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On UK Disability Awareness Day ANGUS REID celebrates the art of KEITH ARMSTRONG, a pioneering activist and writer whose unique body of artwork is a vision of protest and peace
Ward 16 poem, 1972; My Typewriter Is Not Typing Like It Used To, 1977; The Plane Tree, 1999 [Courtesy of Caseroom Press]

KEITH ARMSTRONG (1950-2017) was a dynamic activist for the rights of people with disabilities. He was also highly creative, working as an artist, poet and musician, and a serious scholar of the history and linguistics of disability.

He contracted polio during infancy. In his teens he could just about walk but at the age of 20 he spent an entire year in hospital, undergoing complex back surgery. He would spend the rest of his life on crutches and, increasingly, in a wheelchair.

Test Peace, 1971
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