One Per Cent of Us - One in a Hundred

This documentary charts the progress and challenges of disabled people living in the community.

The documentary team catch up with Ian, Alison, Lorraine and twins Leslie and Edward twenty years after they were first filmed at Downham School in Plymouth in Devon. The parents and the siblings of the original children discuss what has changed and try and assess whether learning disabled adults have the same rights as ordinary citizens and whether or not they could live and work independently or even marry. The school now has a unit for the severely disabled.

Filmed over twenty years three documentaries examine the lives of children born with disabilities. So Many Children (1966) looks at the parents and teachers of disabled children. Children No More (1976) follows the same children into adolescence highlighting changed perceptions around them. One in a Hundred (1986) catches up with the same children in adulthood and explores dependency. Set in the context of changes in governmental policy and the evolving attitudes of society towards the disabled, these films represent a commentary for the way disabled children, disabled people and their families have been treated in general.