Ken Livingstone’s approach to public transport in London changed my life.
__________________
I was eleven when I went to Disneyworld: A compulsory right-of-passage for every disabled child in the developed world. It was the first time I’d ever left the UK, so to say I was excited would be an understatement.
On our first morning there we took a cab from the hotel to the theme park. In the pickup/drop off zone, before entering the gates of Disneyworld itself, I saw the most incredible thing I’d ever seen in my life thus far: A wheelchair accessible bus.
I had never travelled by bus. I’d never seen such a thing as an accessible bus. It hadn’t even occurred to me that they might exist. The fact that mobility impaired people could use public transport in Orlando genuinely rocked my world. Of all the delights that Disney has to offer a child; nothing made me scream “Mum! Dad! Nan! Look at that!” quite as loudly as that bus. It was just a bus; such a mundane mode of transport to the majority of people. But to me it represented such freedom and inclusion that I couldn’t quite believe my eyes.
I lived in a miserable little Essex village at the time. About once a day you could get a bus to the nearest small town and I think you could occasionally get a bus to Cambridge. When I say “you could”; that obviously didn’t include me. The village did have a train station, but unsurprisingly that wasn’t wheelchair accessible.
I was trapped in a village where I had no friends. The local high school was (surprise surprise) not wheelchair accessible so I had to be taxied to a school near Cambridge. This meant all my friends lived about 20 miles from me. Like every 11 year old I wanted to go shopping on Saturdays with my peers; I never could. This was why catching sight of an accessible bus meant everything to me. It held the optimism of a world that I could be a part of.
It was 10 whole years later that I travelled by bus for the first time; and that was in America too. The summer before going to university I decided to spend a month backpacking around the US. My first port of call was Los Angeles and on my first day I caught the 156 from North Hollywood down to Santa Monica Boulevard where I changed onto the 4 down to the beachfront in Santa Monica. So momentous it was that I’ll probably remember the numbers of those buses well into old age; long after I’ve become unable to recall my own name.
Now I travel by bus all the time I’d recognise that journey for what it is: Slow, boring, hot, and full of people that smell terrible. But at the time in August 2000 I felt so free and included. I think you probably need to have been excluded from bus travel for 21 years to realise how liberating it is to be able to catch one for the first time.
A month later I moved to London (well, Uxbridge, but it’s within Greater London) to go to university. The U3 and U4 routes going from the Brunel campus to Uxbridge town centre were accessible, but that was it. I couldn’t get the 207 to Ealing or the 607 to Shepherd’s Bush. Of course, being able to travel by bus was still so new to me that I was bloomin’ grateful for the couple of routes I could use.
The picture was far worse in Central London. When I first moved to inside the M25 there were no accessible buses in the centre of town, the majority of routes around the West End were those nightmare Routemasters. During the day, anyway: Most companies put accessible buses on their night bus routes and it always struck me as slightly bizarre that London transport was only properly accessible between midnight and 5am; like disabled people are the new vampires.
Thanks to the Mayor at the time - Livingstone - inaccessible buses were gradually phased out over the next 5 years. London waved farewell to its last inaccessible buses, the Routemasters running on route 159, in December 2005. In 2012 inaccessible buses still make up the majority of bus company stock around the country. Every time I venture out of the confines of London I find myself grateful to Ken for London’s 100% accessible bus network.
Sadly since he was replaced by BoJo in 2008 we’ve seen London’s most accessible vehicles – the Bendy Buses – taken off the road. Many prefer double deckers for taking up less road space, but London’s wheelchair users miss those Mercedes Citaros dearly. Even with the fact that on the early models the wheelchair ramp would jam if the driver tried retracting it while the bus was still ‘kneeling’. I was once the reason for the breaking-down of three consecutive 453s outside Old Kent Road Tesco’s…
I was also 21 the first time I travelled on The Tube. Most non-disabled people probably think it sounds bizarre to be having all these public transport-related firsts in your twenties. Just like the buses; I also got my first taste of travelling on underground trains in Los Angeles. Unlike our Tube the Red Line there is fully accessible. Even if a little scary because I’d seen Volcano and I kept expecting the train to fill with lava.
Ken may have abolished the inaccessible bus, but despite his good work the majority of tube stations remain inaccessible. Oh to live in LA. And not just for the weather.
In 2006 Livingstone’s administration promised that one third of London’s tube stations would be accessible by 2013. You can’t begin to imagine how much this thrilled me. At the time my nearest accessible tube stations were Westminster, Waterloo or Caledonian Road. All a bus ride from where I’d set up home in Camden. So I never used the tube. The prospect of being able to use one in every 3 tube stations meant I could get to most places in London by getting the tube to a station or two away from my destination and pushing in my wheelchair the rest of the way. I could make it across London in almost the same time frame as someone without a mobility impairment whereas it takes 2 to 3 times as long to make a parallel journey by bus.
Livingstone didn’t retain his seat in 2008 though. Johnson quietly cancelled access upgrades throwing away £20 million of taxpayer's money in the process. What you can’t really put a figure on is all the disabled people who can’t move freely around the city: How many people can’t go for jobs because the return journey to work would be in excess of 4 hours by bus when it’s a 1.5 hour return journey for a non-disabled person by tube? How much tourism revenue does London lose out on because there are no accessible stations in the West End? What about the emotional and social costs for people who are isolated in the suburbs?
If anyone's thinking of commenting with "but he had to cancel the upgrades! We ran out of money!" You can save your little fingers the trouble: Johnson managed to find the cash to fund his pet projects. He spent £1.4m per vehicle on the new Routemasters. A standard double decker is £190,000. It wasn't that he couldn't afford the upgrades on the Tube; he just doesn't care about access.
I am completely opposed to the cuts to benefits and public services. Most people of a similar inclination to me are also opposed to the Olympics and feel it’s unacceptable for the taxpayer to be spending billions on a fortnight long party when disabled people are being told that they’re no longer allowed to use the toilet in the night.
I don’t want anything to do with the games. I’m planning on spending a fortnight barricaded in my flat with a stockpile of food and DVD box sets. But I will never begrudge the games coming to town because the only tube access upgrades Johnson didn’t cancel were the ones essential to the Olympic strategy. The games leave behind a legacy of improved access to the tube and I will forever be grateful for that.
Transport for All published this table assessing the accessible transport plans of the 4 leading Mayoral candidates. Great progress towards a fully inclusive transport network was made under Livingstone; we then saw regression under Johnson. If we want to start progressing again, we need Johnson out of office. He doesn’t propose to meet a single one of Transport for All’s targets.
This isn’t just an issue for those who are currently disabled. Around one in 5 people have some kind of impairment. The figures are skewed by age as the majority of older people have some kind of age-related condition. If you want the tube to be fully accessible by the time your mobility begins declining then you need to vote for improved access to the tube now. Even if you’re convinced that you’re so healthy that you will still be running marathons when you’re 101; there’s a good chance that at some point in your life you’ll break your ankle playing football and be on crutches for 6 weeks. Just bear that probability in mind if you're thinking of voting Johnson because "he's a right laugh!"
I can’t stand the Labour party in its current state. They’re the ones who kick-started the horrific welfare reform by introducing Employment and Support Allowance in 2008. I have no confidence in the current Labour party leadership: I wouldn't trust Ed Miliband to run a proverbial in a brewery, never mind a country. Labour have moved too far to the right for my liking, though sadly I have to concede that out of all the main parties; they are the lesser of three evils. If a General Election were called tomorrow I’d vote Green without hesitation.
It saddens me that Ken rejoined Labour after serving his first term as London Mayor as an independent candidate. I would feel much happier putting my mark next to his name if he weren’t affiliated with a party I have no love for.
But put my mark next to his name I shall. Like I said at the start: His transport policies changed my life. At least now my second nearest tube station is accessible, even if the closest one to my home isn’t.
The post is something of a "two birds with one stone" job. Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day and London goes to the polls on Thursday. I think the word "disablism" does what it says on the tin and clearly a transport system which has wheelchair access at less than one in three stations is a transport system that discriminates against disabled people. So combining the 2 I'm blogging to appeal to Londoners to vote for a candidate that'll make the public transport system a little less disablist.
A couple of weeks ago I got a "Back Boris" taxi receipt. If he hadn't cancelled tube access upgrades I wouldn't have needed a cab.
Showing posts with label autobiographical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autobiographical. Show all posts
02 December 2011
♫...I'm not sure all these people understand. It's not like years ago, The fear of getting caught, Of recklessness and water...♫
There has been much talk over the last few months about the irony of Atos doing the computing for next year’s Paralympics. People thought things were getting even odder when Atos founder Bernard Bourigeaud joined the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) board.
Based on my experience I don’t think it’s that bizarre at all. In fact, again in my experience, Atos and the IPC have more uniting them than separating them.
As a teenager my dream was to be a Paralympic swimmer. All disabled athletes are classified by medical personnel as to their level of impairment. So all prospective Paralympians have had to undergo an Atos-esque assessment before they can compete.
All sports have different classification systems; some like athletics have impairment-specific systems (so people with cerebral palsy compete against people with cerebral palsy and people with dwarfism compete against people with dwarfism... and so on) while other sports like basketball have a pan-impairment system. Swimming uses the latter style system.
The classification system used in swimming for people with physical impairments ranges from 1 to 10, where 1 is the most severely impaired, and 10 is the least severely impaired. A typical 10 will only be missing one hand or less than half a leg. A typical 1 will have almost no use of any part of their body.
The system is designed so that in theory you compete against people of a similar level of impairment to yourself. So in an S6 race you might find a couple of paraplegics, a couple of people with no arms, a couple of people with hemiplegic CP and a couple of people with dwarfism. Wildly different diagnoses, but considered to be of the same *severity* of impairment.
People with a physical impairment will have 3 different classes - an S class for freestyle, backstroke and butterfly; an SB class for breaststroke and an SM class for individual medley. This is because free, back and fly rely mostly on the arms for propulsion but breaststroke relies more on the legs. So while a paraplegic and someone with no arms will be able to race as equals on free, back and fly; the person with no arms would have a massive advantage over a paraplegic in a breaststroke race. So typically the paraplegic will be an S6 SB5 SM6, while the person with no arms will be an S6 SB7 SM6. Yes, this does mean that the person with no arms still has an advantage in the IM race; the system is far from perfect.
After years of training I made it into the GB team for the Europeans’ in Badajoz in '97. I went out to Spain as an S6 SB5 SM6, and came home as an S9 SB9 SM9! This was because the classifiers/the system is only used to dealing with "common" impairments. Osteogenesis imperfecta is rare. They ignored not just one, but four aspects of my impairment when assessing me, and decided that other than 2 duff elbows, one duff knee and one duff ankle I was almost able-bodied. A quick glance at me can tell you that I'm quite clearly much more severely impaired than that!
Osteogenesis is a form of dwarfism. Despite being sent medical evidence from experts the IPC classifiers refused to accept that fact. There was actually a swimmer around at the same time who had achondroplasia – a much more common form of dwarfism – that had had her limbs surgically lengthened and was taller than me. Despite being classified on her height alone, and being taller than me she was an S8 (so lower than me) because they took her dwarfism into consideration; but not mine.
They refuse to believe that hypermobility is impairing. They assess each joint and award it a point score. A low score means it has very little movement; a high score means full range of movement. The IPC refuse to start deducting points again when your joints go far beyond normal range of motion. Instead they just say “aren’t you lucky to be so flexible?” So my inability to keep my fingers together whilst swimming (very important for your hands functioning as paddles) because the joints just aren’t strong enough to resist the force of the water was disregarded. The only joints of mine they didn’t give full points to were my elbows, left knee and left ankle.
You would think that my joints with restricted motion from being repeatedly broken would at least knock off some points, right? Wrong. Like I said, they only accepted I had 4 impaired joints. They totally disregarded the fact that my wrists have been smashed up too.
Because collagen (the protein not formed correctly in OI) is also found in muscles people with OI have poor muscle tone. We can strengthen our muscles with exercise but we’ll always be starting from a lower baseline. At the time of that classification assessment in 97 I was training 7 times a week. As a result my muscles were roughly equivalent in strength to a non-disabled person who does no exercise at all. They didn’t care that I worked my arse off to have the equivalent strength to a lazy person with standard muscle tone; they just marked me down as being of “normal” strength, refusing to accept osteogenesis affects muscles.
The International Paralympic Committee can call you up for reclassification any time they want, but you can only appeal once. I had my appeal in 1999. They ignored medical evidence, consultant's letters, etc and decided that I was still an S9 (though my SB class got reduced to SB8, it didn’t matter because I sucked at breaststroke so never did it).
My one appeal was used up. That was that. I quit swimming in 2000. In recent years I've joined a Masters team, but because of my health I don't get to train that often. Between my stomach, a broken rib and a prolonged infection I haven't been for a swim since July. I've gone training with little fractures many times (in fact the last time I went in July I had a cracked metacarpal) but the rib was a bit too bad; getting out of breath was pretty painful.
For people familiar with reading about experiences of Atos assessments it all sounds fairly familiar, doesn’t it? Ignoring symptoms in a medical assessment in order to find people less impaired than they actually are. Though, actually, I’ve personally found Atos to be fairer: 2 IPC assessments and they both claimed I was less impaired than I am. I’ve only had one Atos assessment thus far and that did, correctly, find me unfit for work. And within the benefits system there are several steps of appeal, the IPC only let you have one.
(In case you’re thinking “how can she be unfit for work if she used to train that much?” I would direct you to many other posts on my blog where I talk about how I’ve always had my mobility impairment but until about 2005 I was “healthy”; I was free from illness. I just had a dodgy musculoskeletal system. But now I have a ton of unrelated health problems rendering me incapable of working.)
Atos are known for making assessments on how a person looks: People with invisible impairments tend to fare worse in the assessment process than people with conditions that can be seen. The IPC employ the same tactic: Part of the assessment process is that they watch you swim. Sounds sensible when they’re assessing how your impairment affects your ability to swim, right? My problem was that I’m a good swimmer; I trained hard and developed excellent front crawl technique. I was penalised for not looking particularly impaired when swimming front crawl, regardless of how impaired I actually was.
Both bodies also are more forgiving for people with better known/understood impairments. If you have cerebral palsy, a spinal cord injury, a missing limb or achondroplasia the IPC assessment criteria accommodates you. Likewise Atos are usually more understanding of people with better known conditions (like cancer) than people with diagnoses that aren't quite so well understood (like ME).
Of course, when the IPC find you less impaired than you actually are it means that you lose your dreams. When Atos come to the same conclusion you can lose a lot more.
Edit August 2023: I said in paragrph 6 of this post "in an S6 race you might find a couple of paraplegics, a couple of people with no arms, a couple of people with hemiplegic CP and a couple of people with dwarfism. And that was true at the time I wrote it in 2011. However, in 2018 the IPC changed some of the the classification system's regulations, and one of the changes meant that all of the double above elbow amputees were moved from the S6 class down one into the S5 class. So you will no longer find anyone with no arms in an S6 race.
I would say "I'm happy to make this clarification", except it's been fucking carnage for the lifelong S5s; and now all medal podia for S5 races are completely dominated by the ex-S6 double above elbow amputees. I watched the heats for the men's S5 50m backstroke at the World Championships in Manchester yesterday morning, and I did not notice even one single man with any other impairment in either heat; because the ex-S6's now completely dominate the classification, it looked like no-one with CP, or a spinal cord injury, etc, decided it was worth bothering entering. In the women's heats there were a couple of swimmers with impairments like CP, who have arms, but it was all the double above elbow amputees who completely dominated. I missed the final of both races because I was out running an errand, but I tuned into the live stream just in time to catch the medal ceremonies for both S5 backstroke races. Obviously all the men's medal winners were double above elbow amputees, because it appears no-one with any other impairment even bothered to enter since the takeover of the classification by those moved down en masse from S6. While in the women's race - where there had been a couple of entrants with arms, even though they must've known they didn't have a chance against the ex-S6s - it was also the case that there was not one single arm to be found on the medal podium.
Having experienced what it feels like to be on the receiving end of unjust decisions by the IPC, I can completely understand why all the other swimmers in the S5 classification (some who may be in their 30s who've been in the S5 class since they started competing in their teens) with conditions like CP, spinal injuries, even different types of multiple amputations, would - 5 years after dozens of ex-S6s took over the S5 class - have reached the point where they've decided "I might as well retire, I just can't race fairly against the ex-S6s, they have too much of an advantage over me."
Based on my experience I don’t think it’s that bizarre at all. In fact, again in my experience, Atos and the IPC have more uniting them than separating them.
As a teenager my dream was to be a Paralympic swimmer. All disabled athletes are classified by medical personnel as to their level of impairment. So all prospective Paralympians have had to undergo an Atos-esque assessment before they can compete.
All sports have different classification systems; some like athletics have impairment-specific systems (so people with cerebral palsy compete against people with cerebral palsy and people with dwarfism compete against people with dwarfism... and so on) while other sports like basketball have a pan-impairment system. Swimming uses the latter style system.
The classification system used in swimming for people with physical impairments ranges from 1 to 10, where 1 is the most severely impaired, and 10 is the least severely impaired. A typical 10 will only be missing one hand or less than half a leg. A typical 1 will have almost no use of any part of their body.
The system is designed so that in theory you compete against people of a similar level of impairment to yourself. So in an S6 race you might find a couple of paraplegics, a couple of people with no arms, a couple of people with hemiplegic CP and a couple of people with dwarfism. Wildly different diagnoses, but considered to be of the same *severity* of impairment.
People with a physical impairment will have 3 different classes - an S class for freestyle, backstroke and butterfly; an SB class for breaststroke and an SM class for individual medley. This is because free, back and fly rely mostly on the arms for propulsion but breaststroke relies more on the legs. So while a paraplegic and someone with no arms will be able to race as equals on free, back and fly; the person with no arms would have a massive advantage over a paraplegic in a breaststroke race. So typically the paraplegic will be an S6 SB5 SM6, while the person with no arms will be an S6 SB7 SM6. Yes, this does mean that the person with no arms still has an advantage in the IM race; the system is far from perfect.
After years of training I made it into the GB team for the Europeans’ in Badajoz in '97. I went out to Spain as an S6 SB5 SM6, and came home as an S9 SB9 SM9! This was because the classifiers/the system is only used to dealing with "common" impairments. Osteogenesis imperfecta is rare. They ignored not just one, but four aspects of my impairment when assessing me, and decided that other than 2 duff elbows, one duff knee and one duff ankle I was almost able-bodied. A quick glance at me can tell you that I'm quite clearly much more severely impaired than that!
Osteogenesis is a form of dwarfism. Despite being sent medical evidence from experts the IPC classifiers refused to accept that fact. There was actually a swimmer around at the same time who had achondroplasia – a much more common form of dwarfism – that had had her limbs surgically lengthened and was taller than me. Despite being classified on her height alone, and being taller than me she was an S8 (so lower than me) because they took her dwarfism into consideration; but not mine.
They refuse to believe that hypermobility is impairing. They assess each joint and award it a point score. A low score means it has very little movement; a high score means full range of movement. The IPC refuse to start deducting points again when your joints go far beyond normal range of motion. Instead they just say “aren’t you lucky to be so flexible?” So my inability to keep my fingers together whilst swimming (very important for your hands functioning as paddles) because the joints just aren’t strong enough to resist the force of the water was disregarded. The only joints of mine they didn’t give full points to were my elbows, left knee and left ankle.
You would think that my joints with restricted motion from being repeatedly broken would at least knock off some points, right? Wrong. Like I said, they only accepted I had 4 impaired joints. They totally disregarded the fact that my wrists have been smashed up too.
Because collagen (the protein not formed correctly in OI) is also found in muscles people with OI have poor muscle tone. We can strengthen our muscles with exercise but we’ll always be starting from a lower baseline. At the time of that classification assessment in 97 I was training 7 times a week. As a result my muscles were roughly equivalent in strength to a non-disabled person who does no exercise at all. They didn’t care that I worked my arse off to have the equivalent strength to a lazy person with standard muscle tone; they just marked me down as being of “normal” strength, refusing to accept osteogenesis affects muscles.
The International Paralympic Committee can call you up for reclassification any time they want, but you can only appeal once. I had my appeal in 1999. They ignored medical evidence, consultant's letters, etc and decided that I was still an S9 (though my SB class got reduced to SB8, it didn’t matter because I sucked at breaststroke so never did it).
My one appeal was used up. That was that. I quit swimming in 2000. In recent years I've joined a Masters team, but because of my health I don't get to train that often. Between my stomach, a broken rib and a prolonged infection I haven't been for a swim since July. I've gone training with little fractures many times (in fact the last time I went in July I had a cracked metacarpal) but the rib was a bit too bad; getting out of breath was pretty painful.
For people familiar with reading about experiences of Atos assessments it all sounds fairly familiar, doesn’t it? Ignoring symptoms in a medical assessment in order to find people less impaired than they actually are. Though, actually, I’ve personally found Atos to be fairer: 2 IPC assessments and they both claimed I was less impaired than I am. I’ve only had one Atos assessment thus far and that did, correctly, find me unfit for work. And within the benefits system there are several steps of appeal, the IPC only let you have one.
(In case you’re thinking “how can she be unfit for work if she used to train that much?” I would direct you to many other posts on my blog where I talk about how I’ve always had my mobility impairment but until about 2005 I was “healthy”; I was free from illness. I just had a dodgy musculoskeletal system. But now I have a ton of unrelated health problems rendering me incapable of working.)
Atos are known for making assessments on how a person looks: People with invisible impairments tend to fare worse in the assessment process than people with conditions that can be seen. The IPC employ the same tactic: Part of the assessment process is that they watch you swim. Sounds sensible when they’re assessing how your impairment affects your ability to swim, right? My problem was that I’m a good swimmer; I trained hard and developed excellent front crawl technique. I was penalised for not looking particularly impaired when swimming front crawl, regardless of how impaired I actually was.
Both bodies also are more forgiving for people with better known/understood impairments. If you have cerebral palsy, a spinal cord injury, a missing limb or achondroplasia the IPC assessment criteria accommodates you. Likewise Atos are usually more understanding of people with better known conditions (like cancer) than people with diagnoses that aren't quite so well understood (like ME).
Of course, when the IPC find you less impaired than you actually are it means that you lose your dreams. When Atos come to the same conclusion you can lose a lot more.
Edit August 2023: I said in paragrph 6 of this post "in an S6 race you might find a couple of paraplegics, a couple of people with no arms, a couple of people with hemiplegic CP and a couple of people with dwarfism. And that was true at the time I wrote it in 2011. However, in 2018 the IPC changed some of the the classification system's regulations, and one of the changes meant that all of the double above elbow amputees were moved from the S6 class down one into the S5 class. So you will no longer find anyone with no arms in an S6 race.
I would say "I'm happy to make this clarification", except it's been fucking carnage for the lifelong S5s; and now all medal podia for S5 races are completely dominated by the ex-S6 double above elbow amputees. I watched the heats for the men's S5 50m backstroke at the World Championships in Manchester yesterday morning, and I did not notice even one single man with any other impairment in either heat; because the ex-S6's now completely dominate the classification, it looked like no-one with CP, or a spinal cord injury, etc, decided it was worth bothering entering. In the women's heats there were a couple of swimmers with impairments like CP, who have arms, but it was all the double above elbow amputees who completely dominated. I missed the final of both races because I was out running an errand, but I tuned into the live stream just in time to catch the medal ceremonies for both S5 backstroke races. Obviously all the men's medal winners were double above elbow amputees, because it appears no-one with any other impairment even bothered to enter since the takeover of the classification by those moved down en masse from S6. While in the women's race - where there had been a couple of entrants with arms, even though they must've known they didn't have a chance against the ex-S6s - it was also the case that there was not one single arm to be found on the medal podium.
Having experienced what it feels like to be on the receiving end of unjust decisions by the IPC, I can completely understand why all the other swimmers in the S5 classification (some who may be in their 30s who've been in the S5 class since they started competing in their teens) with conditions like CP, spinal injuries, even different types of multiple amputations, would - 5 years after dozens of ex-S6s took over the S5 class - have reached the point where they've decided "I might as well retire, I just can't race fairly against the ex-S6s, they have too much of an advantage over me."
21 November 2011
♫...So come on let me entertain you...♫
Nine years ago an old friend sat on his living room floor and uttered one sentence which would change my life. Yesterday I saw him for the first time since that night.
In July 2002 I was doing a week's work in a school back home in Cambridge. It was after my parents had moved from Cambridge to the arse-end of nowhere so I crashed at some friends' house in Ely for the week. One night I was in the pub which had kinda been my local for the last year I lived in Cambridge; when in walked someone I'd gone to Long Road with about 6 years earlier and had not seen since.
He was living in Brighton at the time and was also on a fairly fleeting visit back to Cambridge. After lots of talking we agreed that I could stay at his in Brighton after Pride the following month.
So the night of Pride in 2002 we sat in his living room talking half the night and getting even more wasted than we already were. I mean so wasted that on the train the next day I was grateful for those shitty old trains where wheelchair users had to sit in the guard's van out of sight of all the non-disabled passengers. No-one could see how green I looked and I could occasionally whimper because there was no-one around to hear it.
At one point I said something that made him laugh: Made him laugh so hard that he fell off his chair. Once he'd regained enough composure to be able to speak he said "you should do stand-up."
I don't remember what I said, but I'm sure that under the harsh light of sobriety it wouldn't be remotely entertaining. However, his remark sparked a thought process in my head that I couldn't shake off.
I'd been a fan of stand-up for a long time. Like most people my age, my introduction to comedy was The Mary Whitehouse Experience. The first time I saw it, aged 12 at a sleepover at a friend's house, I remember laughing so hard I couldn't breathe: It was the single greatest thing I had ever seen. In 1992 Both Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis toured the UK and played at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I remember Newman & Baddiel came to town in April 1992; my 13th birthday was in May and I begged so hard for tickets as an early birthday present. That gig was the first time I saw live stand up, and was followed about 2 months later by seeing Punt & Dennis. Having had my appetite for stand-up whetted I saw several other comics off the telly when they came to town like Jo Brand and Jack Dee. And, of course, Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis a few more times.
I'd always loved performing but the thought of being a stand-up had never crossed my mind. I actually kinda thought that being that funny was like a superpower and it wasn't something that regular people could do. His comment triggered this niggle in my brain that "well maybe I could do it?"
I spent the next two years procrastinating on the idea, while seeing loads of comedy. I regularly went to comedy clubs, to see solo shows at theatres and I went to loads of TV and radio comedy recordings on account of them being free and me being a poor student. It wasn't unheard of for me to go see comedy 4 or 5 times in a week.
When I started doing stand up in November 2004 I very quickly realised that I'd found what I wanted to do with my life. I loved it. Of course, I'm the unluckiest person in the world so stand up dreams were shattered by illness.
I gave it up in 2007 when I became too ill too often to carry on. I was hoping that my health problems would only be temporary and that a few pills here, quick operation there and I'd be good to get back to it. So I decided to bow out before I alienated every promoter in the country. If you're booked to do a gig and you have to cancel on the day because it's a "spend the day in bed with a bottle of morphine" day then you're going to put that promoter in a bind. It doesn't matter that you're genuinely ill, you've left that promoter in a tight spot with a gap in their bill and only a couple of hours to fix things. So they're never going to book you again and are probably going to badmouth you to other promoters that they meet. Luckily the only promoters I pissed off with my health-related unreliableness were small fish rather than any of the really key national bookers. But it was only a matter of time.
It's looking increasingly like I'll probably never be well enough to work again. Kinda ironic really that the current political situation for disabled people in the UK has given me so much I want to say through the medium of comedy; more than I've ever wanted to say before. And the stories I want to tell are so shaped by being ill that I probably wouldn't have the same stories to tell if I was well enough to go out and tell them.
It was politics that led me to bump into him yesterday. I quickly popped in to the Bank of Ideas to check out the access so I could write it up on WtB. I'd been in the building only a few seconds when someone brushed past me and mumbled "Hi Lisa" as he did so. It was him; the guy who'd told me to do stand-up. We didn't chat long because I couldn't stay; this current infection had me feeling like I was dying. Honestly on the bus home I felt almost as nauseated as I did on that aforementioned train journey 9 years ago. We were catching up and he said "I know you're a comedian now..."
"And I have you to thank for that. Do you remember that night 9 years ago when I crashed at yours after Pride? I said something that made you fall off your chair laughing and you told me I should do stand-up."
He didn't remember.
In July 2002 I was doing a week's work in a school back home in Cambridge. It was after my parents had moved from Cambridge to the arse-end of nowhere so I crashed at some friends' house in Ely for the week. One night I was in the pub which had kinda been my local for the last year I lived in Cambridge; when in walked someone I'd gone to Long Road with about 6 years earlier and had not seen since.
He was living in Brighton at the time and was also on a fairly fleeting visit back to Cambridge. After lots of talking we agreed that I could stay at his in Brighton after Pride the following month.
So the night of Pride in 2002 we sat in his living room talking half the night and getting even more wasted than we already were. I mean so wasted that on the train the next day I was grateful for those shitty old trains where wheelchair users had to sit in the guard's van out of sight of all the non-disabled passengers. No-one could see how green I looked and I could occasionally whimper because there was no-one around to hear it.
At one point I said something that made him laugh: Made him laugh so hard that he fell off his chair. Once he'd regained enough composure to be able to speak he said "you should do stand-up."
I don't remember what I said, but I'm sure that under the harsh light of sobriety it wouldn't be remotely entertaining. However, his remark sparked a thought process in my head that I couldn't shake off.
I'd been a fan of stand-up for a long time. Like most people my age, my introduction to comedy was The Mary Whitehouse Experience. The first time I saw it, aged 12 at a sleepover at a friend's house, I remember laughing so hard I couldn't breathe: It was the single greatest thing I had ever seen. In 1992 Both Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis toured the UK and played at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I remember Newman & Baddiel came to town in April 1992; my 13th birthday was in May and I begged so hard for tickets as an early birthday present. That gig was the first time I saw live stand up, and was followed about 2 months later by seeing Punt & Dennis. Having had my appetite for stand-up whetted I saw several other comics off the telly when they came to town like Jo Brand and Jack Dee. And, of course, Newman & Baddiel and Punt & Dennis a few more times.
I'd always loved performing but the thought of being a stand-up had never crossed my mind. I actually kinda thought that being that funny was like a superpower and it wasn't something that regular people could do. His comment triggered this niggle in my brain that "well maybe I could do it?"
I spent the next two years procrastinating on the idea, while seeing loads of comedy. I regularly went to comedy clubs, to see solo shows at theatres and I went to loads of TV and radio comedy recordings on account of them being free and me being a poor student. It wasn't unheard of for me to go see comedy 4 or 5 times in a week.
When I started doing stand up in November 2004 I very quickly realised that I'd found what I wanted to do with my life. I loved it. Of course, I'm the unluckiest person in the world so stand up dreams were shattered by illness.
I gave it up in 2007 when I became too ill too often to carry on. I was hoping that my health problems would only be temporary and that a few pills here, quick operation there and I'd be good to get back to it. So I decided to bow out before I alienated every promoter in the country. If you're booked to do a gig and you have to cancel on the day because it's a "spend the day in bed with a bottle of morphine" day then you're going to put that promoter in a bind. It doesn't matter that you're genuinely ill, you've left that promoter in a tight spot with a gap in their bill and only a couple of hours to fix things. So they're never going to book you again and are probably going to badmouth you to other promoters that they meet. Luckily the only promoters I pissed off with my health-related unreliableness were small fish rather than any of the really key national bookers. But it was only a matter of time.
It's looking increasingly like I'll probably never be well enough to work again. Kinda ironic really that the current political situation for disabled people in the UK has given me so much I want to say through the medium of comedy; more than I've ever wanted to say before. And the stories I want to tell are so shaped by being ill that I probably wouldn't have the same stories to tell if I was well enough to go out and tell them.
It was politics that led me to bump into him yesterday. I quickly popped in to the Bank of Ideas to check out the access so I could write it up on WtB. I'd been in the building only a few seconds when someone brushed past me and mumbled "Hi Lisa" as he did so. It was him; the guy who'd told me to do stand-up. We didn't chat long because I couldn't stay; this current infection had me feeling like I was dying. Honestly on the bus home I felt almost as nauseated as I did on that aforementioned train journey 9 years ago. We were catching up and he said "I know you're a comedian now..."
"And I have you to thank for that. Do you remember that night 9 years ago when I crashed at yours after Pride? I said something that made you fall off your chair laughing and you told me I should do stand-up."
He didn't remember.
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