The historian and author Dustin Galer discusses his new biography Beryl: The Making of a Disability Activist (Between the Lines, 2023), with Joseph Planta.

Beryl: The Making of a Disability Activist by Dustin Galer (Between the Lines, 2023). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Beryl

Text of the introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the better written books of the season is the biography from Dustin Galer, Beryl: The Making of a Disability Activist. It follows the life and times of Beryl Potter, a British born working class mother who became a noted activist for access and inclusion in Canada. The book charts Potter’s early life in England; it was bleak. We follow her through the Second World War as she gets married and starts a family. We see her move to Canada, and how her family life is upended with a slip and fall at work. It’s seen at first as harmless, but it results in six years of severe pain. She then loses her leg, and after that another leg and an arm. Her financial security is lost, not to mention her home and husband. Her life is changed dramatically as she contends with over one hundred surgeries, an opioid addiction, and suicide attempts. We see her journey as she becomes a public figure contributing to disability awareness in the 1970s and 1980s. Dustin Galer joins me now, and I’ll get him to tell us about how he came to write this book, and why the life of Beryl Potter is an important one to know about. What he’s crafted is an eminently readable, engaging book that raises awareness in its own way, as he frames Potter’s life amid changing societies in Canada and Britain, as well as demonstrates how impactful her life was, and how much there still needs to be done to achieve disability justice. Dustin Galer is a professional historian with a PhD in history from the University of Toronto. He wrote the first book-length history of the Canadian disability rights movement, Working Towards Equity. Visit www.myhistorian.ca for more information. This new book is published by Between the Lines. We taped this interview two and a half weeks ago. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Dustin Galer; Dr. Galer, good morning.

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