Andrew Hubbard present work

I work in two areas, both are based on building confidence and learning for Disabled students.

I am a part time tutor in the Adult Education Department of my university in Swansea South Wales.

I am self employed and deliver training courses on Disability Equality and Diversity.

My work in University is as a tutor in Creative Writing and performing arts. I run a group of disabled students called ‘Creating Ourselves’, I know that we can all write a better life narrative.  Creative Writing texts: Andrew Hubbard and Debra Llewelyn.

Many of the students in my classes have not had a traditional education and are gaining their first taste of confidence and independence, finding a voice and sharing experiences in a creative methodology. Theatre Forum Techniques are employed to give the perspective of the ‘other person’; writing dialogues for performance pieces based on the stereotypes and assumptions about disabled people’s lives.

The Libertine.

As a blind actor Andrew Hubbard was asked to play a small cameo role in a new film on location in Wales. A secret excitement ran through the crowds of extras as we drank coffee in a freezing cold marquee in the early morning.The security was tight and the star remained a mystery until the last minute in make - up and the wig departnmet when I was told, in a loud whisper, the star of the film ‘Libertine’ was Jonny Depp.

At lunch I sat in a trailer with Johnny Depp and John Malcovich eating very good welsh black beef.

South Wales Coalfield

The largest coal field in the UK.  2,600 square kilometeres.

Population in 1850 was only 1,000.

Population in 1924 was 167,000

First pit sunk in 1812, Walter Coffin in Dinas.

English and some Scottish Lords, example Lord Bute, developed the mine field and the railways. Lord Bute wanted coal to be easily transported to Cardiff where he owned most of the docks.

The mass influx of immigrants during this period were almost totally English and Welsh.  the most notable exception being an immigrant nationality from outside the United Kingdom, the Italians. In the late 19th century a group of Italian immigrants, originally from the northern area of Italy, centred around the town of Bardi, were forced out of London by an over-saturation of the market. These immigrants set up a network of cafés, ice cream parlours and  fish & chip shops throughout South Wales and these businesses became iconic landmarks in the villages they served and they and subsequent generations became Welsh Italians. Particular to the Rhondda, the shops ran by the Italian immigrants, were know as 'Bracchis', believed to have been named after Angelo Bracchi who opened the first café in the Rhondda in the early 1890s. By the early 21st century several of the original Bracchis were still open for business in the Rhondda.

Young Welsh Miners

As the industrialisation of the valleys began there was little shift in the use of Welsh as a first language. Initial immigrants were Welsh and it was not

until the 1900s that English workers began settling in any great numbers, but it wasn't these new workers who changed the language; the erosion of Welsh

had already begun in the 1860s in the school classrooms. The educational philosophy accepted by schoolmasters and governmental administrators was that English was the language of scholars, and that Welsh was a barrier to moral and commercial prosperity.

In 1901 35.4% of Rhondda workers spoke only English but by 1911 this had risen to 43.1%, while Welsh speaking monoglots had dropped from 11.4% to 4.4% in the same period.

The true Anglicization of the Rhondda Valleys took place from 1900 to 1950. Improved transport and communications facilitated the spread of new cultural

influences, along with dealings with outside companies with no understanding of Welsh, trade union meetings held in English, the coming of radio, cinema

and then television and cheap English newspapers and paperback books; all were factors in the absorption of the English language.

Though the population of the Rhondda was embracing English as its first language,

Frank and Aldo Berni, brothers started the chain Berni inn in Merthyr Tydfil during the 1940s a literary and intellectual movement formed in the Rhondda

that would produce an influential group of Welsh language writers. Formed during the Second World War by Egyptologist J. Gwyn Griffiths and his German wife Käte Bosse-Griffiths, the group was known as the Cadwgan Circle (Cylch Cadwgan), and met at the Griffiths' house in Pentre. The Welsh writers who made up the movement included

Pennar Davies,

Rhydwen Williams ,

James Kitchener Davies

 and

Gareth Alban Davies.

Miners strike of the 1984 – 5 strongest in south Wales. 96% support through the strike and still 93% at end in 1985

Welsh National Anthem

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau

The Welsh National Anthem
Sometimes in English it is called ‘Land of my Fathers’

1856 Composer James James, and his Father Evan James, lyricist. They lived in a pub in Pontypridd, a town in the heart of the Rhondda valley.

Many translations are available but this one is more poetic in form.

National anthem

The land of my fathers is dear unto me,
Old land where the minstrels are honoured and free:
Its warring defenders, so gallant and brave,
For freedom their life's blood they gave

Land!,Land!,True I am to my land!
While seas secure,
this land so pure,
O may our old language endure.


Hen wlad fy nhadau was also the first Welsh-language song recorded when Madge Breese sang it on 11 March 1899, for the Gramophone Company, as part of the first recording in the Welsh language – the Gramophone Company was parent of HMV.

Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri;
Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mâd,
Dros ryddid collasant eu gwaed.

Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad.
Tra môr yn fur i'r bur hoff bau,
O bydded i'r hen iaith barhau.

Full text of Welsh National Anthem

The passion of identity with the land with the very earth and rivers was a starting point for our conversations each day. Using technology and the internet I showed video pieces of Welsh Male Voice Choirs singing the famous National Anthem.
Video links Anthem Myfanwy
A student brought in a copy of a CD from Friulia with very similar choir singing of the mountains of Northern Italian Alps region.

Learning methodology centred on the use of I.T to give a focus on culture and music of Wales.

Life Long Learning

Underlying all of my work both as a tutor in Adult Education and a trainer in Disability Equality the access to learning in various formats and languages is at the heart of my learning and self development.

The climate of Learning
I have learned that when people are involved in their own learning and feel some ownership of the process, then they learn best. Creating the atmosphere for learning to take place is the key to Life Long Learning. We all need to feel comfortable in our learning environment; more than a physical need there is the need to feel trust and confidentiality to share our learning and recognise our experiences have a value to all.

Challenges of a blind tutor.
My visit to Universita Delle LiberEta, Udine, had two founding outcomes:
I wanted to shadow the lecturers in English Conversation groups with students of different ability levels.

I wanted to be an example of best practice and access to learning demonstrating how a blind person, or disabled people in general, can tutor, facilitating learning and demonstrating the adjustments to teaching practice such as access to information in alternative formats.

Lecture on access to arts

The Social Model of Disability
I wished to demonstrate by my lectures and my own experience how differences are socially structured. This social structure was named by disabled people as The Social Model.
Social structure of difference became the theme of the week using languages and cultures to demonstrate the similarities of the bi lingual issues in Northern Italy and in Wales.

Andrew Hubbard Discovers Italy and Italian Culture

Clock tower, Liberty Square, Udine

Historically, Udine was part of the Republic of Venice, and the influence of Venetian architecture is clearly seen today on some of its most beautiful buildings. The style became known as Venetian Gothic, a mixture of styles combining Gothic, Byzantine and Moorish influences. Unique to the Venetian Gothic architectural style is the desire for lightness and grace in structure, more intricate in style than classical architecture. Notice the intricate traceries, similar to those found on the Doge’s Palace.

Udine is the capital of Friuli it is close to Venice and the Region is also known for some of the best Italian wines.

The taste of Italy

Working on a European Project called DEEP, Developing Equality Employability Project, in Bari, Puglia, Southern Italy in 2003 I decided the true learning and communication could only be through learning to speak Italian.
In order to train all participants in the project in access to employability through the use of the internet and relatively new ‘reasonable adjustments’ to policies, practice and procedures under the DDA Disability Discrimination Act, it was necessary to speak Italian to gain the understanding of culture around employment in Puglia.
The Italian language has become my passion since 2003, and my work in disability equality has forged new links with the Society of blind people in both Treviso and Udine Veneto Italy.

Unione Italiana die Ciechi e degli Ipovedenti
(Italian Union of the Blind)
Udine branch
E-mail address
uicud@uiciechi.it

The culture of blind people across Europe and their diverse learning aims and outcomes is becoming a focus for my own learning and personal development.

In the United Kingdom we have made great strides in equality for disabled people, particularly around access to education and employment. Across Europe the equality of disabled people’s experience differs greatly and reinforces my view that ‘disability’ is very much an economic phenomenon. Link to Disability Discrimination Act overview.

I had the idea of a cultural exchange between the two identities of South Wales and the North East Region of Italy known as Friulia.

Moving to Wales to study classics at Swansea University I was aware of the marked differences in the culture of England and Wales and no small part was the bilingual nature of the culture and the people.

I was successful in gaining a Grundtvig grant for visit and exchange and went to shadow a tutor (Silvio Serefini) in Universita Delle LiberEta in Udine October 2010.

In Udine there are also two languages spoken in the community, Friulian and Italian.

During the week of my Grundtvig exchange visit, in October 2010, topics of conversation in English classes were: the identity and landscapes of South Wales; local history; the industrial revolution; music – the male voice choirs of Italy and South Wales;

and the Red Lady of Paviland. Students were eager to hear of the guide dog, Glenda, who behaved badly, jumping from moving buses and shop lifting in supermarkets around South London.

Glenda, the guide dog

Andrew Hubbard MA RCSALT

Background Information

Losing my sight three months before I sat my degree final in Classics was the end of my career in education, my life was in turmoil and future education didn’t feature much at all in my plans.

After a year in the doldrums of a new identity, that of a disabled person and one I had always previously feared, I moved to London with a link guide dog companion and began a new career as a speech and language therapy student.

Qualified and working with adults who had a stammer at the City Literary Institute London I recognised the greatest barrier we have to life long learning is our denial of difference and the pressure to ‘fit in’ with society expectations.

I learned the greatest lessons of my life at this period; to sum up trying not to act like a disabled person was the most disabling factor in my self development, confidence and learning.

As adults we do not want to appear different in our learning capabilities and as so we do not identify or clarify what would make learning more accessible and therefore effective.

A good example is a hearing impaired person not telling a tutor not to stand in front of a bright light or window which makes lip reading very difficult or impossible, or a visually impaired student not telling a tutor that they need learning materials in alternative formats such as electronic or audio.

Moving to Wales to take up a position as speech and language therapist in Morriston Hospital Swansea was a proud moment in the life long learning trajectory. Working for 15 years with adults who stammer was an epiphany. Trying to fit in, be like everyone else is what prevents people from personal development.

It is trying not to stammer that continues stammering behaviour. It was pretending to be like other professionals, trapped in my identity as a therapist that prevented me from telling the world that I was not coping with my life due to my worsening eye condition. It led to my eventual loss of employment and complete breakdown.

Denial of one’s identity prevents all personal development and learning from taking place. My greatest lesson was accepting my difference and celebrating the fact I was not the same as others. I was able to talk of my access requirements and what I needed to become a happy and complete person.

In 2003 Andrew Hubbard Associates was launched and a new career as a self employed equality trainer and consultant began.

An opportunity came to work on a project with the Welsh Development Agency in a comparative study of employability in South Wales and Southern Italy.