instructions to parents on physical, verbal and social stimulation and on diet, and several further editions of the book were published. Other researchers took up his ideas with similar positive results. Parents have described how valuable his work has been to them. A great boost was given to the work of the Association by a BBC TV programme shown in the Open Door series in 1976. This showed examples of Brinkworth's work and featured his own daughter Francoise. A highly positive image of children with Down syndrome was portrayed, countering the negative picture often painted by the medical profession. A high point in the film is when one of the children says, "I like laughing, it’s like a song to me." Brinkworth ends the film with the words, "It’s not only in his chromosomes that we can call the mongol child the child with something extra." In the early 1980s, Brinkworth established a 'National Centre for Down's Syndrome' at Birmingham Polytechnic. Later, the Association moved its headquarters to London and a Director was appointed, Brinkworth becoming Education Adviser to the Association. He was awarded an MBE for his services to people with Down syndrome and their families. Brinkworth's daughter Francoise developed many skills, passing her driving test, learning to read music and play the piano, becoming fluent in French, and living independently in a flat. In 1986, Brinkworth and Francoise featured on a 30-minute video, being interviewed about their experiences and views under the title Current Perspectives on Down's Syndrome, produced by the Media Resource Centre, Darwin, Australia. Brinkworth was a staunch Roman Catholic and he, like Jerome Lejeune, was vehemently opposed to screening and abortion as a means to prevent Down syndrome. In 1980, Brinkworth was the British representative, along with Lejeune, on a Vatican working party on people with learning difficulties. He helped to draft a speech which Pope John Paul gave for the 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons. Increasing ill health forced Brinkworth's retirement from formal involvement in the Down's Syndrome Association, and he left in 1988. He died after a long period of heart disease on 29 October 1998, aged 69. This is how Brinkworth ends the piece he wrote called 'Towards a full and independent life' for a Down's Children's Association information sheet in 1982: "For those who are cast up as strangers on our shores, we owe a duty of hospitality and tolerance.