'Handicapped'
A carer’s memoir of disability, love and making change
How do you believe you can change the world when you can’t even move?
‘Handicapped’ brings out the rich, but unknown history of Australian disability activists starting in the 1970s and 80s who fought to create a more open society and began to shrug off the ‘handicapped’ label that had kept them down.
When polio struck 20-year-old Richard Llewelyn in 1957, he had a year in an iron lung to figure out how to live. In ‘Handicapped’, composer Becky Llewellyn, Richard’s wife and carer, reveals the inside story of her 32 years with Richard in a time before support services and basic human rights for people with disability.
This is a personal story of the costs and strains for one family, their day-to-day living with a major impairment and their passion to break down the barriers holding back people with disabilities. Becky’s story is a revealing insider’s look at this era of progress when Australians with disabilities began to raise their voices for change.
About the author

Becky Llewellyn is an established composer whose works have been performed in Australia and overseas. As Director of Disability Consultancy Services in Adelaide, South Australia for almost two decades, Becky was able to shape the access on major public buildings and infrastructure and public transport, to be open to all. ‘Handicapped’ is her first memoir.
ISBN: 978-0-9806843-6-0
Imprint: Walden Press
Format: Paperback
Pages: 357
Published: 2023
Categories: Memoirs, Disability