The following is an oral history conducted by Mary Tremblay with Fred Woodcock on April 29, 1994.
Captain Fred J. L. Woodcock lost his sight during the Dieppe campaign, where he survived more than a year in the German prisoner-of-war hospital for the blind at Kloster Haina, where he would later be released to Britain before returning to Canada. Rather than accept the era’s low expectations on the disabled, he trained at St. Dunstan’s and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), then became CNIB’s first national liaison and after-care officer for war-blinded veterans. Travelling coast to coast, Woodcock opened field offices, arranged vocational training and employment, and educated families and employers about the capabilities of blind Canadians. In Ottawa, he drafted influential briefs that secured major pension increases, spousal benefits, and continuing allowances after a veteran’s death. These reforms were later adopted by other disability groups including the United States Veterans Administration. A founder of the National Council of Veterans Associations and a long-time leader of the Sir Arthur Pearson Association, Woodcock helped transform Canada’s approach to rehabilitation from charity to rights-based advocacy. Woodcock’s oral history illustrates how one veteran’s lived experience fuelled systemic reforms in pensions, rehabilitation, employment and accessibility for Canada’s war-blinded and, later, civilians with disabilities.
Read a transcript created by Mary Tremblay using this link.
Generated image (DALL-E) of Fred J. L. Woodcock at a CNIB
Field Office, 1950s
The war-blinded advocate introduces a Braille typewriter to a newly blinded
veteran.