When television host Paul Henry created a national controversy late last year after making ill-judged comments about the supposed intellectual disability of popular Scottish singing star Susan Boyle, at least one veteran of the disability sector had some reason to feel a measure of personal satisfaction.

While former IHC chief J B Munro had less time than most for Mr Henry's on-air meditations, he at least could take solace remembering a time when such commentary might barely have aroused a ripple of public reaction.

For that significant shift in cultural feeling - registered over the space of just one generation - Mr Munro could also take a significant measure of professional credit.

Disability pioneer

His name remains virtually synonymous in this country with the care of individuals with disabilities. And the half-dozen years that have elapsed since he formally stepped down from his position atop of IHC New Zealand have not dampened his passion an iota.

Still a leader

Only a day after he formally quit the IHC payroll after 32 years of service, Mr Munro assumed the presidency of the Rotary Club in Mosgiel, ahead of accepting the chairmanship of Abbyfield NZ, an organisation dedicated to providing accommodation for senior citizens.  The last of those has since increased its number of residences threefold.  At the same time he has remained regionally active with the IHC as a local manager.  Eighteen months ago, as well, he accepted an invitation to chair the Mosgiel Abilities Centre, which offers daily support for some 900 people, mostly older citizens, with disabilities.

International interests

These days the Southland-based eminence keeps what he calls "a fatherly eye on what's going on" in respect of the IHC at a national level - and he likes what he sees.  Indeed, he adds, in some respects his current activities are a continuation rather than a departure from the IHC-related work of his later years, when his attention increasingly became internationalised.  This remains evident in his longstanding involvement with what became known as Inclusion International, for which he has served as a regional coordinator in the Asia-Pacific region.  All going well, Mr Munro expects to attend that organisation's 50th anniversary gathering in Berlin.

Personal experience

But Mr Munro's current activities and the energy the 84 year old still musters are only as interesting as the impressive details of his own life story. Born to an unmarried teenage mother in Southland in 1936, he contracted polio at an early age.  The condition affected his left leg, requiring a calliper to aid his walking, which he did not do until he was three, before being farmed out to the foster family that later adopted him.  He has spoken about the experience of having to be bathed six times a day, first in cold water and then hot, as part of a folk remedy for the condition.  Later in his childhood he underwent a number of operations to help straighten his leg, procedures that saw him spend 10 months in hospital.  That experience, as well as that of having a wheelchair-bound sibling who suffered from Buerger's disease, was to positively usher him into the disability sector, first with the Crippled Children's Society and later through his work with children with disabilities at the YMCA, which was to eventually nudge him to successfully seek an administrative position with IHC Southland.

New appointment

In 1977, fresh from politics, he was appointed national director of the IHC, at the time an operation with an annual operating budget of $8 million and some 800 staff, numbers that would eventually grow to $120 million and 3500 respectively.

A political voice

It was in this role that he developed a lifelong passion for establishing community-based residential facilities for the disabled rather than the common practice of shunting individuals off to Dickensian institutions - out of sight, out of mind ... much the same mindset held in respect of keeping children with disabilities far from the educational mainstream. Given the political nature of the work, it was perhaps not surprising that a stint in national politics beckoned in 1972, when he successfully contested the old Invercargill seat.  During his one term as a Labour Party MP, Mr Munro helped draft and introduce the landmark 1975 Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act, whose effects would shape disability welfare for decades afterwards (not least in Parliament itself, which at the time had no wheelchair access).

Parent Power

Invited to cast an eye back on the achievements during this period, Mr Munro is perhaps as enthusiastic about the changing attitudes he helped usher in as the actual growth figures for the 61 year old non-government organisation he led.  In this respect, he mentions the earliest efforts that were made at facilitating independent groupings of parents of children with disabilities - most notably autism and Down syndrome - an approach that not only created immediate assistance for affected families, but gave rise to what for lack of a better phrase might be called ‘parent power'. "That was something that made the Ministries of Health and Education realise they needed to be a lot more receptive to these families and their situations, which was obviously a very good thing," he recalls with obvious satisfaction.  Last year's Paul Henry episode suggested how deeply such attitudes have changed.

"You can make it out"

In November, the television host engendered controversy after he referred to Scottish singer Susan Boyle, runner-up in the show Britain's Got Talent, as "retarded". Mr Henry had been reading on air from a magazine article that described how the singer was "starved of oxygen" at birth and consequently suffered an intellectual disability.
He chuckled - depending on one's point of view, either inconsequentially or unkindly - before editorialising about "the really interesting revelation" that his subject was "in fact retarded ... and if you look at her carefully, you can make it out". The IHC immediately denounced the remark - it could hardly have done otherwise - but perhaps what was more significant was the volcanic condemnation of the host from virtually every cultural quarter, an outpouring in respect of the R-word that might have been unimaginable in the early days of Mr Munro's work.

Labels are for jam jars

"That's true," Munro agrees. "And it was rather an ignorant statement, I thought, because she's not anyway."  Was he heartened by the passionate response?  "I don't know if I'd say heartened, but I was pleased it happened - these things needed to be said." "He deserved all the criticism that came along."  Why?  "Because labels are for jam jars, not people."

Focus on individuals

Did he think there could ever be a danger that issues of language, which the Boyle controversy was largely about, could assume more of a focus than the actual individuals themselves? Could media-driven affairs such as these ultimately deflect attention from the less glamorous but more vital work of fundraising and caring for real people?

Lifetime's perspective

How does he see these aspects of the disability sector in 2010? "It's an interesting question," Mr Munro replies evenly, "In the fundraising we used to have some horrendous debates about the way in which we portrayed people in order to collect a dollar - you know, did you put a little handicapped girl in the picture." "But I think we grew out of that. I hope we have. So, you know, I think we're in very good shape, actually."

Strength to strength

The IHC has not been without its own challenges in recent times, including the case of former IHC fundraiser, Lynn Fiebig, who was jailed this year after admitting to ripping off nearly $600,000 in donations - a crime described by the presiding judge at her trial as a "devastating blow" for one of the country's most respected support agencies.
Nevertheless, the IHC "has gone from strength to strength", Mr Munro believes.  "I'm very proud of the way in which it's carried on," he says of the past few years, while acknowledging that, like any national venture, IHC has had "its ups and downs" along the way.  And as for J B Munro himself?  "It's always a wrench when you leave somewhere and can only hope that things go well," he admits, "so it's great to see IHC flourishing like never before."

Hear an interview with J B, by DPA's Wendi Wicks, at http://www.gwcreative.co.nz/