The following is an oral history conducted by Mary Tremblay with Kenneth Langford on November 4, 1991.
Lieutenant-turned-advocate Kenneth Langford recounts how a mortar blast on the Dutch-German border in February 1945 left him paralysed yet propelled him into five decades of leadership in Canada’s spinal-cord community. After receiving treatment at Basingstoke, Christie Street, and Lyndhurst Lodge, Langford helped secure funding for folding wheelchairs and hand-controlled cars for veterans, then became the first managing secretary of the Canadian Paraplegic Association. From a storefront office in Maple Leaf Gardens and later the Lyndhurst Hospital coach house, Langford built a nationwide self-help network, negotiated with employers, unions, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and persuaded service clubs and provincial agencies to fund ramps, retraining, and adaptive equipment for civilians as well as veterans. Langford’s oral history highlights the shift from hospital “warehousing” to community integration, the emergence of peer mentoring, and the balance he advocated between disability rights and personal responsibility.
Read a transcript created by Mary Tremblay using this link.
Generated image (DALL-E) of Kenneth Langford at Lyndhurst
Lodge, 1947
Kenneth Langford in a wheelchair, amongst other paraplegics at Lyndhurst Lodge.