Ouch Blog

What is it like when you're walking down a station platform and the ground disappears from under you? What goes through your head and what would you do? Listen to three blind people tell tales of near misses, close shaves and stepping in to thin air.

With Damon Rose, Lee Kumutat and Johny Cassidy.

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Image copyright Liam Proudlock

The November 2015 Ouch talk show is out and it's a bumper edition.

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the passing of the first disability anti-discrimination law in the UK. A good time to look back at the disability rights movement, so vibrant during the period, to take stock of what's been achieved, and hear some views on what campaigners believe is still left to be done.

On this edition of Inside Ouch: It's Halloween once again. Children and grown-ups are dressing in costumes from Frozen's Elsa and cute pumpkins through to witches, wizards and ghosties.

But does it slip into thoughtless bad taste when we try to turn wheelchairs into scaremobiles or dress up as a mental patient or Oscar Pistorius - both of which are costumes available to purchase.

On this edition of Inside Ouch: Apple has released 150 brand new emojis. The internet is becoming increasingly visual but how do blind people experience these graphics, and is digital communication becoming more inaccessible?

With Kathleen Hawkins, Kate Monaghan and Damon Rose.

A photo of a stranger hugging a disabled man went viral last week. It quickly received over 50,000 likes. The incident occurred on a bus in Ontario, Canada, where it got snapped, uploaded and shared widely.

The Canadian edition of The Huffington Post says the stranger is 21-year-old Godfrey Cuotto, and the disabled man is referred to as just Robert. He hugged Godfrey for 30 minutes whilst also repeatedly kissing his hands, the website says.

On this month's show, presenters and guests discuss how much of an impact disability can have on relationships between disabled and non-disabled siblings.

Sarah Smith is a Mum to two children, Oliver aged seven, and Elizabeth four. Oliver is visually impaired and has autism, and Elizabeth has no disabilities. Sarah speaks candidly about managing the attention she gives to both, and fostering a healthy sibling relationship between the two.

Image copyright Thinkstock

After running a campaign to urge toy manufacturers to include disabled characters in their collections, Rebecca Atkinson started to wonder if the word "disability" might also need a positive makeover.

Cripple, deaf-mute and lame all fell out of favour a long time ago and are now considered insults. By the 1980s and 90s "handicapped" was gradually replaced with "disabled" as a new way of thinking about disability emerged - called the social model. Attitudes change and as a consequence so does language.

Ali is 21 and has been living in difficult conditions in a migrant camp in Calais for over a month now.

After deserting President Bashar al-Assad's army in Syria, he says he was tortured and bombed by them which left him in a four-week coma and with brain damage. He also lost the use of an arm.

Image copyright Getty Images

On Inside Ouch this week: archive footage of John Lennon mocking people with learning disabilities has caused a stir online, was it offensive or just of its time?

Also, is it time for the word "disability" to be replaced by something else? We chat about what other words could be used. Just click here to listen.

When Alex Lewis spoke to BBC Ouch in January about becoming a quadruple amputee, what shone through was his remarkable positivity. This remains - but his rehabilitation is being hampered by the need for prosthetics unavailable to him.

"I don't want to be on benefits or care allowance. It feels like they are shackles around you," Mr Lewis, from Stockbridge, Hampshire, tells the Victoria Derbyshire programme.