. Bringing people out into society, including them in everyday life is, I am sure, what has sparked the change in attitudes.

All this said, we seem to be heading towards an opposite extreme in which organisations and individuals must now live in fear of people with disabilities rather than the other way around. I shuddered when I read about the case of Ben Gleeson, an 11-year-old autistic boy whose parents have accepted a £42,000 payout from the Scouts on the basis of discrimination. Ben’s parents sued after being told that their son would not be able to attend future athletics events without supervision — this after an incident in which he ran away from the rest of his group after becoming distressed over a pair of missing shoes. The Scouts have launched an inquiry into the case and invited the National Autistic Society to advise.

I don’t know Ben or his family, and neither have I heard the side of the story of the Scout leaders who made the decision that he needed to be supervised, but I am a veteran of many a special-needs meltdown and I can say for sure that it can be an alarming experience for anyone who is not used to such behaviour or who has not been trained to cope with it.