Politicians, celebrities ... you might think you know all about disability. You can obviously talk the talk. But where do you finish when the chips are down, asks stroke survivor Billy Mann
Just before Christmas 2016 my wife and a friend took part in a 5k Santa Run in aid of Headway East London, where I have been a member for 3 years following a stroke. It was a fantastic day, full of goodwill and festive fun, staged in London's Victoria Park. Families gathered to watch the would-be 'Olympians' struggle into their allotted Santa suits and run/walk/stagger/jog around a pre-determined route and finish out of breath but with a warm glow. Medals awaited their sweaty necks.
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| A winner's medal awaited everyone |
There were many things to admire about the event. The runners (thousands) all represented different charities but were running together in one place at one time. It was an impressive demonstration of collective action in costume. Other runs took place simultaneously all over London. Victoria Park is big and flat. This makes it ideal for the Park Run people to get together and go for it. The park's flatness also lends itself to activities such as All Ability Cycling, where people with a range of disabilities, whizz around safely on specially adapted bikes such as arm bikes, tandems, recumbent bikes, easy riders and trikes.
Another positive on this briskly cold day was the event coordination and management. There was an orderly queue to collect your daft Santa outfit (which you get to keep). A sound system pumped out hard-rocking running anthems and victory songs. Food and drink stalls kept the spectators (some courageously dressed as Elves) sustained. But top prize goes to the toilets, vintage white plastic boxes that sealed the whole occasion as being more like a music festival than anything else.
So it isn't hard to imagine the potential of all this combined effort, and one of the bees in my bonnet ever since leaving hospital after my stroke was the difficulties faced by wheelchair users and the attitudes of their busy able-bodied fellow citizens, issues exposed by Channel 4 during the 2012 London Olympics/Paralympics. Boris Johnson was still Mayor of London at the time and my favourite imagined punishment for him for not dealing with this was an initiative in which he was forced by public pressure to use a wheelchair for one working day in every year. This, I felt, might bounce him into action.
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| Are today's leaders match-fit for dealing with disability? |
Now I have a better plan. One day in every year should be designated Freewheelers Day. On this day, the leaders of political parties, councils, big organisations and anyone else you can think of, race each other around a flat designated circuit such as the one in London's Victoria Park (there are such spaces all over Britain). Others can follow behind in their wheelchairs or with pushchairs, their friends and families cheering all the way with scalding hot cups of Bovril in their hands. Watch as Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn try to viciously crash each other off the track. Hotshot celebrities such as Jeremy Clarkson could go wheel to wheel with, say, Steve Coogan. Bring it on. The sound system will explode to the sound of Bat Out Of Hell and Born To Run, and from that day on until the same time next year, everyone will show a bit more understanding for the other person.
