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Lifestory Showcase - Chappell
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For the very first time I was alone and what I made of life was all up to me, but the first week-end I must admit I cheated a bit, for friends from Woodlarks Camp called on me. They were travelling around in their Dormobile and as it happened wherever they went there was a small crisis. They arrived at my place three days later than I expected.
I had just tried to break an egg and it hadn't landed in the bowl when, as usually happens, the phone rang, to say they were on their way. I said "HELP" but by the time they got here I had cleaned it up, all the mess by myself. That gave me quite a feeling of satisfaction.
No sooner had they arrived, but my brother Derek and his wife walked in, on their way to see Mum at the hospital. They did not stay here long but came back later. My friends stayed on, and in the end stayed the night, which was lovely. They had stayed here before, when mum and I were living here, so knew where everything was and brought their sleeping bags with them.
They brought their supper in and cooked it and afterwards Joan spent the evening cooking a bit of chicken for me, while her husband and I spent hours at my computer. He was able to sort out a problem with me, which helped me a lot and we all enjoyed the evening together.
I am enjoying this new life at 60 which comes much earlier for most. To know that I can cope without mother with a just a little help from others is wonderful, but l have always known my capabilities and will always need some help from others. Mum was wonderful but nothing lasts forever.
Rightly or wrongly, I am feeling really free (not that I wasn’t before), I come and go when I like, but it will be different from now on, knowing there is someone else to call in a crisis and it won’t have to be Mum. Everyone who knows me and knew about the strain we have been under for the past year; says "How much better you look already" and I feel so relaxed about it myself. It is just wonderful and so unbelievable, it does not seem true.
No-one has bothered me, knowing this is what I wanted space - but everyone is just a phone call away. There are many understanding friends here in Milton Keynes as I found out on the narrow boat holiday. So surviving very well, much better than ever I thought I would, I am far more confident to have a go at any challenge as it comes along; and I intend to go on doing so. I really have surprised myself as to what I have achieved so far. There has been no really big problems at all. Mother and I still have our ups and downs and always will for she will always love and care for me.
By this time four of us , three of whom were in wheelchairs, had formed our own Co-operative Business, writing computer programs which could be easily used by the handicapped. We intended these programs to be capable of use by ways other than the standard QWERTY keyboard which is often so difficult for the handicapped to use.
After much help from the Co-operative Development Agency, Fingers 'n' Toes started really in earnest on 3rd November. We had an official Launch with the Mayor present and I had to escort him s I knew him very well by then. This meant weekly business meetings, and I committed myself to up to eight hours a week using my computer's word-processing facility.
Before this we entered a competition for our ideas, won it and we were shown on Thames Television receiving a £2,500 prize and a Trophy which we won for our Business Plan. I had found out about this competition purely by accident and I also dreamed up the name Fingers 'n' Toes. One member Of our Co-operative could not use his hands at all, but was a wizard on the computer keyboard with his toes, so the choice of name became obvious.
At the end of the first twelve months of living on my own I wrote to my friends in this manner.
“I am thoroughly enjoying my new life and seem to spend more time out than 1do at home. I have become very involved with work for the committee which deals with Arts for Disabled People and this work seems to be increasing more and more these days. L am still Chair of the MK Disability Arts Forum.! am enclosing a sample of my latest effort at making an Arts Newsletter.
I am also on another An Management Committee called SHAPE, we are SHAPE BUCKS which has a Co-ordinator and an Office in Princes Risborough now, so! have to attend a meeting every two months or so. Ann the Co-ordinator and three of us attended a Conference at Lancaster in July about Disability Arts in Europe which is partly funded by the EEC. It was very interesting but a very long journey for us.
If anyone had told me seven years ago, that I would have had the confidence to do such a thing, I would have been very rude and very frightened to say the least. I will always say to my dying day, that it was when I began to use a computer, and was able to write legibly for the first time in my life, that! was given the confidence to tackle anything that comes along. It has all been so easy.
I’ve even been able to entertain my first visitors, very old friends from Devon who came to spend almost four days with me. It was just wonderful and we all enjoyed and appreciated it. One other thing, I have finally been able to swim on my own without a rubber ring or arm-bands. I've been going swimming every week with a group of disabled and their voluntary helpers and it has been the latter’s help which finally gave me the confidence in the water that I needed."
In October 1989 the Workshop where “Fingers 'n' Toes” had their little office was re-opened as a Resource Centre for the disabled to use. It is a real thriving place where all disabled people can go to use computers and, particularly in the case of younger people, train hopefully towards employment.
It was just eight months after the Spastics Society closed it all down as obsolete. Most staff and spastic people sat tight and kept it open and going, then the Employment Agency stepped in and arranged to use it for various courses. It is let out for many other things all of which help to pay for the upkeep of the building.
My next step in my new life was to attend a Ten Week Business Course held at the above Centre and run by the Co-operative Business Agency. I enjoyed it very much, especially as I had taken part in a similar Course two years earlier. Then, I was the only disabled person on the course but from my doing that, this second course was set up for disabled people only. That was better for I was able to keep up with it more easily, we all worked at our own pace. Computers of course were used, but were a different type to my good old BBC and I must say I am not as happy with them as with my own. I suppose its a case of the devil you know.
I wrote an account of all that has happened to me since 1981 (IYDP) and it was published, together with my photograph in ‘Disability News’ for it really was a turning point in my life. I like to think that by writing like this, it will encourage others to have a go and also give help and hope to parents who have a spastic child to bring up today. At least they can get far more than was ever available for me and my parents. Then so many handicapped children were thrown into mental institutions at birth and left to rot. We know now that a lot of them would have had been very intelligent people, had they been given a chance.
As soon as this appeared in print, I had a letter from someone called Hazel who had seen my face and recognised me from St. Loyes days, 47 years before. She lives 22 miles from me and we are obviously about the same age, so hope to see a lot of each other in the future. We had great fun meeting up and we spent Easter Monday together and she has come and visited me every month since then.
Sixty years isn't very long in history, but here in Milton Keynes, I am living in a very different world to what l was twenty years ago or less. My one regret is the Milton Keynes Development Corporation were stopped from building more bungalows like this one by Mrs Thatcher in the eighties. Some Charities, Private Trusts and Housing Associations have built this type of accommodation to enable more disabled people like myself to live as independently as possible.
Perhaps Mr Major's government win think otherwise and the building of Council dwellings will soon begin again, for not only are there the disabled to house but also so many other homeless people. So many disabled people have found homes and freedom here, some employment, a lot have married , all it needs is the right type of accommodation and a little care.
Not only daily home care where necessary, but something like the excellent Crossroads Care Scheme, a team of really caring men and women who visit and help m anyway they can. I have a Crossroads lady friend who goes swimming with me each week. This is a great help to me and fun for us both and we have been away to Blackpool together for a weekend.
After Easter I went into Stoke Mandeville Hospital for forty eight hours to have a cataract taken off of my left eye and an implant which is a contact lens put behind my eye. I had the right eye done three years earlier and both operations were successful. I recovered very quickly and being very much a Girl Guide at heart attended a Buckingham Banner Service on May 12th which was very impressive.
I wish I could say the same about the new uniforms, I’m afraid they do nothing for me. Give me my old floppy hat any day, but then perhaps its a sign I'm getting old. Most of my oldest and closes friends I have met through the Guide Movement. It is now almost fifty years since I was enrolled at Ferndown on a summer's evening in 1942. In the summer I went to Woodlarks once again for the annual camp of the 1st Hampshire Extension Trefoil Guild where I met up with many old friends and made new ones.
Our week at Woodlarks followed the usual but well-loved pattern. After settling in on Saturday we were helped by Southampton Scouts and Guides. The Scouts helped set up our camp while the Guides cooked lunch for us on Sunday. Both groups were rewarded by a swim and in the afternoon the Guides joined us in a short service taken by a newly ordained member of the Guide Movement from Portsmouth. After supper there was a slide show of our camp which is being put together to raise funds for Woodlarks. One woman who had lost her voice on the first day, put this to good use during the week by raising £60 in a sponsored silence.
On the Monday we had our annual barbecue and a visit from two old members, now too ill to spend the week with us and we finished the day with a dance (wheelchair dancing included). Tuesday we opened the shop for souvenirs and after lunch we went by invitation to the 'Cricketers' in Farnham to play Boule, the day ending with a camp-fire sing and a Scrabble Competition for some.
Wednesday was another fine day1 and after another good lunch I went round collecting subscriptions for the next year's copy of the Woodlarks magazine. Two of the greatly outnumbered men collected for our Derby Sweepstake. We listened to the race on our transistors and the lucky ones collected their winnings. A buffet tea, a beetle drive and early to bed for it had now started to rain.
Thursday, fine and sunny to our surprise, was our day out. We went up the River Hamble and then had a boat trip to the Isle of Wight past all the yachts and luxury cruisers moored there. Friday was the last day with a communion service in the morning, packing in the afternoon and another camp-fire and sing-song in the evening. Final farewells and promises to meet again and the Woodlarks Camp was over for yet another year.
Yet another first for me, was to join a newly-formed Sailing Club for disabled and able bodied friends this summer which has been a great success and fun for us all. To be out on Willen Lake at Milton Keynes in a yacht, just two of us with my wheelchair left behind on shore and out of sight was just fantastic. After my first thrilling day, I came home and wrote the following few lines
SAILING ON WILLEN LAKE
Whoever would have thought that I would ever sail on Willen Lake
When out of the blue it happened.
Sailing on Willen Lake for the disabled.
Come along and have a go they said.
So along I went on that bright August day.
The sun was shining it was just perfect in every way.
After a lot of pushing and shoving to get my awkward body comfortable.
I was in the yacht and on the water,
I just could not believe I was my father's daughter.
Feeling something I had never felt before.
As I was free, nowhere near my wheel chair
With the sun and the wind blowing in my hair.
This ‘fella’ called Barry, showed me what to do and how to do it.
I was away sailing back and forth across the lake,
not that it was the best place to sit.
Steering the boat and watching the sail.
flapping away, going faster and faster.
Enjoying myself as never before,
I am looking forward to doing this again
This event took place over the weekend
With disabled people arriving from all over the country.
which could only happen in Milton Keynes of course
The only city in the world to be able to provide all this beauty.
At the end of the year “Fingers 'n' Toes” decided to stop trading. We were not getting the interest and orders from schools and centres for special education that we had hoped for due to the recession. Very sad, but at least we had a go, we had all tried and learnt a lot about how to run a business as a Co-operative. I went on two business courses and caught up on a lot of things I missed when I was at school; and the four of us had lots of fun working it all out, and we did get on television along the way.
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