Stories

We tell stories about health and human experience. Our words and pictures make connections, provoke new thinking and share lived experiences.

  • Photo story

NHS night cleaners

NHS night cleaners are often not seen and not heard by the public they serve. Through Lewis Khan’s photographs and interviews, they reveal the vital role they play in keeping our hospitals safe.

  • Book extract

Waking up in a new body

Grace Spence Green was a fourth-year medical student when a man jumped off a balcony in a shopping centre and landed on her. She recalls her first moments in the hospital as a newly disabled patient.

  • Book extract

Waking the dead

Historian Molly Conisbee reflects on how we’ve paid our respects to the dead over the centuries – from lively gatherings around open coffins to sympathetic text messages – asking how mourning rituals can create communities.

Part of Inside our books
  • Article

How the slave trade’s medical legacies persist

Micha Frazer-Carroll, uncovers the historical links between enslavement and disability to better understand her family’s complex attitudes towards healthcare.

  • Long read

Letting go of IVF

Fertility treatment is physically and emotionally arduous, with no guarantees. Jessa Fairbrother describes her decision not to have IVF and the complexity of living with that choice.

Exploring disability

Read about disability, culture and lived experience in this selection from the Stories archive.

  • Serial

The Joy of Being Disabled

Five stories from people who are proud and happy to be disabled, sharing the joy of dance, fashion, architecture, sex and parenting.

  • Serial

Art, activism and access

Jamie Hale explores the places where accessibility and creativity collide.

  • Photo story

Living with ME

Nine people with ME reveal their unremitting struggles as they negotiate life with their illness, including their battles to be believed, diagnosed and supported.

  • Article

Rejecting shame and a decade of change

Jess Thom spent years trying to ignore and suppress the tics of Tourette’s syndrome. Read what happened when she decided to celebrate them instead.

Part of Different voices
  • Article

Abandoning daydreams of a life without diabetes

After years of longing for a cure for her type 1 diabetes, Daisy Watson Shaw, partly due to medical advances in managing the condition, has reached a state of acceptance. Her wishes now are for greater understanding.

  • Article

How my wheelchair changed my life

A young woman diagnosed with a disabling condition found her world shrank without the mobility aids she needed to get outside. Finally facing the stigma around using a wheelchair transformed her everyday life.

Part of Being patient
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Comics

Explore new perspectives on bodies, brains and health with our guest comic artists.

Books

We publish thought-provoking books exploring health and human experiences.

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  • Article

Pregnancy, parenting, and embracing blindness

Amy Kavanagh, who is blind, shares the delight she feels in her young, sighted son, and her growing acceptance of the ways his experiences will differ from hers.

Part of The Joy of Being Disabled
  • Article

Disability, desire, and pleasure unlocked

Roxy Murray dives into the raw, intimate truths of sex and pleasure as a disabled person, sharing an unapologetic and explicit journey through her frustrations and desires.

Part of The Joy of Being Disabled
  • Short film

Exploring Deaf space at London College of Fashion

In this British Sign Language (BSL) film, activist and architectural designer Christopher Laing outlines the five principles of Deaf space and shares his thoughts on identity and inclusive design.

Part of The Joy of Being Disabled
  • Article

Fashion, identity, and the need for community

Sinéad Burke’s love of fashion has driven her to campaign for change and, ultimately, establish a consultancy that aims to transform the way the industry includes and represents Disabled people.

Part of The Joy of Being Disabled
  • Article

Ballet, beauty, and the joy of wheelchair dance

Since childhood, Kate Stanforth has danced whenever and wherever she could. The only difference now is her wheelchair.

Part of The Joy of Being Disabled
  • Article

What are zines doing in a museum

On the face of it, zines and museums are not a good fit, but Lea Cooper argues, they have a lot to offer each other.

Part of Zines at Wellcome Collection
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