| As there is a
long way from where I left off to the present,
this is an introduction to those years.  My mother was never content
to take and always wanted to give back. After
going to an advice agency to get her benefits
sorted out, she wanted to become a volunteer and
help other disabled people in the same situation.
It was 1981, and the international year of
disabled people. Disability was given a high
profile and the advice service was going to move
in with a new venture called the benefits shop.
My mother
suggested I do the training as well, but I took
some convincing. She knew what she was up to as
it gave me a new focus in life too. At first I
went along just so that I would be able to know
how to deal with the system myself, but she was
grooming me to become a volunteer in this venture
to.
It changed my life
completely when the benefit shop opened. I became
part of something important, and was making a
contribution to society. We both were.
 My eyes were opened up to a
different world, the world I was to spend the
next 17 years in, gaining the skills I needed to
assist my mother in the struggle for disabled
peoples rights. Whatever it was necessary for me
to learn to further that, I learnt. To use
computers, to write publicity, to design research,
to create exhibitions, all of that through
involvement in the voluntary sector, which you
can find out about on my main page. We became
involved in the fledgling Coventry Council of
Disabled People which she went on to chair, and
was a figurehead forbehind her. My personality
was not . All the while I was at her side and
importantto live for both of us. Early on , it
was the cause that mattered, a reason during that
period my father diedjust as I was eventually to
. I arranged the funeral, arrange my
mother’s twelve years later. The rest is
history ....
|
