Simplicity (Poem - 2011)

I don't need jewellery or a flashy car 
I need things that are more befitting of me. 
I need endless paper and pens, 
With cups of steaming tea. 

 My wedding ring is a plain silver band, 
No diamonds or flashy brightness, 
For as long as I can hold your hand, 
I will bask in its rightness. 

I don't want lots of money or the latest thing, 
I just want time to read my books, 
And a space 
Where I can sing. 

I don't need craziness and chaos 
Or a life of screaming kids, 
I am happy when the sun goes down, 
And we are all there is. 

Our house isn't massive, 
It doesn't have to be pristine, 
It's cosy and loved and you are there, 
So I am living my dream. 




#helenswriting

Her Teddy Bear- (Poem - 2006)

I'm the teddy bear,
She has had since she was born,
I'm showing signs of aging now,
My fur matted and worn.

I'm her teddy bear,
She used to hold me at night,
I'm the one who knew instantly
When something wasn't right.

I'm her teddy bear,
I have watched her through the years,
I'm the one who's been there
To absorb her tears.

I'm her teddy bear,
You know I've seen her cry,
And it's me who listened
When she asked me why.

I'm her teddy bear,
I've seen her slam the doors,
There are days when she has come in cross,
And thrown me on the floor.

I'm her teddy bear,
She used to rub my ears,
I've been there when she's cried in pain
And is consumed by fear.

I'm her teddy bear,
You know, I witnessed their first kiss,
I'm so happy and proud of her,
She deserves moments like this.

I'll always be her teddy bear,
I still see her every day,
She's more smiles than tears now
And he makes her that way.

I'll always be her teddy bear,
Although it's him she holds at night,
Sometimes I do feel jealous
But I know it's only right.

I'll always be her teddy bear,
And now she is his wife,
I'm so glad she has brought me along,
To watch over her new life…



#helenswriting

- Written in my old room at home, the night before my wedding
April, 2006

Life Is What You Make It - Campaign Edit

From the start, things were stacked against me. I was a premature baby, born at seven months. That alone meant my chances weren’t good. I was tiny, weighing less than a bag of sugar. I fit easily in my parents’ hands, but, thanks to a series of ‘unfortunate events’, it would be a long time before either would hold their baby daughter.

Soon after my somewhat eager entrance to the world, I was taken, as ‘prem’ babies are, to the Intensive Care Unit, and placed in an incubator. I will tell you, to the best of my knowledge (through what Mum has told me) and ability, about the events that happened next, and how they would change my life…forever.

My first few days were anxious. My tiny body struggled to hold onto life and my parents could do nothing but watch.

I was looked after by a wonderful team of doctors and nurses who did everything they could for me. Somehow, I caught an infection. All I know is that this infection developed into septicemia and I now needed a blood transfusion.

My parents waited.

I came through it.

Over the next few days, I was returned to my incubator wrapped in bubble wrap, (very fetching!) and attached to a heart monitor. Mum was relieved. “She’s come through this; surely, nothing else can go wrong, can it?”

In the early hours of the following morning, Mum awoke with a jolt. Something wasn’t right. She instinctively checked me and called for the doctor. The heart monitor I had been linked to showed no problems, it was beeping reassuringly, as always, but … I wasn’t breathing!

The doctors battled to save me, “Come on, baby” one was heard to say. “Come on!”

I must have heard them, because I began to breathe again. My mum cried. I was alive!

But I had already paid the price, and my life had been changed forever.

In those minutes when I was ‘dead’, no oxygen was reaching to my brain, and the parts that control my mobility were damaged. I was nine days old.

Cerebral Palsy affects its sufferers in different ways. Some can’t talk or walk, some have learning difficulties. I know I got off lightly. But it’s been a long, hard road, getting to where I am now.

Until I was eight, I attended a ‘special school’, attached to the hospital where I was born. It was a cozy, happy, safe place. I had a lot of my friends and many of the teachers there called me “Miss Sunshine”.

It became obvious to my parents that I needed more. I could do more.

All I knew was that there were days when I would finish the work early, and I was able to sit at my desk and write stories. I loved that, but what I loved more was helping the other children. They were my friends and there we were all in the same boat. I was not different.

I had many friends that were much worse off than I was. My best friend, Eleanor, was a lovely little blonde girl, with the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen in my life. ‘Ellie’ couldn’t walk or talk. She talked to me though. We developed a code. She used her hands, eyes, and facial movements to tell me things. I’d ask her a question and she would indicate yes or no with her left and right hands. Most importantly to me though, she was Ellie. She would laugh with me … although sometimes, I knew she laughed at me! I would spend playtimes, despite my difficulties walking, pushing her around in her chair. I was nothing special, I just loved being with my friends.

The day I left to go to my local ‘mainstream’ primary school broke my heart. Saying “goodbye” to Ellie was hard, because she couldn’t tell me she understood, although her eyes said she did. I never saw Ellie again.

I started my new school a week or so before my parents’ separation.

I was the only person there with a disability, and for a long time children stared at me. I was different. One of the things I hated most was assembly. While the other children sat cross legged on the floor, I had to sit, to the side, on a chair. Crossing my legs caused me pain. It still does.

Eventually though, things settled down a bit and I found my niche. I was ‘skipping rope holder’ at play time. Part of me felt wonderful, so pleased and relieved that they wanted me to play with them, but it hurt too. I wanted to be the one skipping or playing hopscotch, and I hated being left out of ‘kiss chase’ but I understood that it was just the way things had to be. There was, there is, no choice.

At age eleven I moved over the road to the local secondary school. Again, I was the only one with a disability. I was a different ‘fish,’ and this time, in an even larger pond. This time though, I didn’t feel so alone, because a lot of my friends came with me.

P.E. lessons were always the worst. I was time keeper, or whistle blower.”Count the cricket bats as you hand them out, Helen.” It was all the teachers could do. It wasn’t their fault. I had to be included.

It wasn’t their fault either that I would frequently go to the ‘girls toilets,’ lock the door, and sob my heart out.

In time I discovered that there were things I was good at, things I could really do.

You know I had always loved writing stories, but it was around this time that Mrs Rogers, my wonderful English teacher, suggested I write a poem. I rolled my eyes, smiled, and said, “Yeah. It’ll never work!” She just smiled back at me, “We’ll see…” she replied.

Apart from writing, my participation in P.E lessons had taken a new, more exciting twist, (no, it wasn’t a tall, dark and handsome teacher in shorts), but dance lessons!

I hear you say, “Well,that should be her idea of hell, shouldn’t it?” But, it wasn’t! I became a choreographer. I would devise the dance moves and routines for my group. “Can you just move your leg up a little higher? Hold tighter! “Ok, start again!” I loved it! Teachers would come and watch and people actually wanted ME to become part of their group!

Just when things were starting to get better, my condition, as the doctors had said it would, began to get worse. I had been in a wheelchair for some of the time, for many years, but now it became a virtually permanent thing. I knew it would happen. Puberty had made my body heavier and so the strain on my already painful hips and knees became worse, and the increased pain, unbearable.

It was time for ‘The Surgery’.

I can’t even begin to tell you how terrified I was. The hospital was 150 miles away from my home in Somerset. It was ‘the best’ place for me to be. I knew it would involve at least three operations and I knew I would be away for at least three months.

My first of this set of operations took place on July 4th of 1996. A family friend called it ‘Helen’s Independence Day.’ I wanted to crawl under a stone, and die. “Just think of how wonderful it will be when it’s all over” Mum said. I smiled and said, “Oh, okay.”

During the first operation, the doctors had to break and reset my left hip so that it was in the ‘right’ position. They put a big plate in my hip to help the bones heal. The plate had to stay there. Also during that same operation, they put a screw in my left ankle, to help it take weight. The screw has to stay there too.

I don’t remember much about after the operation, just snippets, and pain.

But the pain and the events following the second operation, I will never forget.

It took place two weeks after the first, and it involved…cutting muscles.

The doctors had to cut the muscles on and behind my knees in both legs, and also cut the muscles just above my hips. Again, it was both legs.

I woke up after the operation, and immediately, to put it bluntly, wished that I’d died on the table. All I could see was a red haze, and the pain was…well, it wasn’t pain, it was agony. I can’t describe it to you so I hope you don’t mind if I don’t even try! I just know that I’ll never forget it.

Mum says I opened my eyes, looked at her, squeezed her hand and passed out again. The next few weeks are what I call my ‘lost period.’

I was attached to a morphine drip, still in pain and in and out of consciousness.

One day though, I had the strangest experience. I woke up, and I was above my body, staring down at myself. I could see my parents on either side of my bed and me, lying there, pale.

I remember clearly being able to see Alfie, a boy in the next bay that I had made friends with. He was talking to the nurses. The next thing I knew I was back inside my body, and holding my step dad’s hand.

Soon, my rehabilitation began. I had to learn to walk from scratch, the ‘right’ way.

It was hard, so hard. There was day after day of physiotherapy, exercise classes, hydrotherapy, pain, and more pain. I didn’t even get a break when I was asleep. I had to wear these long blue splints that went from top of my hips, right down to my ankles, and I had to sleep on my tummy. If I tried to change position, a nurse would come and flip me back again. They really must have had eyes in the back of their heads!

Eventually, it was time for the dreaded ‘bars’. They ran parallel to each other, and I had to walk down the middle and get to the chair at the other end. Every step was long, slow, painful, and so very frustrating. “Come on Helen, you can do it! Just one more!” I wanted to break down and cry. Frequently, I did.

It was around this time that I started to lose pieces of myself. My hair had gone grey and I had already lost weight, but then things got very bad.

I was only seeing my family at weekends. Life had to go on for them and they had jobs to do, so they had to go home during the week. When they arrived on Saturday mornings, I was awful to them. I resented them for leaving me and going back to normal. After all, I couldn’t. I was stuck. I resented them when they came, but I resented them more when they would kiss me goodbye and leave on a Sunday night.

I was a shell of the person I used to be. I hated myself. I hated the situation. I felt hopeless and pathetic. I didn’t eat very much, and when I did, there were times when I would make myself sick. I can’t explain it, but it went on for a while.

One day, Sister Judith took me into her office. “Helen, you can’t keep doing this. If you do…you’ll die. I know this is hard, but you need your strength. I don’t want to have to put you on a drip, love.”

I was still reeling. I didn’t want to die. No, I didn’t want to die, there.

Somehow, I managed to get it together, for the last ‘push’ as Judith called it. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to see my friends, my dad, my cat and, scarily, I wanted to get back to school.

It was hard but when I left hospital a month later I was walking with a frame. The operations didn’t turn out to be the ‘miracle cure’ my head and heart had hoped for but, I’m not in a wheelchair anymore! A few months later, after a lot more physiotherapy, I was able to ditch my frame with its go faster stripes, for crutches.

Life is tough, and I get frustrated. I get sad that I don’t get a rest from it, and I’ve been stuck with it, through no fault of my own, and yeah I get angry. There are days when I just crumple in my husband’s arms and cry like a baby.

People often ask me, ‘If you could wave a magic wand, would you change it?’ On days when I’m depressed, or in pain, yes of course I would! I would give anything to be able to carry my dinner across the room, go for a long walk with my husband, or run up a flight of stairs, but more often than not, I know it helps to make me who I am.

What I’ve been through (I hope), makes me a better campaigner. I see people as people rather than their illness, or a number on a page. Each person has a story, and life experience, and it’s all worth listening to .

That is where this government is going wrong. They don't see us as individuals. To them we are a seemingly worthless ‘problem’ group of people who don’t fit where society (and the government want us to). That is not our fault! I certainly wouldn’t choose to be in this situation. I don’t think anybody would.

Since I am though, I am determined to try and do something good with it. I want to turn all the bad things into something positive. I want to help increase understanding of the difficulties that disabled and ill people face on a daily basis.

Disabled and ill people aren’t ‘scroungers’ or a ‘drain on society’. We have been through more, and continue to go through more than most people can imagine. We are all a part of society, and deserved to be treated with respect and dignity, just as everyone else is.

My life is worth something, despite what this government would have me (and the rest of society) believe.

I have been a disability rights campaigner, (at different levels, when able, of course), since I was eight years old, (almost twenty six years), and I will go on fighting for as long as I have to.

After all, life really is what you make it!

                                          Baby Me!

#helenswriting

Twenty Five Years, and Counting - Part Two

 At the moment, I don’t really need to write new stuff. The old pieces are doing more (when I share them), than I EVER thought possible. I think that’s what I’m going to keep doing for a while.

I didn’t realise that the poems, and other pieces would have the impact that they seem to be having. I can’t really believe it!

Thank you so much to everyone who shared and tweeted 'Part One' of this article.  You gave a very tired person hope that people were listening. It meant so much.

People have been messaging to say, ‘I understand better now’, or ‘I didn’t realise, now I do’.

I got a bit teary! Every time something gets shared or re-tweeted, I just have to be confident. Confident that it’s getting our message, a little further each time.

Even though the poems might not all be about the government’s antics, they seem to be opening people’s eyes to what it is like to live with a disability or illness.

If we can make people understand the reality of that better, and make people remember that we are human beings, with feelings, and not just a number on a page, or a nameless ‘scrounger’, then maybe that will help.

That’s what I’m trying to do by sharing the poems, and pieces. If I change one person’s mind, or make one person think, (before they judge us, in the way that the government WANT them to), then I have done what I set out to do twenty-five years ago.

I don’t want people to think I am ‘in this for my ego’. If you could ask the tiny eight year old girl I was when I started this, if she was ‘in it for her ego,’ she wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about, and twenty-five years later, I wish I still didn’t!

Unfortunately, there are people doing this that (might) have other motives, and there are people out there, who might lead the cause in (what many consider to be), the wrong direction. It’s not up to me to say, one way or other.

Everyone goes about things the best way they know how, and we have a fight on our hands, more now, than ever before.

There IS an attempt to vilify and de-humanise disabled, and ill people. There IS an attempt to make us seem like ‘scroungers’ and leeches, bleeding a struggling country dry!

There is doctoring of figures, and blatant lies being spread, but the fact is, the most vulnerable people in society, are not the ones at fault. We didn’t choose to be ill, disabled, unemployed.

Nobody would choose to live with such heartbreaking limitations placed on our lives, and we didn’t choose to vilified, victimised, and made scapegoats!

The economic crisis is the fault of bankers, corporate tax avoiders, and people who decide to hide their wealth, rather than pay what is fair. It is not the fault of those who can least afford to live, and who struggle (already), through everyday life!

It’s hard, and it’s heartbreaking enough to be in our situations. Now we are told (on a daily basis) that we are worthless ‘scroungers’, and we cost too much to keep. How is that supposed to make us feel?!

Twenty five years ago, I would have never have thought that in the future, I would be opening newspapers, and reading headlines, that made me hate myself – just for being disabled!

I would give anything to go back to focussing all my energies on fighting access issues, level pavements, accessible buses, and all those things.

I want to go back, and focus on the ‘little decision’ I made as an eight year old, to try to change the way disabled people were perceived.

All I wanted was to help people understand what it’s like to be us, and to make people aware that we can do good things. Now, I’m part of the fight to help us SURVIVE!

I can’t believe how things have changed. I don’t want to believe it. Everything I did before, for all those years, seems so easy compared to now, and I want those days back!

I thought it was a fight, then. Ha! I didn’t know when I was well off!

Then, it was a fight for equality, and access. Now it’s a fight for compassion and understanding. It’s a fight, for basics, and rights, but more than that. it’s a fight to LIVE!

As I said before, I dread to think where the ’cause’ will be in twenty-five years time! Sometimes I see things, read things, and feel things that make me dread the next twenty-five minutes, as a disabled person!

They’re taking vital benefits, cutting much-needed services, closing the Independent Living Fund! All these things aren’t luxuries, they are necessities!

If I have to fight and this level, after the 2015 General Election, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I have the strength! It feels like they want us, to give up, turn our faces to the wall, and die.

That’s what’s happened in so many cases, already. People being found fit for work when they aren’t, people committing suicide after the loss of benefits. People feeling so desperate, and isolated, and unwanted, that they see no option, but to end their own lives!

What sort of country is this, where that is even considered OK? It should be all over the media. Maybe (if it was happening in another country), it would be. To me, it seems like WE have been forgotten, and already pushed to one side.

This should not be happening, and the damage will take years to repair – if we ever can! I dread it, I fear it!

If the little eight year old girl who was me when I started had known what would happen she would’ve been terrified.

Anyone can become disabled at anytime through accident or illness, or have a disabled child, joining the many thousands of people who are already terrified of what their future may hold.

#helenswriting

Slipped (Poem)

I've slipped
I am shipped,
To the middle
Of a distant sea.

I've fallen,
And I'm all in
Drowned in things,
That can never be.

I am frail
And I fail,
Pain cuts through me
Like a knife.

I am crying
Just left lying,
No hope
Of a better life.

I had slipped
Wings were clipped,
I wanted
To get away.

I was lame
Then you came,
And you
Asked me to stay.

I was broken
Words unspoken,
You could never
Understand.

I'm me
And now I see,
You offer
Me your hand…

  

#helenswriting

How I Started Campaigning - Twenty Five Years and Counting! (Part One)

It’s twenty-five years (almost to the day), since I ‘became’ a Disability Rights campaigner. Although, as you’ll see, there was no long-term plan or anything like that, just a little voice inside a little girl who had realised, I was different. That was then.

As a ten-year old, I wrote to the then Prime Minister John Major to voice my concerns about the cuts in the Special Educational Needs budget. I remember being panicked when I heard about such a plan. Having recently transferred from my beloved ‘special school’ to a mainstream primary school, I knew I was struggling to settle in. I was ‘different’ there.

How would some of the worst effected children cope if they were forced into a mainstream school situation, without the care and help they needed?

Society didn’t cater for us, and I knew it. Propelled by some unknown force within me, I sat and wrote my letter. The next day my Mum posted it.

At my previous school I was just one of many people with a disability. I had been bullied for a while, granted, because I frequently got my work done early and was able to spend my time writing stories, or doing the thing I really loved which was helping my friends. It broke my heart to leave, but I know my parents made the right choice for me.

Until quite recently I used to think that letter was the start of it, but looking back I now realise that my activism started even earlier than that – it started as young as eight. The day I decided to try to change the way disabled people and disability were perceived.

I made a small decision inside myself (at least I thought it was a small decision then) that maybe I could focus on the good things disabled people can do. Not physically, so much; not in terms of proving we can ALL climb mountains, become superhuman elite athletes. That’s what the media want you to believe, as a way of making you doubt those of us who can’t.

Back then, to the little girl who was me, it was just a case of wanting people to understand. Understand that I could do things, and that I wanted to do things. I wrote a little book for my school library about my disability: how it happened, and how it made me different to other children – how I was just Helen.

I’ve been writing letters about various different disability related issues, doing assemblies and lessons in school and fighting access issues ever since. Some have got me local press coverage and support, some have been left unanswered.

Dealing with hardship, discrimination, prejudice and unfairness as a disabled person isn’t new. Dealing with it on the scale dished out at the hands of our own government is. That’s the main thing that has changed since I started.

For me, that says it all. It has gone on happening, but I never dreamed back then that I would feel as ignored, victimised and hurt as I do now, and that’s why joining up with others is so important to me.

When I brought my campaigning online I knew something was going to happen. I knew something had to happen because there were a lot of frustrated, angry, isolated and frightened people out there (myself being one of them). People who were facing uncertain futures as a result of the Tory-led coalition government’s plans to cut benefits.

I wanted to know if I was alone in feeling victimised and persecuted, just because I was unfortunate enough to be born with a physical disability affecting my ability to walk or even stand unaided. I was sad, but also relieved to find that I was by no means alone. In those early status updates and blogs we discussed frustration, anger and pain at what had been thrown at us. I was assured that something was happening, so that we could, at the very least, have our say – I felt better.

On top of that was the negative press, and downright lies, people on benefits are still being subjected to. When you campaign alone, it can seem like you’re getting nowhere and I was tired of being ignored

Campaigning with others refreshed my sense of purpose I felt I was beginning to lose. Even though I have a wonderful marriage and my writing, there were so many pieces missing. The government attacks and negative press just heightened that feeling. I needed to find a way to carry on with my ‘little decision’. I’ve changed in some ways, even since I brought things online.

I prefer now to do things my tried and tested way, rather than get too involved in what groups, and meaningless campaigner hierarchies do. That is not me. It hasn’t been for the last twenty-five years, and it certainly isn’t now.

In terms of the conditions I have, my Cerebral Palsy will never go away. If anything, my mobility will deteriorate further as I age. ‘Wear and tear’ will take even more of a toll on my body. There is exhaustion, pain, and difficulty every day, which has been added to by worsening endometriosis.

I’ve battled with clinical depression since I was fourteen years old, which has only been compounded by the actions of this government. I never thought, twenty-five years later, that disabled people would be in a worse situation now than we were then.

I want more than anything to be a mother and live a normal life. I want to do the things others take for granted, but I don’t have those options and it’s not my fault.

As I said, we are being victimised, vilified and pushed out of society. We are having to fight for the basics that other people take for granted. Back then, at least we could be sure we were wanted in society, and the support and care we needed was there. Now we do not have that certainty.

Disabled people are suffering and dying at the hands of an compassion-less and brutal government. A government which has lied, cheated and turned the media and society against us.

If you’d told me that this would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you, but it has, and it is STILL happening!

If this government isn’t stopped, and if people don’t wake up to the pain and suffering being caused to some of the most vulnerable people in society, I dread to think what our situation will be like in twenty-five years time! I don’t even want to think what it’ll be like in two years, if this government wins the next election. It terrifies me!

Will there be anything left to fight for? I doubt it! Will disabled people like me be pushed back into institutions, so that we are ‘out of sight and out of mind?’

Will Disability Hate Crime rise even further than it has under this government already?

Will I still be waking up sweating after another nightmare about the Work Compatibility Assessment? I hope not! I don’t think I can stand it, and I know I’m not alone in that fact.

It frightens me that the future of sick and disabled people in this country is in the hands of heartless, out of touch politicians and an electorate that isn’t being told the truth. One of those ‘truths’ being the real level of benefit fraud, which is much, much lower than the government and the media would have you believe, or the devastating impact Welfare Reform has had on our lives.

If we are to carry on fighting for a cause I’ve always loved and believed in please, please help us. We can’t continue to fight for a better life for disabled people, or even go on living, if there is nothing left to fight for!

#helenswriting

My Proposal to Save Local Hydrotherapy Pool - Letter to Concerned Parties!

Dear ...,

As a long time disability rights campaigner, (and person with Cerebral Palsy), it seems to me that the ‘Connections’ day centre pool is essential for the people who use it.

As you may be already aware, hydrotherapy is very important for people with a wide range of disabilities, as well as those battling mental health issues.

It helps to build confidence (in a relaxed and informal way) for those with learning difficulties and (as I said), mental illness.

It allows people to socialise and make friends, as well as teaching them other valuable skills.

A service like this, in a local (and familiar) environment, can be something of a lifeline for those who find interaction difficult, and who (as a result), may spend a lot of time isolated.

It is equally essential for those with physical disabilities. I have benefited from hydrotherapy myself in the past, finding that the warm water loosened my muscles, making it much easier to move, and therefore build up strength in my legs. It became a vital part of my weekly physiotherapy sessions.

It allowed me (at least while I was in the water), to be virtually free of pain.  The weightless feeling, gave me a sense of freedom, which otherwise, I would not have had.

I found that I looked forward to my time in the pool, as it allowed me to relax and be with my friends, while at the same time, building strength and confidence.

I realise that (in these difficult economic times) we need to find a way of making the pool financially viable, in order to keep it open. We need to give something back to the parties involved in order that they maintain their involvement.

It seems to me that the key could be in forming some sort of partnership between Bath and North East Somerset Council, Sirona Health, Connections, Writhlington School, and of course the community as a whole.

Firstly, Writhlington School has the sports centre, which could benefit the pool by sharing clients between the two places. It is possible that they could charge a little extra for use of the pool, and in turn, pool users could use the gym and other facilities that the school offers.

It is also possible that the pool could be opened to the community as a whole, for things like swimming lessons, or even hired out for parties.

Any investment that BANES, Sirona, (possibly Writhlington School) and Connections put in would be paid back over time, and it would mean that any costs could be split between the concerned parties, which of course , would mean it would easier on stretched budgets!

It would also help reinforce a sense of community spirit, and forge valuable links between local businesses.

In terms of Public Relations, it would look for all parties involved to be sponsoring such a positive initiative.

I have given this a lot of thought and whilst I realise that there are other places where a pool is available, few of them would be able to offer the access to as many varied facilities that such a partnership could create.

It is even possible that package deals could be offered, which would help with promotion and maximise income for all concerned.

Also, people who needed rehabilitation as a result of accident, injury, or disability would have access to all facilities, which is excellent from a disability rights perspective, especially with such a strain on services, which have negatively on the lives of disabled and ill people.

We need people (and organisations) to keep putting disabled people first, and proving to us that we, (and the quality of our lives), are not becoming an afterthought.

Actually, when you think about it, the possibilities for the pool, and the place it has in the community, are almost endless. Issues such as ‘low occupancy’ would be solved as a result of a partnership, and we already know that local people would like to see the pool kept open.

I really do feel that it could benefit everyone.

Yours faithfully

Helen ....