Wanted: representations of disability in 20th century British literature

A friend of mine and fellow disabled activist told me today that she was thinking of doing a PhD on representations of disability in 20th century British literature (she is currently doing an MA in 20th century British history). As a starting point she is interested in representations of people who came back disabled from World War I and II, but also in anything since then, and particularly in how literary representations of disability changed in response to changing social and political conceptualisations of disability.

She's particularly interested in physical impairments rather than mental, and not necessarily just in fiction but also in stuff like autobiographies, poetry, etc. Also while it's primarily British and 20th century stuff she's interested in, stuff that's older or not British might still be of interest (and i'd also be interested in it for myself!)

I thought that, out of the probably thousands of books i've read, i would be able to think of at least a few representations of disability, but, oddly, i'm really struggling to find any that are British - quite a few American (particularly African-American) novels i've read have physically impaired minor characters (minor characters just as much of interest as main characters), but, going through my bookshelf of novels, the only British one i can come up with is Samad Miah Iqbal from Zadie Smith's White Teeth, who has a paralysed arm from fighting in WWII (and that was published in 2000, tho as it was probably written, and certainly set, in the 20th century, i guess it probably counts)... all the rest are US (although there probably are some i'm not remembering in some of the many Indian and Latin American magical realist novels i read in the phase i went through of that... still not British, tho)...

As for autobiographies, i know that UK disabled visual artist Alison Lapper has written one, tho i haven't read it, and i've already mentioned to her Ruben Gallego's White On Black, which, tho it's Russian, i think would fit in as a disabled author's 20th century memoir as literature...

Can anyone think of any more? I know there are a few literature lovers on my blogroll...

edit: I posted a thread here, and got a few replies, none of which i'd previously heard of... tho i now think i might have seen the name "Precious Bane" mentioned somewhere, or at least it has a familiar ring to it...

also, anyone got any idea why mental impairments seem to be a much more popular topic for being a main theme of novels than physical ones?