“That took you a long time Richard!”
“Ah! But I got you a long flat white and myself another double espresso! The Maldives?”
“Hadn’t realised how difficult it is to get to one’s accommodation! We had booked a hotel complex run by an Italian company, because we knew their food would be first rate, compared with some of the British run ones. Everyone flies into Malé; after our ten-and-a-half hour flight from Heathrow we then had a three hour uncomfortable boat ride out to the atoll where we were staying.
The rain-flattened sea
Great accommodation but the weather was 50:50. Some lovely warm days and then a real tropical thunderstorm would appear ….”
“Like the one I told you about that Celina and I experienced in Rio in February 2019?”
“Absolutely! Wet wipe-out! I’ll tell you what, though, the snorkelling is at another level, a stunning underwater world.
Interaction with the locals is much encouraged but it was somewhat uncomfortable as there’s a visible gap in affluence! We were spending a huge amount of money to get there for our two weeks and that probably equated to the Maldivian annual income. (Note 1)”
We chatted on for another half an hour and then I said I should say hello to Anna. When I was last in The Hope Café Libby, Susie’s aunt, had suggested I introduce myself to her (See PC 358) as she’d become quite a regular since Duncan’s renovations have made it easier for wheelchair users to access the café. Anna had an accident tombstoning and is now paralysed from the waist downwards. Sure enough she’s working on her notebook over in a corner.
My only real experience of interacting with someone who was confined to a wheelchair was at some stand-up drinks party for a military charity book launch a decade or so ago. Three men out of a hundred able-bodied individuals were in chairs. I wasn’t sure how one talked to someone whose head was about the same level as one’s lower abdomen. Initially I bent down, then went down on my haunches and when that got too much, stood up with a stiff back. Anna fortunately was sitting at a table.
I walked over, said I hoped I wasn’t interrupting, and introduced myself.
“Funny to find you in here today as wheelchair users featured in two Times’ articles recently.”
“I saw the one about Sophie Morgan and her difficulties in getting a wheelchair which really suited her needs and how the charity Whizz Kids, of which she is an ambassador, has been doing great work with young wheelchair users. I know about them but I haven’t thought whether I could help.”
“I remember Sophie highlighting the public perception that users don’t want to be in their wheelchair. Is that right?”
“Oh! God! Absolutely! I just accept that I am in mine and have to make the most of my life. But apart from being physically disabled, I am me, capable, competent, intelligent and ambitious; I need more resources than able-bodied people to live but that’s it! People initially simply see the wheelchair ……!”
“You know that in the first three months of this year 342,000 working-age disabled people were unemployed, some 6.2% of the workforce compared with 3.4% for those who are not disabled. Such a waste. Is one major factor accessibility?”
“Society can be apathetic about its disabled people, and that’s a choice: ‘people can make things accessible if they want to, they can make the cost of living for disabled people more affordable …. if they want to.’ What was the other article you mentioned?”
“Spinal Column in the Times’ Saturday magazine. Melanie Reid is a tetraplegic after breaking her neck and back in a riding accident in 2010.”
“Ah! I’ve heard the name but don’t read her column. What was her piece about this week?
“How, since 2019, the Blue Badge parking scheme, ‘once purely the preserve of those receiving the mobility component of disability allowance, was opened to applicants with invisible disabilities such as autism, learning disability, dementia or mental illness’ and that’s resulted in those completely dependent on getting a parking space like her are often finding it impossible. That true, Anna?”
“Too often ……..”
“Melanie doesn’t mince her words. ‘My pet hate is the adoption of those weasel words about self-identifying as disabled. They’re unforgiveable. The idea that disability is an identity, a whim, a choice, for the able-bodied to pick is utterly offensive to those of us who live with the reality.’”
“I like this woman! Must start reading her column. Listen, I need to finish a script for a marketing pamphlet …… nice to meet you!” (Note 2)
I sit on my own and think about this week’s postcard. Checking my emails, I find one from Duncan about my triptych. I reply, telling him it should be completed by Christmas.
I think I am quite observant and the other day I noticed that the council had attached a piece of printed plastic to a lamppost in our street; a ‘flier’ of some description. Curious to see if this was notification of some planning application on which one could comment, I stopped and read it.
Seemed a wonderful example of irony; the notice told me it was extending the area of the city where ‘fly posting’ was prohibited.
There’s always debate about whether you should use ‘me’ or ‘I’ as in a recent Times headline “Are you as filthy as me?” – the alternative preferred by The King James bible “Are you as filthy as I?” sounds to me awkward. Rose Wild in her Feedback wrote that Kevin Lowe had got in touch. “I am reminded of the old story of St Peter hearing a knock on his pearly gates and calling out: “Who’s there?” “It is I.” said a voice, to which St Peter replied :“Not another bloody English teacher!”
Hey! Ho!
Richard 15th December 2023
Hove
Note 1 Actually annual income per capita is $16.5k
Note 2 Yesterday in a minor reshuffle of government ministers, it was announced that there would no longer be a minister with specific responsibilities for Disabled People. Various charities who work in this sector cried ‘foul’ and said it was appalling and a retrograde step. Absolutely!
postcards 