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THE RHETORIC OF WIDENING
PARTICIPATION IN HIGHER
EDUCATION AND ITS IMPACT
Ending the Barriers against Disabled People

Navin Kikabhai
The Rhetoric of Widening Participation in Higher
Education and its Impact
 Navin Kikabhai

The Rhetoric of
Widening
Participation in
Higher Education
and its Impact
Ending the Barriers against
Disabled People
Navin Kikabhai
School of Education
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK

ISBN 978-3-319-75965-4    ISBN 978-3-319-75966-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75966-1

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to Mum and in memory of Dad
 Foreword

Disability and higher education is an under-explored area of concern. For

those who have reaped the privileges and rewards of higher education,
they have seldom given serious thought to a critique of higher education
let alone the institutional and exclusionary experiences of disabled peo-
ple. In a recent radio broadcast entitled Higher Education – crisis or
change? (2016) Laurie Taylor plays to this institutional regime. In his
closing comment, Taylor reduced the struggle for equality with a piece of
advice which he in-turn had once received from (an individual labelled
as) a professor who, with a hushed tone, said ‘… don’t break the hand that
feeds you’. This loss of human connection is reduced to, as Kikabhai’s
book explores, a social drama, a moral tragedy and shallow demonstra-
tion of widening participation. Where widening participation has been
adopted by the higher education sector this has arguably been evidenced
in a diversity of provision from partnerships with Further Education
(FE), Foundation Degrees, and more recently Foundation Years, rather
than any significant change with higher education itself.
Whilst the rhetoric of widening participation and the face of authority
begin to be unmasked, this book offers a conceptual framework, a differ-
ent set of critical questions, and engages in a dialogue across boundaries,
mapping out personal relationships and human spaces, recognising histo-
ries, identifying multiple barriers and constantly challenging mis/under-
standings. There are also questions related to higher education institutions
vii
viii Foreword

and their economic survival, funding and rising student debt. As is

argued, higher education has radically transformed, and whilst it has
been legally required since 2001 to make adjustments there is a concern
with diminishing resources.
As a Senior Lecturer in higher education, Kikabhai’s work reminds me
of my own multiple experiences concerned about the struggle for inclu-
sive education. Much of my own personal involvement has related to
supporting disabled young people and their families to gain access to
mainstream education. I too have observed numerous students navigate
through the difficulties of higher education. One experience that comes
to mind, involved me conducting an observation of an in-service teacher
at a college of FE. The group was in a discrete and segregated class for
learners with, apparently, ‘learning difficulties and/or disabilities’. No
doubt such segregated provision is based upon the misguided assumption
that the group of students were at the same level and had the same cluster
of skills and interests—a practice of segregation that had become firmly
established across the FE sector around the country, although there were
notable acts of resistance adopting a philosophy of inclusive education.
During this observation I had decided to sit alongside the students in
this segregated class. The class session related to a Life Skills course, and
specifically aimed to focus on ‘How to make a cheese sandwich’. The
students were each provided with a range of resources which were: an A4
paper handout containing eight similar-sized squares. In each square
there was drawn a range of shapes, purported to be a slice of bread, a
triangle of cheese and a round shape representing a tomato. On the
squares were other shapes, students were told that these were: a knife, a
cheese grater and butter. After watching the teacher meticulously demon-
strate this ‘Life Skill’, the student sat next to me began looking directly at
me and asked: ‘Am I normal?’. I paused with stunned silence, not know-
ing how I should respond. ‘How would I know if I am normal?’ the next
question came whilst I was still thinking of how to respond to the first.
‘Are you normal?’ the next question asked, only to respond with ‘I had
been accused of it!’. Conscious of the serious questions I was rendered
silent with a further series of questions and comments; these were: ‘Am I
learning now?’, ‘How do I know when I am learning?’, ‘I don’t like cheese’
and ‘I don’t have a kitchen, I live in a hostel’. Dazed by the series of
 Foreword
   ix

q­ uestions and comments I recall being accompanied with the student

and speaking with the in-service teacher during the class break. I repeated
the student comments. The in-service teacher’s response was ‘But, Peter
(not his real name) does not speak!’ Surprised, I retorted that Peter told
me that he did not like cheese. In response the in-service teacher said
embarrassingly: ‘Oh, very sorry, but we will be making a ham sandwich
next week’. On reflection, this exchange was revealing in that over 20
years of teaching at different educational levels from secondary schooling
to postgraduate study not one student had asked: how do I know when I
am learning?
Whilst it has been the case that higher education institutions have
learnt a great deal about, at times from, but not necessary with, those it
labels with having ‘learning difficulties’, it is deeply worrying that dis-
ability continues to be one of the most fundamental problems facing
higher education participation to this day. My own experience working
across the range of schooling sectors suggests that in relation to disabled
learners, schools have learning difficulties (S-with-LD), colleges of FE
have moderate and severe learning difficulties (C-with-­MLD and SLD)
and the university sector has profound and multiple learning difficulties
(U-with-PMLD). Schools, colleges and universities continue to make the
same errors by responding to individual deficit interpretations rather
than a real commitment to the self-determination, contribution and par-
ticipation of disabled people.
Whilst there are worrying signs of institutional and policy change,
flanked by corporate and market ideals, this book is a timely and impor-
tant reminder of the rhetoric of widening participation and ending the
barriers against disabled people.

Joe Whittaker
 Preface

This book is primarily concerned with the rhetoric of widening participa-

tion in higher education and its impact. In broad terms, it relates to the
issues of disability and higher education participation, and to ending bar-
riers against disabled people. For sure, there is an uncomfortable silence,
particularly with reference to disability, but, as higher education moves
towards (or so it is claimed) with increased diversification and massifica-
tion it is also slowly being transformed and shaped by competing neolib-
eral discourses driven by notions of ‘excellence’, and ‘academic standards’.
Given this context, this book is concerned with the politics of ‘learning
difficulties’ and the politics of modern higher education participation. If
the struggle for equality was measured within a day, disability equality
would not appear until the close of the day, and probably within only an
infinitesimal part of the last second. Social class, gender, ‘race’ and reli-
gion would probably appear at midday, with sexuality late afternoon,
even though there are continued discriminations relating to this. In com-
parison with other social groups, addressing the discrimination faced by
disabled people comes late in terms of social justice, and yet, ironically,
this group is often the first to be dehumanised, scapegoated and segre-
gated. Certainly, whilst other social groups have gained recognition and
benefited from redistribution in terms of addressing issues of inequality,

xi
xii Preface

those same groups have tended to ignore experiences of disability. Seldom

have such groups acknowledged the complex intersection of identities, let
alone acknowledged that impairment itself could be a unifying character-
istic of difference, or of social, cultural, personal and intrinsic value.
Examining higher education in terms of the exclusion of disabled people,
likewise, comes late in the struggle for social justice. In contrast, other
social groups have succeeded in gaining access to higher education, with-
out their presence being questioned. Indeed, as has been known for some
time, higher education participation and expansion has been primarily
focused on a concentration of energies on those social groups which
already have a history of participation.
The ideas within this book emerged from a doctoral study, a critical
qualitative inquiry making use of a case study of a theatre initiative which
attempted to develop an undergraduate degree programme in the per-
forming arts for individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’. The
theatre company, the Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative, developed a per-
forming arts degree entitled ‘Theatre Performance and Workshop
Practice’, with the aim of creating graduates who would take up roles in
the theatre-related industries.
The book, The Rhetoric of Widening Participation and its Impact,
recounts the experiences of the practitioners and uncovers silenced
voices and forgotten accounts. This struggle for performance is a jour-
ney of over two decades of insights of shared and individual experi-
ences. It reveals how earlier attempts encountered a range of barriers. It
examines the way discourses about ‘learning difficulties’ are produced
and reproduced to serve normative interests. The associated traditional
re–∞–search approaches are problematic, it has concluded well before
it started. It utilises a postmodernist conceptual framework drawing
upon the work of Weber, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari to explore
disability and the rise of the modern higher education institution. It
raises questions about the rhetoric of widening participation and exam-
ines the barriers faced by disabled people. It offers a postmodernist
reading, a social construction of the issues, presented as a creative burst,
beyond a choreographic text, a theatre production of data, challenging
habitual mis/understandings. Amidst the multiple interpretations, it
 Preface
   xiii

plays with a possible ending/beginning. The notion of ‘learning diffi-

culties’ is contested: its place in the political and philosophical arenas
should be re-examined and critically questioned.

Bristol, UK Navin Kikabhai

 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the individuals associated with the Cutting Edge
Theatre Initiative, particularly the Directors, appointed lecturers, trust-
ees, funders and Assistant Principal.
I would like to extend my thanks to individuals from my earliest teach-
ing experiences—colleagues and students from schools, institutions of
FE, adult education and lifelong learning, and universities. I would also
like to thank my family and friends for their love and support. My appre-
ciation extends to Joe Whittaker for his consistent and continuous sup-
port. Thank you also to the Alliance for Inclusive Education. I would also
like to extend my gratitude to Palgrave Macmillan.

xv
 Contents

1 Introduction   1

2 Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative: Setting the Scene  21

3 Producing and Reproducing ‘Learning Difficulties’  57

4 The Struggle for Performance and Revealing the Past  91

5 Disability and the Turn to Postmodern Perspectives 117

6 The Rhetoric of Widening Participation 147

7 Ending the Barriers Against Disabled People 185

8 An Act of Resistance 215

xvii
xviii Contents

9 Conclusion 235

Glossary 241

Bibliography 243

Index 263
 1
Introduction

The central concern of this book relates to the issue of ‘learning difficulties’
and modern higher education participation. Interestingly, as will become
apparent, both terms are conceptually problematic and laden with assump-
tions. For example, the descriptor ‘learning difficulties’ is not neutral, but
rather one that is intentionally shaped to perform and legitimise processes
of exclusion. Likewise, the descriptor ‘higher education’ is also problematic;
it is steadily being reshaped to fit corporate ideals, promoting excessive indi-
vidualism in the form of economic survival. Given this emerging context,
the participation of individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’
within ‘higher education’ is understood to be within a wider struggle for
change. It involves understanding higher education with regards to its pur-
pose—in terms of who it benefits and who it excludes. It also involves
identifying contradictory discourses and includes questioning the construc-
tion of ‘learning difficulties’ that have taken on beliefs, realities, practices
and truths associated with deficit, personal tragedy and abnormality. It
acknowledges that the topic of ‘disability’ is, as Davis (1995) suggests,
under-theorised. In terms of addressing this concern, this book draws upon
the theoretical work of Max Weber, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and
Felix Guattari. Such work challenges the belief in rational inquiry, positiv-
ism and the idea that ‘facts’ are out there waiting discovery, and alternatively

© The Author(s) 2018 1

N. Kikabhai, The Rhetoric of Widening Participation in Higher Education and its Impact,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75966-1_1
2 N. Kikabhai

asks questions of the social sciences. Postmodernism reveals what is done to

disabled people—people described as having ‘learning difficulties’ as
opposed to so-called rational notions of ‘learning difficulties’. It maps out
the complex themes such as culture, education, employment, institutions,
normative (mis) understandings, rhetoric, widening participation, power/
knowledge, panopticon, surveillance, control, regulation, discipline, pun-
ishment, exclusion, rhizome, nomad, schizo and escape, challenging what
have become habitual mis/understandings, the taken-for-­granted and the
‘natural’—what are more commonly called ‘facts’.

Setting the Scene

This book develops an interest in inclusive education (Oliver 1995; Ainscow
1999; Daniels and Garner 1999; Armstrong et al. 1999; Clough and
Corbett 2000). This fundamentally relates to a radical restructuring of the
entire education system in its totality (Oliver 1995), and involves equal
opportunities, values and attitudes promoting an inclusive philosophy
(Thomas 1997); it includes the progressive realisation of human rights
(UNCRPD 2006) which sees an end to ‘special’ segregated provision. It
also draws upon the issue of disabled people and higher education (Corbett
1996b; Fuller et al. 2004; Konur 2004; Hall et al. 2004; Riddell et al. 2005;
Adams and Holland 2006; Browne 2010) and raises questions of rights,
equity and citizenship. It refers to the changing legislative landscape, the
political and philosophical debates related to higher education participa-
tion, the notion of widening participation, a Disability Studies/Arts per-
spective, the social and affirmation models of disability, anti-discriminatory
legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act (1995), the public
sector duty to end institutional discrimination, the Special Educational
Needs and Disability Act (2001), equality and human rights, the Disability
Equality Duty (2006) and the Equality Act (2010). This changing legisla-
tive context is recognised as shifting between individual deficit understand-
ings of disability and, alternatively, one located within an emerging
rights-based, social model of disability and a social justice perspective.
Put succinctly, inclusive education is concerned with all phases of edu-
cation. It requires a systematic reorganisation of education systems in
their totality, and a rethinking of teaching, learning and assessment
 Introduction 3

methods in line with socially just pedagogies. It entails that educational

settings be non-discriminatory, accessible and enabling spaces, and be
responsive to diversity. Its philosophy is inclusiveness, the realisation of
human rights, full-participation, self-determination, equity, citizenship
and respect for difference.
As will be made apparent, higher education participation discourses
appear, for example, alongside discourses of equality, difference, elitism,
standards and (as often goes unacknowledged) punishment. Given this con-
text, Thomas (2001) argues that an opportunity had arisen to change higher
education, overcome elitism and exclusion, and to initiate social change,
but reminds readers that challenging such barriers is complex. The debate
concerning elitism, equity and the shift towards a liberal form of higher
education has not arisen recently; it has its roots in nineteenth-­century
debates (Sanderson 1975). Further, pressures have been placed upon the
higher education sector in terms of financing (Browne 2010). Thus, the
challenge to change higher education, given the increasing uncertainty, is
arguably a battle without end. Nevertheless, there is work to be done.
In the context of widening participation, Thomas (2001) relates these bar-
riers to four overlapping categories: the education system; the labour market;
social and cultural issues; and the individual. Souza (2002), however, who
lives and experiences the label of having ‘learning difficulties’, talks of four
‘separations’: separation at birth (through the process of being labelled) from
mother and family life; separation into segregated ‘special’ schools; separa-
tion into adult institutions; and separation from the workplace. Interestingly,
Ryan and Thomas (1998) earlier relate exclusions to three main areas: the
family, education and work. Borsay (2011: 17) similarly made reference to
social reconstruction and exclusions—alongside ‘psychological violence’—
attaching the theoretical frame of ‘cultural imperialism’.
Acknowledging such separations and exclusions, this book uses the
findings from a doctoral qualitative inquiry which emerged through a
case study of a theatre initiative attempting to develop a degree pro-
gramme in the performing arts for individuals labelled as having ‘learning
difficulties’ (Kikabhai 2014). It employs the insights and experiences of a
group of individuals, revealing hidden accounts and forgotten experi-
ences. As a qualitative inquiry (Denzin and Lincoln 1998), this study
enables a critical examination of the complexities, possibilities, setbacks,
challenges, enabling outcomes and barriers, and provides a testing ground
4 N. Kikabhai

that offers insights into practice and the barriers experienced. The ‘Cutting
Edge Theatre Initiative’ (‘Cutting Edge’ is also used in places) attempted to
develop a ‘Theatre Performance and Workshop Practice’ degree programme
in partnership with a performing arts college, a higher education institu-
tion (HEI) and a drama school offering professional training for the per-
forming arts. Publicised in a theatre arts newspaper as the first of its kind in
the UK, this degree programme sought to initiate change and empower
individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’ so that they could be
actively involved in higher education, theatre arts and work. Its purpose
was to equip individuals with the skills, understanding and confidence to
take up employment in theatre and related professions—addressing con-
cerns about separations and exclusions (Ryan and Thomas 1998; Souza
2002). However, given the expectations of Cutting Edge to develop a
degree programme, it could be judged to have ‘failed’. The idea that this
initiative ‘failed’ is problematic and can be reframed and understood within
a broader struggle for change; it may also be reinterpreted to mean ‘escaped’
given that higher education can been experienced as inequality and its rhet-
oric (Chap. 6) is revealed in terms of its function, purpose and outcomes.
In broader terms, Cutting Edge attempted to widen participation, facili-
tate social mobility and promote social justice at a time when growing num-
bers of students with diverse backgrounds and expectations were entering
HEIs (National Audit Office 2002). At that time, higher education policy
had set a goal that 50% of those between 18 and 30 years of age were to be
in higher education by 2010 (DfES 2003). Participation figures for 2010/11
released by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DfBIS
2012), under a different political regime, reported that this previous goal had
not been met, and that the figure represented a participation rate of 46.5%
for that age cohort. As will be explained later, the notion of widening partici-
pation serves two contrasting agendas. Briefly, it is related first to the notion
of a national economic need to increase the supply of people with ‘higher’
level skills and knowledge, and second to the promotion of a social justice
agenda. The problem relating to the exclusion of people labelled and
described as having ‘learning difficulties’ from higher education participation
is an important one. Changes have also related to the funding of higher edu-
cation, and ­teaching and learning. Debates have related to vocationalism,
liberalism, exams, specialisation, teaching, research, elitism and mass higher
 Introduction 5

education, as well as to other issues. Furthermore, questions are also being

asked as to what universities are for in the twenty-first century (Collini 2012;
Nussbaum 2012; McGettigan 2013), at a time when generations of poten-
tial graduates arguably face diminishing university resources, rises in univer-
sity fees, and the prospect of downward social mobility (Bauman 2012).
Cutting Edge could be understood as no different to similar initiatives
that have sought to widen and increase participation (HEFCE 1995) or
others that have attempted to ‘stretch’ participation in higher education
(Thompson 2000). HEFCE (1995), for example, reported the findings
of the 1993–94 ‘special initiatives’ to encourage widening participation
for students with ‘special needs’—a term that is usually affixed to indi-
viduals of compulsory schooling age, one described as ‘sugar-coated poi-
son’ and as associated with the language of ‘sentimentality and prejudice’
(Corbett 1996a: 3, 5). The report presented examples, with the majority
of initiatives focusing on issues of ‘dyslexia’, and included access issues
relating to blind/partially sighted and deaf/hearing-impaired students.
However, none of these initiatives focused on the participation of indi-
viduals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’. Disabled students do
attend higher education; according to the National Audit Office, 138,000
students declared a disability in 2005–06 (NAO 2007: 37), although the
Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) later suggested this figure to be 142,605
(ECU 2010). Whichever is correct, students are usually ascribed one of
the following categories of ‘disability’: dyslexia, blind/partially sighted,
deaf/hearing impairments, wheelchair user/mobility difficulties, personal
care support, mental health difficulties, an unseen disability (e.g. diabe-
tes, epilepsy, asthma), multiple disabilities, a disability not listed, or
autism (HESA 2007). Nowhere on this list does ‘learning difficulties’
feature, nor is there any reference to ‘special needs’. There is, however, an
‘uncomfortable silence’ (Marks 1999: 9). What is more, around the time
of the Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative, in 2005–6, of the 138,000 stu-
dents declaring a disability 54% declared ‘dyslexia’ (NAO 2007: 37).
However, with respect to Cutting Edge, what needs to be borne in mind
is that this theatre initiative is related to the higher education p
­ articipation
of individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’, and not individu-
als who are currently labelled as having a ‘specific learning difficulties’,
such as ‘dyslexia’. Interestingly, Marks, alongside the silence around the
6 N. Kikabhai

absence/presence of disabled people within higher education, suggests

that:

It is not surprising that in the universities, which have until recently marked
the endpoint of systematic exclusion of disabled people from education,
non-disabled people should be unfamiliar with disabled people. Such unfa-
miliarity has produced an uncomfortable silence around the topic. (Marks
1999: 10)

Indeed, it is the absence/presence of individuals labelled as having ‘learn-

ing difficulties’, this ‘uncomfortable silence’ and this territorial space and
boundary(ies) that are explored here. In terms of breaking this silence,
and Mark’s (1999) wishful assumed endpoint of exclusion, it is the seduc-
tive and coercive rhetoric of widening participation and its impact that is
subject to critique. As such, in Bauman’s (2004: 109) terms, in liquid
modern times, individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’ con-
tinue to be ‘waiting’, that is, rejected and excluded.
Apart from under-represented groups sharing a familiar experience of
exclusion from higher education, another thing all these initiatives have
in common is that individuals enter without the ‘gold standard’ of A-level
requirements. Certainly, there have been changes in the way the student
population has expanded and become more diverse, but what was identi-
fied by Cutting Edge of potential students is that their attendance at
segregated ‘special’ schools would not, typically, lead to qualifications—
certainly not A-levels—that would provide opportunities to pursue
higher education. Howard Newby, former Chief Executive of the Higher
Education Funding Council for England, acknowledged the inequalities
and welcomed contesting the conventional view of the non-A-level stu-
dent, as reflected in the growth of ‘new and existing courses, curricula
and assessment procedures’ (Newby, foreword in Duke 2005). For sure,
the Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative attempted to establish a ‘new’ course
and it certainly contested the ‘conventional view of the non-A-level stu-
dent’. Interestingly, the growth and desire to gain a higher education
qualification has also expanded to the retail sector. For example, Tesco,
described as a ‘high street juggernaut’, enables staff to complete a
 Introduction 7

Foundation Degree in Retail, validated by Manchester Metropolitan

University and the University of the Arts London (Metro 2009: 7).
However, regardless of the growth of ‘new and existing courses’, the
availability of training to learn about improvisation, run a workshop or
contribute to a performance for individuals labelled as having ‘learning
difficulties’ are just not there (Tomlinson 1982: 71). Nor are there indi-
viduals (teaching, coordinating or participating) in higher education
courses which purport to be about ‘learning difficulties’ (Walmsley 1997;
Race 2002; Boxall et al. 2004). And nor is this solely about the mainte-
nance of ‘academic standards’ or for that matter ‘a challenge for the future’
(Riddell and Weedon 2011: 134). As an area of study, what will become
apparent is that the term ‘learning difficulties’ is not only problematic but
in legal and medical terms invites a presumption of incompetence.
Another particular difficulty relates to the interchangeable terms in use,
such as ‘intellectual disability’, ‘learning disability’ and ‘mental
retardation’.
With regard to theatre performance, earlier commentators reported on
the inaccessibility of theatre venues, the lack of training opportunities at
drama schools (Morris n.d.) and the competitive element in national arts
companies (Fisher 1981). Repeated concerns not only identified various
barriers to this—such as access for members of the audience (wheelchair
access, sign interpretation, induction loops, Braille, audio description,
etc.)—but also the lack of opportunities for various impairment groups
as performers in terms of interviews, employment opportunities, educa-
tion and training (Pointon with Davies 1997). R. Tomlinson (1982)
raises specific questions as to the limited roles disabled people more gen-
erally had access to, specifically stating as follows:

A natural riposte to the question ‘Why Theatre?’ would be ‘Why not?’ One
could argue that disabled people have as much right as any other member
of society to participate in a performing act. While one would not wish to
deny this in principle, the reality for most disabled people was that they
would only be accepted on able-bodied terms. That is to say, if they man-
aged to get an entrée to, for example, an amateur theatre group, they could
only contribute in a limited number of areas. Disabled people as prompts,
8 N. Kikabhai

or costume makers or scenery painters, were quite often acceptable. As

actors they were not. (Tomlinson 1982: 9)

With respect to individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’, the

lack of opportunities for participation within the disability arts has not
gone unnoticed; for example, Goodley and Moore (2002) make the point
that the benefits of participation should be increased. Given the perceived
hierarchy of subjects, the participation of individuals labelled as having
‘learning difficulties’ into the arts and humanities is far less politically
controversial than participation in other academic areas related to what
are considered to be the ‘pure’ sciences (Sanderson 1975; Schuller 1995).
Interestingly, universities have a history of excluding certain social
groups from participation, and when individuals do gain access they are
restricted in their choice of academic subjects (Sanderson 1975). There
are also competing disciplinary territories, vested interests, differences
between subjects, and differences between individuals and groups in rela-
tion to power and status. Given this context, one pertinent question
raised by Cutting Edge is ‘How do prospective performing artists with
[sic]1 learning difficulties gain access to a relevant professional training
such as that open to their non-disabled peers?’ (Kikabhai 2014: 8). Their
own answer was that the proposed degree programme would address this
question. This is not the first time a question of this kind has been asked.
Interestingly, Marshall, the then Artistic Director of Graeae (pronounced
‘grey eye’) Theatre company, was reported making a similar reflective
question. Marshall remarked that ‘we are almost on the brink of an
­explosion in disability theatre’ and responded with, ‘What we all should
be interested in now is how to facilitate that demand’ (Morrison n.d.:
12). In brief then, employment opportunities for individuals described as
having ‘learning difficulties’ in performance do exist; however, opportu-
nities for education and training at higher education do not.
The issue of employment is not solely linked to getting a job, but to
getting a job related to the cultural industries, particularly in the area of
the theatre arts. Certainly, some jobs give status but, as Richard Tomlinson
(1982: 12) notes, jobs in theatre ‘give a special kind of status’; ultimately,
he argues that ‘they give the entry ticket to the most unlikely levels of
society’. One only needs to read Eric Sykes’s autobiography to appreciate
 Introduction 9

that theatre offers access to unlikely levels of society, even though to begin
with it feels like ‘paddling a leaking canoe up Niagara Falls’ (Sykes 2005:
212). Moreover, Tomlinson suggests that theatre as performance gives a
performer power, and ‘by jingo, power is addictive’ (Sykes 2005: 291).
This ‘insatiable’ lust for power is also a quest for freedom,2 a point dis-
cussed by Fromm (1942: 3–4), who also argues that modern rational wo/
man is dominated by an authoritarian system, over which there is no
control. However, postmodern theatre has shifted towards a radical form,
an exploration of gestures, happenings and becomings that challenge
inequalities of social power. Alongside dance, it seeks to break from con-
vention, challenging boundaries and overlaps with performance in dis/
abled body art (Woods 1999; Hickey-Moodey 2009).
With regard to individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’,
assumptions and questions arise as to their actual presence in higher edu-
cation (NAO 2002). Low participation cannot be put down to individu-
als choosing not to take part, even though this comes as a surprise when
disabled and non-disabled students with entry qualifications do not
choose to pursue higher education (Williams 1997). Tomlinson’s (1982:
9) insight that the ‘reality for most disabled people was that that they
would only be accepted on able-bodied terms’ is arguably ever-present
and was experienced by Mark Ellis (Garner 2005). Garner reported that
Ellis, who won ‘learner of the year’ award, was previously written off by
doctors as ‘uneducable’, yet graduated in Sociology and American Studies.
Garner reports that Ellis’ early institutionalisation from the age of eight
until 11; at the age of 32 he was provided with a note-taker, used a speak-
ing machine to answer questions and gained seven City and Guilds quali-
fications. Later Mark completed a sociology degree at the Open University
and then took a combined degree at a post-1992 university. Revealingly,
Ellis said of his first day, ‘I was quite nervous but excited at the same time.
It didn’t take me long to settle. I was just accepted as if I was an able-­
bodied student’ (Garner 2005: 11). One wonders, of course, as to how
many other social groups have experienced this uncomfortable silence,
and as to whether it would have been far too real if Ellis had referred to
himself as being a disabled student. Arguably, when Ellis succeeded in
gaining a higher education qualification, little did he realise that he would
need to reject his identify as a disabled person.
10 N. Kikabhai

Examples do exist of individuals who have attended segregated ‘special’

schools and accessed higher education (McDonald 1996; Garner 2005).
Apart from these experiences being the exception rather than the rule,
they are framed by discourses of struggle, prejudice, discrimination and
resistance. It has been taken for granted that individuals so labelled are
assumed to be ‘incompetent’, and apparently ‘suffer’ from a cognitive
‘deficiency’, raising questions relating to the discourse of ‘normalisation’
and the way individuals surrender their ‘acceptance’ as an ‘able-bodied
student’ (Oliver 1996; Barnes et al. 1999; Race et al. 2005). The analysis
of the effects of institutions and social structures on people and how indi-
viduals resist or affirm those effects cannot be ignored (Foucault 1967,
1975, 1977, 1978, 1980); these are issues that will be considered later.
Given the philosophical tradition of the ‘Enlightenment’, modernism
and its claim to ‘truth’ through reason, rationalism, objectivism, dualisms
and hierarchical trees, it appears that having individuals labelled as hav-
ing ‘learning difficulties’ makes their exclusion from higher education all
the more enlightening. In this sense, the label ‘learning difficulties’ in the
context of higher education participation is an oxymoron. Indeed, it
serves a purpose. For individuals described as having ‘learning difficul-
ties’, participating in higher education and gaining qualifications would
raise questions about the tools of assessment for ‘learning difficulties’;
they would fundamentally challenge their validity, rendering them
flawed. It would also raise a question about the status of those who already
have such a qualification. Alongside understanding validity as being a
social exercise, it would also raise questions of power. In effect, it seems
that the social judgement of the usefulness of and the creation of ‘learn-
ing difficulties’ as a descriptor serve normative interests. (For a discussion
related to the invention and construction of the descriptor ‘learning dif-
ficulties’ as grounded in a psychological ‘truth’, and yet itself subject to
scrutiny given its association and claims to being a ‘science’, read Rapley
2004). Arguably, the term ‘non-learning difficulties’ derives its character-
istics from its imaginary opposition. As was noted, ‘learning difficulties’,
in Jeremy Bentham’s (1995) terms, is a fictitious entity, a creation of the
mind; paradoxically, its very absence brings it into the ‘real’.
Further still, the issue of ‘becoming’ in contrast to ‘being’ a student in
higher education is an important one, and it is all the more pressing to
 Introduction 11

remember Anya Souza’s (2002: 4) comment that it takes a lot of ‘courage

and strength to fight against people who have the power to define who
you are’. The label and social phenomena of ‘learning difficulties’ assume
an inability to learn, read, write or care for oneself. Relatedly, the incon-
sistent practice of ascribing an intelligence quotient (IQ) score of less
than 70 has commonly been used to quantify the notion of ‘learning dif-
ficulties’ (Sutcliffe and Simons 1993). The assumption that such students
cannot (must not/will not) succeed in gaining higher education qualifica-
tions cannot be ignored and is being challenged. As is argued, at the
centre of this debate is the ‘latent and unacknowledged role in contem-
porary understandings of normality, the body and intelligence’ (Marks
1999: 9). Without doubt, the relationship between normality, the body
and intelligence has played a role in determining the presumed levels of
educational achievement (Burt 1937), particularly with the invention
and use of IQ scores. As will be reiterated, the process of labelling, other
than with a personal name, is an indication that the individual is not a
member of a human society (Turner 2008: 173).
In contrast, Disability Studies and Arts literature are challenging the
taken-for-granted understanding of ‘learning difficulties’ as an individual
‘problem’ and a ‘personal tragedy’ (Oliver 1996; Campbell and Oliver
1996; Oliver and Barnes 1998; Souza 2002; Aspis and Souza 2003; Swain
and French 2008). Moreover, with respect to the work of Michel Foucault,
the contemporary issue of higher education participation and individuals
labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’, one begins to notice the techniques
of power/knowledge. Moreover, the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari (1984) offers notions of schizo, nomad and rhizome in opposition
to the psycho-hierarchical structure of modernism. Thus, in the context of
individuals labelled as having ‘learning difficulties’, accessing higher educa-
tion is not just to stimulate individual or even group mobility, but can be
understood to be about changing higher education itself (Williams 1997;
Thomas 2001). Moreover, acknowledging this under-theorised area of
higher education participation (Thomas and Quinn 2007: 15), this context
makes transparent its power/knowledge discourses of surveillance, control,
regulation, punishment, discipline and exclusion. To this extent, this book
is not only concerned with disability but also with the politics of ‘learning
difficulties’ and the politics of modern higher education participation.
12 N. Kikabhai

Outline of Chapters
Chapter 2 provides a context for a description of the Cutting Edge
Theatre Initiative, primarily through the accounts of a group of individu-
als. It uncovers silenced voices and forgotten accounts that begin to raise
questions about individuals excluded from higher education participa-
tion. It pieces together multiple experiences and recognises the complex
web of relationships. What becomes apparent is that these accounts are
shaped by social, political, economic and cultural factors that are
immersed within discourses of exclusion, power and acts of resistance. In
addition, it highlights the changing description of the relationship
between Cutting Edge and Red Brick College of Higher Education. It
also includes personal recollections, sharing reflective accounts from a
research log, informed by my own experiences.
As a way of contextualising and understanding the Cutting Edge
Theatre Initiative and the emerging issues, Chap. 3 shifts towards under-
standing disability. It challenges the conventional idea that knowledge is
based upon objective and unbiased observations. It offers a radically
­different perspective on the way individuals described as having ‘learning
difficulties’ have come to be marginalised, silenced and excluded. It makes
use of the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1984, 2004) and the work of
Foucault (1967, 1980, 1988), which gives an alternative interpretation to
understanding power/knowledge discourses of surveillance, control, reg-
ulation, discipline, punishment and exclusion. The theorising of disabil-
ity and the Foucauldian discourses of power/knowledge present an
understanding of the excluding and disabling barriers in society. They
draw upon the discourse of resistance and (mis)treatment at a time of
widespread concern for rights, equity and citizenship. They offer a break
from traditional modernist regimes of ‘truth’, moving towards a nuanced
interpretation of ‘learning difficulties’ and modern higher education
(non-)participation. Moreover, the work of Foucault offers ways of con-
structing different and alternative ways of thinking as well as challenging
existing certainties and comforting illusions (Oksala 2007).
Chapter 4 returns to the experiences of the participants associated with
the Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative, drawing upon documentary sources,
 Introduction 13

insights, experiences and parliamentary debates. It begins with unravel-

ling differences between three proposals which collectively provide an
insight into the emerging experiences. The chapter also presents major
experiences; namely, the experience of developing a three-year arts course,
the experience of developing an accredited two-year theatre course, and a
performance at a concert hall, which later led to the formation of the
Cutting Edge Theatre Initiative. This is a shared history, a struggle for
performance.
Chapter 5 continues to theorise disability using the work of Weber,
Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, offering a fundamentally different
approach. As an alternative perspective, it engages with discussions about
the impaired body and discourses of power/knowledge, connects the
mechanisms of institutions and their relationship between power and
knowledge, and understands higher education as being transformed into
the ‘modern’. It engages in discussions about the body, dualisms and the
exercise of power, and moves beyond boundaries, challenging dualisms,
hierarchical trees and habitual understandings.
Chapter 6 examines the rhetoric of widening participation policy. It
engages in a range of debates concerned with its purpose, function and
beneficiaries. It explores the discursive policy context in relation to rais-
ing aspirations, issues of under-representation, concerns about rising stu-
dent debt and debates relating to academic standards. It utilises cultural
explanations of inequality and links to economic efficiency in an agenda
to create, it claims, a fairer society. It also discusses Disabled Students’
Allowances, which are arguably framed by an individual/medical (bio-
physical) bureaucratic model of disability, in conjunction with notions of
‘reasonable adjustments’ and the requirements of the Equality Act.
Chapter 7 is concerned with ending the barriers against disabled peo-
ple. It continues to draw upon the Cutting Edge experience. It also draws
upon the previous work of Ryan and Thomas (1998), Thomas (2001)
and Souza (2002), and examines a number of additional exclusions/sepa-
rations. The chapter raises concern about individual deficit explanations
of non-participation and suggests the situation is far more complex. The
chapter explores the complex discourses of disability, structural and
in-situ-ational experiences which shape individual experiences.
14 N. Kikabhai

Chapter 8 offers a postmodernist production of data, drawing upon

the work of Grbich (2007) and the theoretical work of Deleuze and
Guattari (2004). It is an extrapolation, one possible interpretation pre-
sented in the form of a theatre production. It is a form of experiential
representation (Richardson 1994), sometimes blurred and jumbled writ-
ing genres. It offers an alternative postmodernist perspective on the issue
of higher education participation. It exploits ideas of juxtaposition,
drama and poetry (Grbich 2007). Using terminology related to theatre
and its metaphors, it is playful yet serious, unexpected, dramatic, creative
and innovative. It ultimately breaks from traditional boundaries and
offers a counter-discourse to the rhetoric of widening participation. It is
grounded in the accounts of the participating individuals and situated
within a time of concern about the notion of ‘learning difficulties’, higher
education participation and employment. It is an act of resistance.
Finally, Chap. 9 concludes and revisits the main themes and ideas,
examining them in conjunction with the theoretical orientation and the
analytical reading of the material. It reveals how these insights offer
opportunities for understanding and further critical Disability Studies
explorations.

Notes
1. In using the term ‘sic’ in brackets, I raise objection to the way the preced-
ing term is being used. For example, in using the phrase ‘people with [sic]
learning difficulties’, the term ‘with’ is being challenged on the basis that
it is being used as a possessive preposition. Thus, my intention is to dis-
rupt continuously the relational link and to argue that people do not
come ‘with’ learning difficulties but that the individual has been labelled
and described as having ‘learning difficulties’. Further, in writing within
the field of ‘disability’ I am aware of the difficulties and uncertainties
about what words to use, the contradictions and the need for sensitivity
around figurative phrases that can exclude—for example, phrases such as
to hear, to read, to speak and to see, or that prohibit rather than seek to
encompass difference—although I am also aware of the way prejudice
fuels assumptions about the assumed ‘fragile sensibilities’ of disabled peo-
 Introduction 15

ple (Morris 1991: 20). Read Keith (1995) for a thoughtful and reflective
poem of the way language is used to construct and deconstruct disabled
people.
2. Read Fromm (1942) for an understanding of how freedom, whilst bring-
ing the modern wo/man independence (motivated by self-interest), indi-
viduality and rationality, also rendered her/him isolated, helpless, insecure,
afraid, anxious and with an unbearable aloneness. Thus, freedom is
ambiguous.

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“Get it yourself,” the hobo flung back.
The right fist of the ranchman lifted swiftly. It did not move far, but it
carried great power back of it. The tramp’s head snapped backward.
His shoulders hit the sand. He had been caught on the point of the
jaw by a knock-out punch.
Tug came back to consciousness under the impression that he was
drowning in deep waters. Cig was dipping a can in the creek and
sousing its contents over his head. He sat up dizzily. His uncertain
gaze fell on some one who had arrived since his exit from activity.
She was a young woman on horseback. He noticed that she was
slender and had a good seat. Her dark eyes watched him.
Who was she? What the dickens was she doing here? Where was
he anyhow?
His glance swept the scene. York was stamping out the last embers
of the fire. There was a bruise on Cig’s cheek and one of his eyes
was rapidly closing. From the fact that Forbes was examining
abraded knuckles it was an easy guess that he had been in action.
The rancher, hands in coat pockets, relieved his mind in regard to
the youth he had knocked out. “You’re a good-for-nothing loafer, not
fit to live in a country that treats you too well. If I had charge of
wastrels like you, I’d put you on the rock-pile and work you to a
frazzle. What use are you, to yourself or any one else? When you
were needed to fill a uniform, I’ll bet a dollar you were a slacker. You
still are. A worthless, rotten-to-the-core hobo. Now get up and get off
my land or I’ll give you that thrashing you need.”
Tug got up, swayed unsteadily on his feet, and lurched forward. In
his eyes, still dull and glazed from the shock his nervous system had
endured, a gleam of anger came to life. He was a slacker, was he?
All right. He would show this arrogant slave-driver that he could
stand up and take all he had to give.
His rush was a poor leaden-footed shuffle, for he was shaky at the
knees and weights dragged at his feet. The blow he aimed at Reed
missed the brown face half a foot. It was badly timed and placed.
The ranchman’s counter caught him flush on the cheekbone and
flung him back.
Again he gathered himself and plunged forward. Clinton Reed
belonged to the old fighting West. He had passed through the rip-
roaring days of Leadville’s prime and later had been a part of Cripple
Creek’s turbid life. Always he had been a man of his hands. He
punished his dazed opponent with clean hard blows, most of them
started at short range to save his own fists from the chance of
broken or dislocated bones.
The tramp fell into a clinch to get time for recovery. Reed jolted him
out of it with a short arm left below the chin and followed with two
slashing rights to the face.
The hobo was in a bad way. In ring parlance, he was what is known
as groggy. His arms moved slowly and without force back of the
blows. His knees sagged. There was a ringing in his head. He did
not seem able to think clearly.
But the will in him functioned to push him to more punishment. He
attacked feebly. Through a weak defense the ranchman’s driving
arms tore cruelly.
Tug went down again. He tried to rise, but in spite of the best he
could do was unable to get up. The muscles of the legs would not
coöperate with the will.
Some one in khaki riding-breeches flashed past him. “That’s enough,
Dad. I don’t care if he was impudent. You’ve hurt him enough. Let
him go now.”
The figure was the boyish one of the equestrienne, but the high
indignant voice was feminine enough.
“S’pose you try minding your own business, Bess,” her father said
quietly.
“Now, Dad,” she expostulated. “We don’t want any trouble, do we?
Make ’em move on, and that’s enough.”
“Tha’s what we’re doin’, Betty,” explained the foreman. “It ain’t our
fault if there’s a rookus. We told ’em to light out, an’ they got sassy.”
Tug rose with difficulty. He was a badly hammered hobo. Out of
swollen and discolored eyes he looked at the ranchman.
“You quite through with me?” he snarled.
It was a last growl of defiance. His companions were already
clambering with their packs out of the wash to the bank above.
“Not quite.” Clint Reed took his daughter by the shoulders and spun
her out of the way when she tried to stop him. “Be fresh if you want
to, my young wobbly. I reckon I can stand it if you can.” He whirled
the tramp round and kicked him away.
“Oh, Dad! Fighting with a tramp,” the girl wailed.
Tug swung round unsteadily, eyes blazing. He took a step toward the
rancher. His glance fell on the girl who had just called him a tramp,
and in saying it had chosen the last word of scorn. Her troubled,
disdainful gaze met his fully. The effect on him was odd. It paralyzed
action. He stopped, breathing hard.
She had called him a tramp, as one who belongs to another world
might do—a world that holds to self-respect and decency. He had
read in her voice utter and complete contempt for the thing he was. It
was a bitter moment. For him it stamped the low-water mark of his
degradation. He felt beneath her eyes a thing unclean.
What she had said was true. He was a tramp. He had ridden the
rods, asked for hand-outs, rough-housed with hoboes, slept with
them. He had just been thoroughly thrashed and kicked before her.
What was the use of resenting it? He had become declassed. Why
should he not be kicked and beaten? That was the customary way to
treat his kind of cattle.
Tug swung heavily on a heel and followed his companions into the
willows.
 CHAPTER III
ONE OF THE LOST LEGION

Among the lost legion are two kinds of men. There are those who
have killed or buried so deep the divine fire of their manhood that for
them there seems no chance of recovery in this world. There are
those in whom still burns somewhere a faint candle that may yet
flame to a dynamic glow of self-respect.
The young tramp slouching along the bank of Willow Creek drank
deep of the waters of despair. The rancher had called him a slacker,
rotten to the core. It was a true bill. He was a man spoiled and
ruined. He had thrown away his life in handfuls. Down and dragging,
that’s what he was, with this damned vice a ball and chain on his
feet.
There was in him some strain of ignoble weakness. There must be,
he reasoned. Otherwise he would have fought and conquered the
cursed thing. Instead, he had fought and lost. He could make
excuses. Oh, plenty of them. The pain—the horrible, intolerable pain!
The way the craving had fastened on him before he knew it while he
was still in the hospital! But that was piffling twaddle, rank self-
deception. A man had to fight, to stand the gaff, to flog his evil
yearnings back to kennel like yelping dogs.
His declension had been swift. It was in his temperament to go fast,
to be heady. Once he let go of himself, it had been a matter of
months rather than of years. Of late he had dulled the edge of his
despair. The opiates were doing their work. He had found it easier to
live in the squalid present, to forget the pleasant past and the
purposeful future he had planned.
But now this girl, slim, clean, high-headed, with that searing
contempt for him in her clear eyes, had stirred up again the devils of
remorse. What business had he to companion with these
offscourings of the earth? Why had he given up like a quitter the
effort to beat back?
In the cold waters of the creek he washed his swollen and
bloodstained face. The cold water, fresh from the mountain snows,
was soothing to the hot bruised flesh even though it made the
wounds smart. He looked down into the pool and saw reflected there
the image of himself. Beneath the eyes pouches were beginning to
form. Soon now he would be a typical dope fiend.
He was still weak from the manhandling that had been given him.
Into an inside coat pocket his fingers groped. They brought out with
them a small package wrapped in cotton cloth. With trembling hands
he made his preparations, bared an arm, and plunged the
hypodermic needle into the flesh.
When he took the trail again after his companions, Tug’s eyes were
large and luminous. He walked with a firmer step. New life seemed
to be flowing into his arteries.
Where the dusty road cut the creek he found the other tramps
waiting for him. Their heads had been together in whispered talk.
They drew apart as he approached.
Taking note of Cig’s purple eye and bruised face, Tug asked a
question. “Was it the big foreman beat you up?”
“You done said it, ’bo,” the crook answered out of the side of his
mouth.
“I reckon you got off easy at that,” Tug said bitterly. “The boss bully
didn’t do a thing to me but chew me up and spit me out.”
“Wotcha gonna do about it?” Cig growled significantly.
The young fellow’s glance was as much a question as his words.
“What can I do but take it?” he asked sullenly.
Cig’s eyes narrowed venomously. He lifted his upper lip in an ugly
sneer. “Watch my smoke. No roughneck can abuse me an’ get away
with it. I’ll say he can’t.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m gonna fix him.”
Tug’s laughter barked. “Did you fix him when you had a chance?” he
asked ironically.
“Call that a chance? An’ the big stiff wide as a door. ’F I’d had a gun
I’d ’a’ croaked him.”
“Oh, if!”
“De bulls frisked me gun in Denver. But I’ll get me a gat
somewheres. An’ when I do—” The sentence choked out in a snarl
more threatening than words.
“Sounds reasonable,” Tug jeered.
“Listen, ’bo.” Cig laid a hand on the sleeve of the young fellow’s coat.
“Listen. Are youse game to take a chance?”
Eyes filled with an expression of sullen distaste of Cig looked at him
from a bruised and livid face. “Maybe I am. Maybe I ain’t. What’s on
your mind?”
“I’m gonna get that bird. See?”
“How?”
“Stick around an’ gun him. Then hop a freight for ’Frisco.”
There was in the lopsided face a certain dreadful eagerness that was
appalling. Was this mere idle boasting? Or would the gangster go as
far as murder for his revenge? Tug did not know. But his gorge rose
at the fellow’s assumption that he would join him as a partner in
crime.
“Kill him without giving him a chance?” he asked.
Again there was a sound like the growl of a wild beast in the throat of
the Bowery tough. “Wotcha givin’ me! A heluva chance them guys
give us when they jumped us. I’ll learn ’em to keep their hands off
Cig.” He added, with a crackle of oaths, “The big stiffs!”
“No!” exploded Tug with a surge of anger. “I’ll have nothing to do with
it—or with you. I’m through. You go one way. I’ll go another. Right
here I quit.”
The former convict’s eyes narrowed. “I getcha. Streak of yellow a
foot wide. No more nerve than a rabbit. All right. Beat it. I can’t lose
you none too soon to suit me.”
The two glared at each other angrily.
York the peacemaker threw oil on the ruffled waters. “’S all right,
’boes. No use gettin’ sore. Tug he goes one way, we hit the grit
another. Ev’rybody satisfied.”
Tug swung his roll of blankets across a shoulder and turned away.
 CHAPTER IV
BETTY RIDES

Betty Reed had watched unhappily the young tramp shuffle into the
willows and disappear. She felt depressed by a complex she could
not analyze. In part it was shame, for her father, for this tramp who
looked as though he were made for better things, for the whole
squalid episode; in part pity, not wholly divorced from admiration at
the boy’s insolence and courage. He might be a wastrel, as her
father had said. He might be a ne’er-do-well. But by some sure
instinct she knew that there had been a time when he fronted with
high hope to the future. That momentary meeting of the eyes had
told her as much.
Something had killed him as surely as a bullet fired through the
heart. The boy he had been was dead.
Lon Forbes chuckled. “They’ll keep going, I reckon, now they’ve
found out this ain’t no Hotel de Gink. You certainly handed that
youngest bum his hat, Clint. I’ll say you did.”
Now that it was over Reed was not very well satisfied with his
conduct. The hobo had brought the punishment on himself. Still—
there was something morally degrading about such an affray. One
can’t touch pitch without paying the penalty.
“We’ll begin cutting this field to-morrow, Lon,” he said shortly. “Hustle
the boys up so’s to finish the mesa to-day.” Across his shoulder he
flung a question at the girl. “You going to town, Bess?”
“In an hour or so. Want me to do something?” she asked.
“Call at Farrell’s and see if he’s got in those bolts I ordered.”
The ranchman strode to the car followed by Forbes. The foreman
was troubled by no doubts. His mind functioned elementally. If
hoboes camped on the Diamond Bar K and made themselves a
danger to the crops, they had to be hustled on their way. When they
became insolent, it was necessary to treat them rough. That was all
there was to it.
Betty swung to the saddle and rode back to the house. She was
returning from an inspection of a bunch of two-year-olds that were
her own private property. She was rather well off in her own right, as
the ranch country counts wealth. The death of her uncle a year
before had left her financially independent.
As Betty cantered into the open square in front of the house, her
father and the foreman were getting out of the car. A chubby, flaxen-
haired little lass came flying down the porch steps a-quiver with
excited delight.
“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, what d’you fink? I went out to the barn an’—
an’—an’ I fink Fifi’s got puppies, ’cause she—she—”
“Thought I told you to stay away from the barn,” the ranchman
chided.
His harsh voice dried up the springs of the child’s enthusiasm. She
drew back as though she had been struck. From the winsome, wee
face the eager, bubbling delight vanished, the enchanting dimples
fled. The blue eyes became wells of woe. A small finger found the
corner of the Cupid’s-bow mouth.
Clint Reed, ashamed and angry at himself, turned away abruptly.
Little Ruth was the sunshine of his life, the last pledge of his dead
wife’s love, and he had deliberately and cruelly wounded her.
Swinging from the saddle, Betty ran to the porch. Her arms enfolded
the child and drew her tenderly close. “Ruthie, tell big sister all about
it,” she whispered gently.
“D-d-d-daddy—” the sobbing little girl began, and choked up.
“Daddy’s worried, dear. He didn’t mean to hurt your precious little
feelings. Tell Betty about Fifi’s puppies, darling.”
Through her tears and between sobs Ruth told her great news.
Presently she forgot to weep and was led to the scene of Fifi’s
amazing and unique triumph. She gave little squeals of delight when
Betty handed her a blind little creature to cuddle in spite of the
indignant mother’s protesting growls. The child held the warm white-
and-brown puppy close to her bosom and adored it with her eyes.
With reluctance she returned it at last.
Ruth’s happiness was quite restored after her sister had given her a
glass of milk and a cookie and sent her out to play.
The young woman waved her a smiling good-bye and went to work.
She had some business letters to write and she went to the room
that served her as a library and office. The sound of the typewriter
keys drifted out of the open window for an hour or more.
The girl worked swiftly. She had a direct mind that found fluent
expression through the finger-tips. When she knew what she wanted
to say, it was never any trouble for Betty Reed to say it. A small pile
of addressed and sealed letters lay in the rack on the desk before
she covered the machine.
These she took with her.
Clint Reed she found tinkering with a reaper that had gone
temporarily out of service.
“Want anything more, Dad? I’m going now,” she said.
“You’ve got that list I left on the desk. That’s all, except the bolts.”
The sky was a vault of blue. Not even a thin, long-drawn skein of
cloud floated above. A hot sun baked down on the dusty road over
which Betty traveled. Heat waves danced in front of her. There was
no faintest breath of breeze stirring.
The gold of autumn was creeping over the hills. Here and there was
a crimson splash of sumac or of maple against the almost universal
yellow toning. It seemed that the whole landscape had drunk in the
summer sunshine and was giving it out now in a glow of warm
wealth.
The girl took a short cut over the hills. The trail led by way of draw,
gulch, and open slope to the valley in which Wild Horse lay. She
rode through the small business street of the village to the post-
office. Here she bought supplies of the storekeeper, who was also
post-master.
Battell was his name. He was an amiable and harmless gossip. Wild
Horse did not need a newspaper as long as he was there to hand
tobacco and local information across the counter. An old maid in
breeches, Lon Forbes had once called him, and the description
serves well enough. He was a whole village sewing circle in himself.
At a hint of slander his small bright eyes would twinkle and his
shrunken little body seem to wriggle like that of a pleased pup. Any
news was good news to him.
“Mo’ning, Miss Betty. Right hot, I’ll tell the world. Ninety-nine in the
shade this very minute. Bart Logan was in to get Doc Caldwell for his
boy Tom. He done bust his laig fallin’ from the roof of the root house.
Well, Bart was sayin’ your paw needs help right bad to harvest his
wheat. Seems like if the gov’ment would send out some of these
here unemployed to work on the ranches it would be a good idee.
Sometimes Congress acts like it ain’t got a lick o’ sense.”
Betty ordered coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other supplies. While he
waited upon her Battell made comment pertinent and impertinent.
“That Mecca brand o’ coffee seems to be right popular. Three
pounds for a dollar. O’ course, if it’s for the bunkhouse— Oh, want it
sent out to the Quarter Circle D E. How’re you makin’ it on your own
ranch, Miss Betty? Some one was sayin’ you would clean up quite a
bit from your beef herd this year, mebbe twelve or fifteen thousand. I
reckon it was Bart Logan.”
“Is Bart keeping my books for me?” the girl asked dryly.
The storekeeper cackled. “Folks will gossip.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “How much is that corn meal a hundred?”
“Cost you ten cents more’n the last. Folks talk about cost of livin’
coming down. Well, mebbe ’tis an’ mebbe ’tain’t. I told Bart I wouldn’t
believe you’d cleared any twelve or fifteen thousand till I heard you
say so. That’s a lot of money, if any one asks you.”
Apparently Betty misunderstood him. “Yes, you’re high, but I’ll take
two sacks. Send it to the Quarter Circle and charge it to me.”
Betty stopped at the railroad station to ask the agent about a
shipment of goods her father was expecting, and from there went to
Farrell’s to find out about the bolts.
It was well on toward noon when she took the road for home. At
Four-Mile Crossing it intersected the railroad track. A man with a
pack on his back was plodding along the ties in the direction of Wild
Horse. The instant her eyes fell on him, the girl recognized the tramp
her father had beaten. The pallid face was covered with wheals and
bruises. Both of the sullen eyes were ringed with purple and black.
They met face to face. Full into hers his dogged gaze challenged.
Without a word they passed.
Betty crossed the grade and followed a descent to a small grove of
pines close to the road. The sun was so hot that she decided to
dismount and give the pony a breathing spell.
From the saddle she swung, then trailed the reins and loosened the
cinch.
A sound brought her head round sharply. Two men had come over
the brow of a little hill silently. One of them was almost at her elbow.
A twisted, malevolent grin was on his lips. He was the hobo Lon
Forbes had thrashed two or three hours ago.
“Welcome to our city, goil,” he jeered in choice Boweryese. “Honest
to Gawd, you knock me dead. Surest thing you know. We’ll treat you
fine, not like your dad an’ that other big stiff did us. We’ll not tell
youse to move on, m’ dearie. Nothin’ like that.”
The girl’s heart felt as though drenched in ice-cold water. She had
not brought with her the small revolver she sometimes carried for
rattlesnakes. Both instinct and observation told her this man was vile
and dangerous. She was in his power and he would make her pay
for what her father had done.
She trod down the fear that surged up in her bosom. Not for nothing
had she been all her life a daughter of the sun and the wind and
wide outdoor spaces.
“I stopped to rest my pony from the heat of the sun,” she explained.
“You stopped to see old Cig,” he corrected. “An’ now you’re here it’ll
be him an’ you for a while. The hop-nut don’t belong to de same
push as us no longer. I shook him. An’ York don’t count. He’s no
lady’s man, York ain’t.”
The slim girl in the riding-suit could not quite keep the panic out of
her eyes. None of the motives that swayed the men she knew would
have weight with him. He was both base and bold, and he had lived
among those who had small respect for a woman.
Betty’s glance moved to York. It found no comfort there. The gross
hobo was soft as putty. He did not count, as his companion had
openly sneered.
“No. I won’t stop,” she said, and made as though to tighten the
loosened cinch.
“Won’cha? Think again, miss. Old Cig ain’t seen a skirt since he left
li’l’ old New York. Sure as youse is a foot high he’s hungry for a
sweetie of his own.”
He put his hand on her arm. At the touch her self-control vanished.
She screamed.
The man’s fingers slid down to the wrist and tightened. His other
hand clamped over her mouth and cut off the cry.
She writhed, twisting to free herself. In spite of her slenderness she
was strong. From her lips she tore his hand and again called for help
in an ecstasy of terror.
The crook of his arm garroted her throat and cut off the air from her
lungs. He bent her body back across his hip. Still struggling, she
strangled helplessly.
“Youse would, eh?” His voice, his narrowed eyes, exulted. “Forget it,
miss. Cig’s an A1 tamer of Janes. That’s de li’l’ old thing he’s de
champeen of de world at.”
He drew her closer to him.
There came a soft sound of feet thudding across the grass. The arm
about Betty’s throat relaxed. She heard a startled oath, found herself
flung aside. Her eyes opened.
Instantly she knew why Cig had released her. The man stood
crouched, snarling, his eyes fixed on an approaching runner, one
who moved with the swift precision of a half-back carrying a ball
down a whitewashed gridiron.
The runner was the tramp whose face her father had battered to a
pulp. He asked for no explanations and made no comment. Straight
for the released convict he drove.
Cig had not a chance. The bad air and food of the slums, late hours,
dissipation, had robbed him of both strength and endurance. He held
up his fists and squared off, for he was game enough. But Tug’s fist
smashed through the defense as though it had been built of paper.
The second-story man staggered back, presently went down before
a rain of blows against which he could find no protection.
Tug dragged him to his feet, cuffed him hard with his half-closed fist
again and again, then flung him a second time to the ground. He
stood over the fellow, his eyes blazing, his face colorless.
“Get up, you hound!” he ordered in a low voice trembling with anger.
“Get up and take it! I’ll teach you to lay hands on a woman!”
Cig did not accept this invitation. He rolled away, caught up York’s
heavy tramping stick, and stood like a wolf at bay, the lips lifted from
his stained yellow teeth.
“Touch me again an’ I’ll knock your block off,” he growled,
interlarding the threat with oaths and foul language.
“Don’t!” the girl begged of her champion. “Please don’t. Let’s go.
Right away.”
“Yes,” agreed the young fellow, white to the lips.
York flat-footed forward a step or two. “No use havin’ no trouble. Cig
he didn’t mean nothin’ but a bit of fun, Tug. Old Cig wouldn’t do no
lady any harm.” The tramp’s voice had taken on the professional
whine.
Tug fastened the girth, his fingers trembling so that he could hardly
slip the leather through to make the cinch. Even in the reaction from
fear Betty found time to wonder at this. He was not afraid. He had
turned his back squarely on the furious gangster from the slums to
tighten the surcingle. Why should he be shaking like a man in a chill?
The girl watched Cig while the saddle was being made ready. The
eyes in the twisted face of the convict were venomous. If thoughts
could have killed, Tug would have been a dead man. She had been
brought up in a clean world, and she did not know people could hate
in such a soul-and-body blasting way. It chilled the blood only to look
at him.
The girl’s rescuer turned to help her into the saddle. He gave her the
lift as one does who is used to helping a woman mount.
From the seat she stooped and said in a low voice, “I want you to go
with me.”
He nodded. Beside the horse he walked as far as the road. “My
pack’s back there on the track,” he said, and stopped, waiting for her
to ride away.
Betty looked down at him, a troubled frown on her face. “Where are
you going?”
A bitter, sardonic smile twitched the muscles of the bruised face. He
shrugged his shoulders.
“Looking for work?” she asked.
“Maybe I am,” he answered sullenly.
“We need men on the Diamond Bar K to help with the harvest.”
“The ranch where I was kicked off?”
“Father’s quick-tempered, but he’s square. I’ll talk with him about you
—”
“Why waste your time?” he mocked mordantly. “I’ll not impose on
him a good-for-nothing loafer, a worthless rotten-to-the-core hobo, a
slacker, a wastrel who ought to be on a rock-pile.”
“Dad didn’t mean all that. He was angry. But if you don’t want to work
for him, perhaps you’d work for me. I own a ranch, too.”
He looked up the road into the dancing heat waves. She was
wasting pity on him, was she? No doubt she would like to reform
him. A dull resentment burned in him. His sulky eyes looked into
hers.
“No,” he said shortly.
“But if you’re looking for work,” she persisted.
“I’m particular about who I work for,” he told her brutally.
She winced, but the soft dark eyes were still maternally tender for
him. He had fought for her, had saved her from a situation that held
at least degradation and perhaps horrible despair. Moreover, young
though he was, she knew that life had mauled him fearfully.
“I need men. I thought perhaps—”
“You thought wrong.”
“I’m sorry—about Father. You wouldn’t need to see him if you didn’t
want to. The Quarter Circle D E is four miles from the Diamond Bar
K.”
“I don’t care if it’s forty,” he said bluntly.
Her good intentions were at an impasse. The road was blocked. But
she could not find it in her heart to give up yet, to let him turn himself
adrift again upon a callous world. He needed help—needed it
desperately, if she were any judge. It was written on his face that he
was sailing stormy seas and that his life barque was drifting toward
the rocks. What help she could give she must press upon him.
“I’m asking you to be generous and forget what—what we did to
you,” she pleaded, leaning down impulsively and putting a hand on
his shoulder. “You saved me from that awful creature. Isn’t it your
turn now to let me help you if I can?”
“You can’t help me.”
“But why not? You’re looking for work. I need men. Wouldn’t it be
reasonable for us to get together on terms?” Her smile was very
sweet and just a little wistful, her voice vivid as the sudden song of a
meadow-lark.
Under the warmth of her kindness his churlishness melted.
“Good of you,” he said. “I’m much obliged. But it’s no use. Your
father had the right of it. I’m not any good.”
“I don’t believe it. Your life’s got twisted somehow. But you can
straighten it. Let me help. Won’t you? Because of what you did for
me just now.”
Her hand moved toward him in a tentative offer of friendship.
Automatically his eyes recorded that she wore a diamond ring on the
third finger. Some lucky fellow, probably some clean young man who
had given no hostages to vice, had won her sweet and gallant heart.
She was all eager desire and sympathy. For a moment, as he looked
into the dusky, mobile face that expressed a fine and gallant
personality, it seemed possible for him to trample down the vice that
was destroying him. But he pushed this aside as idle sentiment. His
way was chosen for him and he could not go back.
He shook his head and turned away. The bitter, sardonic smile again
rested like a shadow of evil on his good-looking face.
 CHAPTER V
TUG IS “COLLECTED”

Tug followed the rails toward Wild Horse.

He groped in an abyss of humiliation and self-disgust. Slacker! The
cattleman’s scornful word had cut to the quick. The taste of it was
bitter. For he had not always been one. In war days he had done his
share.
How was it McCrae’s poem ran?

“We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

“Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

Yes, he had kept the faith in France, but he was not keeping it now.
The obligation was as binding on him in peace as on the battle-field.
He knew that. He recognized it fully. But when the pain in his head
began, his mind always flew to the only relief he knew. The drug had
become a necessity to him. If the doctors had only let him fight it out
from the beginning without help, he would not have become
accustomed to the accursed stuff.
But what was the use of going over that again and again? He was
done for. Why send his thoughts forever over the same treadmill?
The flaming sun poured down into the bowl of the valley and baked
its contents. He moved from the track to the shade of a cottonwood
and lay down. His racing thoughts grew more vague, for the hot sun
had made him sleepy. Presently his eyes closed drowsily. They
flickered open and slowly shut a second time. He began to breathe
deeply and regularly.
The sun passed the zenith and began to slide down toward the
western hills. Still Tug slept.
He dreamed. The colonel was talking to him. “Over the top, Hollister,
at three o’clock. Ten minutes now.” He shook himself out of sleep. It
was time to get busy.
Slowly he came back blinking to a world of sunshine. Two men stood
over him, both armed.
“Must be one of ’em,” the shorter of the two said.
“Sure thing. See his outfit. All rags. We’ll collect him an’ take him
back to the ranch.”
They were cowboys or farmhands, Tug was not sure which. He knew
at once, however, that their intentions were not friendly.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You,” the short, stocky one answered curtly. He wore a big broad-
rimmed hat that was both ancient and dusty.
“Interesting. You a sheriff? Got a warrant for me?”
The little man raised the point of his thirty-eight significantly. “Ain’t
this warrant enough?”
“What’s the trouble? What d’you want me for?”
“Tell him, Dusty,” the lank cowboy said.
“All right, Burt.” To the tramp he said roughly: “We’ll learn you how to
treat a lady. Get up. You’re gonna trail back to the Diamond Bar K
with us.”
“You’ve got the wrong man,” explained Tug.
“Sure. You’re jus’ travelin’ through the country lookin’ for work,”
Dusty jeered. “We’ve heard that li’l’ spiel before. Why, you chump,
the ol’ man’s autograph is writ on yore face right now.”
Tug opened his mouth to expostulate, but changed his mind. What
was the use? He had no evidence. They would not let him go.
“I guess you hold the aces.” He rose, stiffly, remarking to the world at
large, “I’ve read about those three-gallon hats with a half-pint of
brains in them.”
Dusty bridled. “Don’t get gay with me, young feller. I’ll not stand for
it.”
“No?” murmured the hobo, and he somehow contrived to make of
the monosyllable a taunt.
“Just for that I’ll drag you back with a rope.”
Dusty handed his weapon to the other cowboy, stepped to his horse,
and brought back a rope. He uncoiled it and dropped the noose over
the tramp’s head, tightening it around his waist.
The riders swung to their saddles.
“Get a move on you,” Dusty ordered, giving the rope a tug. The other
end of it he had fastened to the horn of the saddle.
Tug walked ahead of the horses through the sand. It was a long hot
tramp, and Dusty took pains to make it as unpleasant as possible. If
the prisoner lagged, he dragged him on the ground, gibing at him,
and asking him whether he would insult another woman next time he
got a chance.
The cowpuncher found small satisfaction in the behavior of the man
at the other end of the rope. The ragged tramp neither answered his
sneers nor begged for mercy. He took what was coming to him
silently, teeth clamped tight.
At last Burt interfered. “That’ll be about enough, Dusty. The old
man’s gonna settle with him. It’s his say-so about what he wants
done to this guy.” He added, a moment later: “I ain’t so darned sure