Events

Sophie Christiansen CBE is a British dressage rider who has competed in four successive Paralympic Games and is currently an eight-time Paralympic champion and has won multiple World and European titles. In 2016, following her success at the Rio Paralympics, she placed fifth in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year the highest placed female and Para athlete.

Sophie was born two months prematurely with Cerebral Palsy and suffered from other health problems including jaundice, blood poisoning, a heart attack and a collapsed lung. Aged 6, she started riding for physiotherapy at the local Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) group.

She first competed at the Paralympics aged 16 and was the youngest athlete for Great Britain at the Athens Paralympics in 2004, coming away with an unexpected bronze medal.

Not just an athlete, Sophie also graduated with a First Class Masters degree in mathematics from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2011 and now works as a software developer at investment bank, Goldman Sachs.

In this Q&A session, she will talk about how the Paralympic movement changed her life, what it takes to get (and stay) at the top, and how having a duel life gave her a unique platform to speak up about the realities of living with a disability in the UK.

Send in your questions for Sophie by emailing ellie@devilsporridge.org.uk

This event will be held via Zoom and a joining link will be sent on the day.

Book tickets here >

This event is happening as part of our Disability: Past and Present project.
Learn more about this and ‘The Health of the Munition Worker: A Disability History of the World Wars on the Solway Military Coast’ exhibition here >

From 1914-1918, almost a million British soldiers were permanently disabled in the First World War. These formerly fit young men returned home to an uncertain future. Although the state provided medical care and pensions, disabled soldiers had to find ways to supplement their income and rebuild their identities as productive male breadwinners. Many were unable to return to their old jobs due to their impairments; some faced stigma from employers unwilling to hire a disabled man, and all ex-servicemen were forced to reckon with the difficulties of a wartime economy.

Concerned by reports of starving, unemployed and homeless heroes, generous patrons throughout the country established charities to retrain disabled soldiers in manual labour and find them permanent, meaningful work. At the Poppy Factories, men who had lost an arm or leg mass-produced millions of artificial flowers; amputees at the Lord Robert’s Memorial Workshops expertly fashioned furniture or assembled toys, and blind veterans at St Dunstan’s learned highly skilled, technical poultry farming ‘along business lines’.

This talk will trace the history of charity employment, to uncover the inspiration behind the various types of training offered to disabled veterans during and after the First World War. It will also consider the ways that these schemes portrayed disabled soldiers, how they shaped ideas about war-disability in Britain, and their lasting impact on notions of disablement and work.

Emily Bartlett is a historian specialising in disability, charity, and welfare in twentieth century Britain. She is currently employed as Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Kent, and is writing a book about charity for disabled ex-servicemen after the First World War, which will be published by Manchester University Press in 2024.

This event will be held via Zoom and a joining link will be sent on the day.

Book tickets here >

This event is happening as part of our Disability: Past and Present project.
Learn more about this and ‘The Health of the Munition Worker: A Disability History of the World Wars on the Solway Military Coast’ exhibition here >

Create your own bath bomb in this fun free workshop.

This activity is suitable for children aged 6 – 11 years old.

If you would like any allergen information for this activity please contact the museum prior to this event on: 01461 700021

Due to popularity we are limiting bookings to 3 tickets per person.

Book tickets here >

This activity is happening as part of our Disability: Past and Present project.
Learn more about this and ‘The Health of the Munition Worker: A Disability History of the World Wars on the Solway Military Coast’ exhibition here >