14 Facts About Joey Deacon

Joseph John Deacon was a British author and television personality.

Joey Deacon was born with severe cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that left him with neuromuscular spasticity that particularly affected his arms and legs.

Joey Deacon's condition resulted in significant muscular tonus, a tendency for muscular flexion of arms and extension of legs.

Joey Deacon's speech was unintelligible to most, bar his closest friends.

Joey Deacon was institutionalised as a child and later made shoes in sheltered accommodation.

However, with the help of his friends Ernie Roberts, Tom Blackburn and Michael Sangster, Joey Deacon was able to write an autobiography, titled Tongue Tied, which was published by the charity Mencap as part of their Subnormality in the Seventies series.

Always believing him to be mentally normal and intelligent, his mother would ask him to count the motor cars passing at the front of their house, to which Joey Deacon would respond by blinking for each car that passed.

Joey Deacon had some surgical operations on his legs at St Childe's Hospital when he was around four, but these were not successful.

At six, his mother died of tuberculosis and Joey Deacon was raised by his grandmother.

Joey Deacon remained in close contact with his father until his father's death.

In 1970, Joey Deacon began to write his autobiography with three friends.

Joey Deacon wanted to write a work of fiction: a novel about a disabled man who was desperate to learn to walk so that he could walk up the aisle and marry his girlfriend.

In 1981, during the last year of his life, Joey Deacon was featured on the children's television magazine programme Blue Peter for the International Year of the Disabled.

Joey Deacon was presented as an example of a person who had achieved a lot in spite of his disabilities.