Disability heritage guide: Janet Frame House

Janet Frame (1924-2004) is one of New Zealand’s most internationally renowned authors, writing novels, short stories, poetry and children’s fiction. From the age of six until the end of secondary school, Janet lived at 56 Eden Street in Oamaru with her family.

Much of her work explored her childhood and psychiatric hospitalisation as an adult from a fictional perspective. Famously, she avoided a lobotomy after she published The Lagoon while a patient at Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. While Janet was navigating mental ill health, she was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and went in and out of psychiatric hospitals for eight years, where she was treated with electroconvulsive therapy and insulin.

Poet and writer, Lavi Small, lives in Oamaru and is currently a social work student. We asked her about her connection with Janet Frame and her thoughts on the access.

Tell us about your interest in Janet Frame.

I love how her writing is all about finding wonder everywhere, in the everyday as well as in pain and struggle. She had a remarkable ability to sort of translate resilience into prose (I don't know if that makes any sense! But I'm sure IYKYK) and I think her work speaks to a lot of different people because of that. I also love the fluidity of her writing, while we were making this video we were discussing whether there are any Te Reo translations of her work and I don't think there are. That would be something really cool to see one day!

Ōamaru is very proud of Janet Frame - apparently everyone here is on a first name basis with her! She seems to bring together all the writers in our community - we had a celebration for her birthday a couple of years ago and it was definitely the place to be if you live here and write! I hadn't even read much of her work before that, and had only recently moved here, but I definitely felt compelled to after that.

I think I also feel a particular respect, or maybe awe, for Janet because of the horrible injustice she experienced with misdiagnosis. This wasn't something we talked about in the video but I do think it is an important part of her history and what makes the resilience I commented on in her work all the more palpable. I also think, sadly, misdiagnosis is something a number of people in the disability community have experienced. For those who don't know, Janet Frame spent eight years in a psychiatric unit as the result of having been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. She underwent a huge number of treatments such as electric shock 'therapy' and was scheduled to have a lobotomy. This was cancelled at the very last minute as a result of the announcement her first book The Lagoon and Other Stories had won a national literary prize. It was later confirmed that she had never had schizophrenia.

Tell us about the accessibility at Janet Frame House.

To be honest I was expecting it to be slightly more accessible before I got there! Firstly, it is located up a hill I wouldn't be able to manage as a manual wheelchair user (but I knew that much!). There are no mobility parks outside and the curb is a very big step up, which meant I needed help to get up on to the footpath. There is a sign outside, but it is not very big or bold, so you will want to know what you are looking for! It is in a nice quiet residential area, so no loud traffic sounds or anything nearby. There is a fairly big step down on to the property, then a path and then two more very tall steps up to the front door. I used my crutches to climb the steps, but needed someone to help lift my legs up for me! You would need someone very strong to assist if you were going up in a wheelchair!

The main path up to the front door is however nice and wide and fairly flat. All the doors inside were more than wide enough for me to get through easily with wheels and the house is all one level. There are however lots of thick rugs that some people might find challenging to navigate - all of the rugs are brightly coloured which makes them easier to spot. I would also be aware that there is no bathroom (accessible or otherwise) for use on site. Everything is set up for the timeframe when Janet Frame lived there, so there are no big fluorescent lights, but it is well lit.

One thing to note is that it is very cold inside! We did visit in winter when it is not usually open, but it was a very warm day for Ōamaru (14c outside!) and I could still see my breath inside the whole time we were there!

What worked well?

The doorways were nice and wide, so no skinned knuckles and the house is all one level. Once inside the house it was reasonably accessible to me (and pretty cool!) - I even commented that you can roll under the sink in the bathroom (though the bathroom is just for show, old plumbing!)!

What improvements can be made?

It would be great to have two ramps - one to go over the step on to the property and the other up into the house. A mobility park with flattened curb would be great too!

You are a poet and writer yourself - what do you write about?

I used to be a chef and so my work often revolves around food. However, more often than not my writing isn't really about food. It is about the things that food means to us, what it symbolises or simply a way of bringing people into conversation. Food is such a fascinating mechanism for discussion because it is something we are all connected to. It is both a biological necessity and a cultural one - as a result it is inherently political and so can act as a gateway to discussing social justice issues. At least, that's what my writing is generally attempting.

I also have a particular fascination with words and the history of them and ways we use them, so there's often quite a bit of untangling of meaning and interpretation in my work.

Accessibility notes

Steps
There are a couple of large concrete steps going from the road to the front yard, and another large concrete step step to get into the house. Lavi used crutches and a supporting person to get into the house and independently used a wheelchair to navigate the rest of the inside of the house. There is a 15cm high concrete step with a hand rail from the kitchen to the backyard.

Doorway widths
The front entrance's green door is 80cm on one side, and every other doorway is 78cm. The back gate is 80cm wide.

Toilet
There is no toilet available for visitor use.

This mahi is made possible by Stout Trust, proudly managed by Perpetual Guardian Ltd.