Site access optionsWho was Mike Devenney?
- Guardian Obituary
- Excerpt from the Clare Association Annual
- Employers' Forum on Disability
- The Globe (Barclays Bank)
- Family Tribute to Mike Devenney
Mike Devenney
I’d like to write on behalf of all of Mike’s family and friends from Scotland. It could perhaps be called An Ode to Dr Devenney. I know he would just love that.
Mike was a great son, brother, uncle and friend to all that knew him. He came from Thurso, a small town in the very north of Scotland and has shown us all what is possible in life.
The sadness that we feel about his death is immeasurable. One of the greatest influences in his early life was Anne Mathams his head teacher at Westerlea 
School in Edinburgh, who always recognised his fine intelligence even before he could speak at all. There could be nothing finer to establish in Mike’s memory than an educational scholarship as he felt that education was the key to opportunity.
His mum and dad always had to fight to procure his 1st class education; an education that he embraced at every level.
It was not, however, just Mike’s intellectual strength that carried him through life but his warmth, stability and strength of character. When asked by his careers officer at high school, what he would like to be when he left school, he confidently said “ A fireman”. Slightly baffled and taken aback the careers officer pointed out that this would not be a possible career path. Mike simply said: “Why not, anything is possible given the right resources.”
This insistence on the fact that anything is possible, combined with a fair degree of charming cheek, made Mike a fine ambassador for equality and throughout his life he supported and fought for people both as a friend and a professional.
Mike firmly believed that the way to tackle issues of inequality and the representation of disabled people was from the inside and he used every tool in the book. He worked in politics, the media, business and as an academic. He has made it all too easy for us to be so proud of him with such a myriad of accomplishments.
At 27 he was appointed the youngest ever Chair of a Social Services Committee in the UK and became Head of Disability Policy and Services for the London Borough of Ealing in 1988. For the next six years he worked tirelessly for his ward as a Labour Councillor for Islington and worked with many of today’s senior labour 
politicians.
His work with the BBC as an assistant producer and director graced the BBC with some of its finest programmes for the Disability Programmes Unit; Schools Television; Continuing Education and the Community Programmes Unit. His talents were rewarded in 1996 when he won the first British Diversity Gold Award in 1996 for Best Awareness raising video.
His work with his own consultancy, Changing Images, made training videos for some of the largest companies in the UK. It must be noted that Mike was no wallflower and insisted in starring in many of his own productions.
He even once wrote to the Newcastle based comic magazine Viz, which is cherished for their dig at every sector of society. He offered to write a new comic strip that would sit comfortably alongside The Fat Slags and Buster Gonads. His central character was called Dribbling Dan the Spastic Man. They felt it was in poor taste. Clearly they had not been on one of his courses.
Mike’s aim both through his political and academic work was to incorporate disability into the mainstream so it would be considered in the same way as race or gender. His efforts were well recognised and he served as a Disability Rights Commissioner from 2000 to 2004 and was an Associate Member of the Employers Forum on Disability.
Mike was such a confident and relaxed individual that he put everyone at ease. He was a natural performer who became well known on the lecturing circuit for his art of public speaking.
At the University of Stirling in 2003 he delivered a morning lecture to a class full of hung over 1st years. The lecture was compulsory. In the afternoon he was giving another talk which was open to all. The lecture theatre was packed out, word having got around that there was a new and uniquely informative stand up comic in town.
As his facilitator it was truly an honour to be part of what he referred to as his “double act.” During each and every lecture he delivered you could simply feel his energy and enthusiasm and hear the laughter of his audience as it bounced off the walls. I never failed to leave a lecture exhilarated and slightly bemused as to how Mike with his speech impairment could be such a talented public speaker. He was a larger than life character.
Mike talked openly about his own disability and always said that his cerebral palsy was part of his character. He loved that children naively asked their parents on the bus “Why does he speak funny mummy” and whilst a mortified parent would apologise for their child’s alleged rudeness he would smile and put everyone at ease.
Mike along with other colleagues worked hard to change the way we view disability and to make people realise that it was the environment that we live within that required changing not the disabled individual or impairment.
His charm, wit and constant repartee amazed us all. He was a diplomat and a gentleman in the truest sense of the word. I always joked that you could really take him anywhere!
I am perhaps the most privileged in the family as I had the chance to work with Mike on and off for many years. We travelled to Holland, New Zealand, Australia and Thailand and had more than one or two adventures and many late nights. I just loved how he laughed like a dray.
Mike was inspirational, loved life and the people that met and knew him, loved him. Many years ago when we worked together in Islington Mike said that the one thing that he wanted before he died was to be famous. Not rich, just famous and to have his obituary in The Guardian.
This turns out to be one of many dreams that Mike had for himself, by virtue of his charismatic brillance, that has come true and I hope you will all read his obituory which is on this site with a smile.
For Mike there could be no truer saying than the old Italian adage – better to live one day as a tiger than 100 as a sheep.
Mike was one of the warmest, charming funny men I will ever know. He lived each and every day with passion, intelligence and humour and he taught us all to celebrate diversity. He will be deeply, deeply missed. His person will be the centre of many discussions around many tables throughout the world and oh, how he would have loved that...
Celine Sinclair (adapted from the funeral valediction at Clare College, Cambridge)
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