"Faither" was a wonderful man, with cornflower blue eyes, which always twinkled with mischief. He had the most expressive eyebrows, which seemed able to portray the most complicated messages silently. During the last weeks of his life, his sense of humour seldom left him.…

Shand was feeling bored.

“I need a holiday,” he informed me, with his best schoolboy…

Many of you may know that it is not easy to ask for help. It takes something from you: makes you feel inferior in some way. It is not a nice feeling.

However, finances dictated that we needed to ask for help for a new boiler. My husband and I are both disabled, so we qualified for help under the Energy Assistance Scheme. We only wanted a boiler but were given a whole new hearing system. This was installed  on 11th and 12th February 2015. These dates are imprinted on my…

ARE WE MAGNIFYING DISABILITY?

I have now taken all my submissions for my comparative Research study. 

I was investigating the outcomes for Independent Living versus Service provision for two severely disabled people over a period of sixteen years. I asked professionals and acquaintances/ colleagues to write down their impressions or anecdotes to discover how Quality of Life differed in such contrasting scenarios from an onlookers viewpoint,

The findings were quite…

In the wake of the verdict against Timothy Crook, I must ask: Was he guilty? Did he act alone?

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that if help from the appropriate authority is requested and denied,that authority should be accountable. Timothy did not need to be guilty.

“From what we do know from the evidence from the case and the documents, it appears to me that the appropriate authorities should stand back, look at this case to see whether something did go…

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which they were created" (Albert Einstein)

This is a true story - but names have been changed. 

Born in Hong Kong to Scottish parents in 1946, Peter was destined never to see his father, who died in combat in the final stages of World War. The next disaster to occur was that he contracted polio before he was a year old. His widowed mother returned to Scotland, to give her…

Recently, I was told of a disabled man in an electric wheelchair in Edinburgh. While out shopping, he was accosted by two twelve-year-old boys, who switched off the power to his chair and pushed him in front of the traffic in a busy street. I was astonished and horrified.

As a drama, however, it makes the point.

It encapsulates how people with disabilities are treated day and daily throughout society. Their motivation is…

The elderly man stood up and began to read from his notes. He told a roomful of people that he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia ten years ago.

He related the havoc the initial…

http://https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/00ebe749-8424-4258-9cf2-eb4a4b9d901dIN THE BEGINNING

Shand was feeling bored.…