I just got the bus back from this afternoon’s screening in Charlton. I’m pleased to say it went very well, and with about six people in attendance, apparently had one of the biggest audiences of this years screenings. Yet the fact remains that I wouldn’t have been able to get onto the bus, there or back, had it not been for the very events depicted in Then Barbara Met Alan. Without the establishment of the Direct Action Network and the disability rights movement, I simply would not be living the life I now lead. Busses would still be inaccessible, and most public places would still be totally out of bounds for people like me. That’s why it was so imperative for me to have the film screened in public. It may have only been a small screening in a quiet corner of south London, but in a way it was also a celebration of how far disability rights have come over the last thirty years, as well as a commemoration of how we got here. And by the same token, it was an affirmation of how far we still have yet to go: after all, if the fight was over and every (physical or metaphorical) flight of stairs had been turned into a ramp, then we wouldn’t still need to screen films like Then Barbara Met Alan.