Degree honour for 20 years of work for disability cause

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I got so much out of society, all the medical support over the years and everything else, it was time to put something back

Gordon Richardson

ADISABILITY campaigner who has dedicated the past 20 years of his life to helping others has received an honorary degree from his alma mater, the University of Bristol.

Gordon Richardson was paralysed from the chest down by polio as a child.

He showed a flair for finance from a young age, buying his first shares aged nine – they were bought in his grandmother’s name and he owns them to this day – and went on to complete an Economics and Accounting degree at the University of Bristol.

Now 68, he spent 30 successful years in the finance sector, before retiring age 50 having qualified as a chartered accountant and financial advisor. Since then, he has spent the past two decades helping disabled people in Bristol and further afield.

Mr Richardson received his honorary degree in front of 300 fellow Bristol graduates.

He co-founded the Fishpondsbased Vassall Centre Trust (VCT), which developed the 50,000 sq ft building into one of the first fully accessible workplaces in the UK.

The building was used by charities for disabled people and run by disabled trustees, employees and volunteers. It was later sold to a private owner who continues to run it in the same vein.

The trust’s success was recognised with a prestigious Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2004. Since leaving the trust in 2014, he has become co-chair of the Bristol Disability Equality Forum, which advises the council on disability rights, lobbies them for change and advocates for disabled people.

He was also the first disabled trustee of Designability, which creates products to help disabled people.

More recently he has been elected to the national board of the British Polio Fellowship, the leading support group for polio survivors, and last month was made chair of the charity.

In the same month he was appointed as one of the new Disability Equality Commissioners, a group of disability experts who advise the Bristol Mayor on issues in their area of expertise. He also uses his finance skills as Treasurer of the Bristol Walking Alliance, Bristol West Diabetes Support Network and the regional arm of the British Polio Fellowship.

Mr Richardson also spent 15 years as a pre-school governor and was the representative for nursery schools on the Bristol Schools’ Forum, for which he received a commendation from the Lord Mayor in 2016.

“I got so much out of society, all the medical support over the years and everything else, it was time to put something back,” said Mr Richardson, who lives in Westbury-on-Trym.

“And that was my skill, giving a voice to people who didn’t get the same education as me, people who need a helping hand.

“It’s a tremendous honour to get an honorary degree from your own University. I know a lot of it’s on the back of work that my colleagues have done and I hope they will enjoy it with me.”

Mr Richardson was nominated by staff at the University of Bristol’s Norah Fry Centre for Disability Studies, “in recognition of his significant work on behalf of Bristol’s disabled community to improve quality of life and to ensure due consideration is given to their needs”.

Professor Pauline Heslop, the head of the centre, said: “Gordon’s innovative approach to campaigning and advocating for disabled people is demonstrated in his work over the past 20 years. Many people in Bristol and beyond, both disabled and nondisabled, will have benefitted from this, often without knowing.”