‘Both heart-rending and gorgeous. He teaches us humanity’ MIRIAM MARGOLYES

‘Thank you, Joey, for getting your dad off his arse to write this book’ HUGH BONNEVILLE

‘A beautiful book – powerful, persuasive, illuminating, moving’ GYLES BRANDRETH

‘Full of pain and joy, concern and celebration’ SIMON RUSSELL BEALE

‘A powerful, multi-faceted, myth-busting account’ SIMON JARRETT

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For much of history, people with learning disabilities have been regarded as unworthy of interest – often seen as a threat to the social order and sometimes dismissed as barely human. While recent years have seen an improvement, learning-disabled people are still treated as fundamentally different.

Beautiful Lives is a personal and pragmatic account, told through the eyes of a father whose son has severe learning disabilities. From early civilisation to the chilling realities of twentieth-century eugenics, this powerful book uncovers a startling and rarely told history – one deeply embedded in the challenges still faced today.

Unwin shapes this history into a powerful story of love, lived experience and the long struggle for a better future.