CHILDHOOD

Given my fathers' enthusiasm for the automobile, it was inevitable that I would love cars although no one could have foreseen how it would lead to my potential being unlocked through being able to operate an adapted typewriter with my feet. When I was born we lived next door to the garage that my father owned. His emporium sold fuel and second hand cars. This was long before the days of self- service and so my mum had to dispense petrol when she wasn't caring for me while my father toiled in the workshop on whatever vehicle his ramp had hoisted high into the rafters. When I was a young child my play-pens were the cars lined up for sale on the forecourt. I used to twirl the steering wheels and drive them for miles in my imagination. By the time I was 3 years old, I knew the make and model of every vehicle which drove by on the main road infront of our home. Therefore it was fantastic when my parents bought me something that I could drive myself - a pedal car designed to look like a Lotus Formula 1 racer. My mum cautioned me to keep my feet away from the pedals as she pushed me around the back yard. One day I insisted on having a ride in my car straight after lunch. All too soon (in my opinion) my mum brought the "race" to a halt as she had to do the washing up. She parked me still seated in the Lotus by the back door. She must have been gone 10 minutes but to a stationary 3 year old that is a lifetime. Soon I was tentatively prodding one of the pedals. To my surprise the car moved quite easily so I pressed the other one. 'Oh! You don't need me any more...' my mum exclaimed when she returned from her domestic labours to find me motoring along under my own steam. She was amazed... and I imagine also relieved at the thought of no longer having to provide me with motive power! At first my legs throbbed due to the effort exerted by my slender muscles but the liberty it gave me meant I was more than happy to persevere. Very soon my legs had strengthened and gave me no pain. I used to chase our pet cat around the yard, inspect the cars my dad had for sale or go and supervise him as he wrestled sick Minis and Morris Minors back to health. The oily smell of a workshop still gives me a warm comfortable feeling. All this activity gave my legs a daily workout which was to prove invaluable later in life. To put it mildly, I was pretty reluctant to leave this automotive wonderland to go to school but as my initial tears and protestations were ignored I attended various Special Schools for disabled children until I was 16. I was a late developer speech wise but even though she didn't get much response from me for many months my mum purchased quite a large library of Ladybird books which she read to me daily. My favourite was 'Tootles the Taxi'- what else could it be????? Therefore when I went to school I was fairly well advanced and I was able to read books to my teachers. Writing was more difficult as I was unable to hold a pencil. Instead words were celotaped to wooden blocks and my challenge was to move them around the desk so that they made sentences. The door to expressing myself fully was opened when the first Possum typewriter arrived at the school - I was 7 years old. It enabled me to type via a hand-held joystick which controlled lights that scanned across a large board of letters. I was now able to participate fully in lessons. Do you like my shirt in the above photo? This was the era of "Flower Power"!!!!!! A few years later my needs were re-assessed by a representative of Possum after they had developed a wider range of input devices. By this time my dad had retired and we had moved to a small housing estate down the road from the garage. I had outgrown the Lotus but a neighbour had passed on her sons' pedal powered go-kart which I used until I was about 10. Thus when the assessment took place I was still competing in the "Monaco Grand Prix" on the paving stones which surrounded our new home and it was clear to the young lady who came to visit that my legs were better developed than my arms. Her recommendation was that I should replace the joystick with a footswitch. In a matter of months I had upped the scanning speed of the lights to the maximum level. Operating the typewriter now became a matter of reflex and timing rather than watching the board. Soon the board had been ditched completely and I progressed to controlling the typewriter via 2 footswitches on which I responded to beeps which described a multi-dimensional key layout that I had memorised. This was much faster. Even the British Prime Minister was impressed! By the time I was into my teens and studying for 7 CSE's one of the school governors announced that he wanted to convert a new fangled personal computer so that it could be operated by a disabled student. I was chosen as the person who would get the most benefit from such a project. The governor and I devised a system that utilised 6 footswitches. It had 4 main switches and I only had to press 2 of these to get a character (no more bleeps were required). The other 2 switches controlled "Layers" which changed the grid of characters that the main switches referenced. I used this system (plus weeks of intensive revision) to gain 6 out of 7 Grade 1 CSE's (the Special School I attended had limited resources and thus could not provide O Level courses). Following this success I went on to a Technical College which had just begun accepting disabled students. Leaving the enclosed world of Special Education was something of a culture shock. I was in awe of "Normal" people. In some respects it is similar to someone from a village moving to the city but perhaps there is more to it than that. Maybe being segregated makes disabled children feel inferior. Having been in Mainstream society for over 25 years I have long since realised that there is no such thing as a Normal person. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. But at least these insecurities spurred me on to work hard with my education; I wanted to prove myself against those "Super-human beings" outside the gates of the Special School. Although there was a unit at the College with staff dedicated to assisting the disabled students usually no one was available to ferry me and my equipment to the various lecture rooms. Therefore I took myself around the campus, ploughing through the swinging fire doors in my powered wheelchair. I felt a great sense of freedom and independence. The able-bodied students were very helpful. In each class someone wrote their notes on carbon paper so I had a copy from each lecture. After 2 years I had a couple of A levels. I then took an HNC course in Computer Studies via a 2 further years of evening classes from which I earned a Distinction.

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