A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Personal Experience
On April 6, 1974, aged nine and on holiday in Yugoslavia with my family, on my way with
my older brother to the beach opposite the camp site we were staying at, I was knocked
down by a car travelling at 40 mph. I spent eighteen days in a coma, during which forecasts
were made that I would either die or would never again see or hear. I acquired brain damage
which caused slowness of speech and paralysis of both hands, as well as a badly fractured
right knee. Repair of the knee was delayed because surgeons would not operate while I was
in a coma. Surgery did not, in fact, take place till almost a month after the accident, after I
had been moved to the British army hospital in Germany close to where we lived. The
damage was compounded by the fact that, after this delay, my knee had begun to set and had
to be broken again before being operated on.
As I remained in hospital over the next several months I was in no doubt that one day I
would eventually be „better‟. I was encouraged to be „a brave soldier‟ and told that, if I kept
on working at my recovery, one day I would be fully fit again so nobody would be able to
tell I had been in an accident. I set as my aim the day I would be recognised as normal. Not, I
think, that I considered myself as anything other than normal, I just saw myself as having
been involved in a bad road accident. I worked at my exercises to regain use of my hands, to
gain strength in my legs, to become able to speak more quickly.
The first time it was suggested to me I was disabled was during the following year, after we
had moved back to Britain. A boy at school named Derek Alcock asked me if I was
physically handicapped. I considered the fact that I had been physically damaged and replied
yes. He asked me if I was mentally handicapped. I considered the fact that I had received
brain damage and again replied yes. This caused Alcock and his friends great amusement. At
home that evening I asked my mother whether I was handicapped, physically or mentally.
She replied by telling me no, of course not.
This I recall as having made a particular impact on me at the time. I was not handicapped. I
had been in a road accident and had received very serious injuries, but I was getting better.
One day I would be completely better and the whole thing could be forgotten. But I was
definitely not handicapped.
I was turned down on grounds of fitness for attendance at Queen Victoria School in
Dunblane, an army boarding school for sons of Scottish servicemen attended by both my
brothers. In 1976 I started at the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, a state grammar,
as a boarder. While the consequences of my accident impacted on me in various ways – I
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