Give Us the Vote
This is the story of a test case. Success will mean that 618 men and women will get the vote and become eligible for a host of rights, including council housing. All are patients at Calderstones, a mental-handicap hospital in Lancashire. Men like:
Eddie Stringfellow , trapped by disabilities that kept him in bed for ten years; and Harold Poiner , in the institution for over 40 years, desperately wanting to get out to marry his girlfriend.
At a public hearing the local Registration Officer takes evidence from the patients themselves and from villagers worried about the outcome. On his ruling will depend not only the future of the patients at Calderstones, but of thousands of other mentally handicapped people.
Photography JOHN howarth
Film editor TREVOR WILLIAMSON Executive producer ROGER MILLS Producer HARRY WEISBLOOM