We were not a blight on normal society to them, more like a physics problem that could be solved by the correct use of Newton's laws and the right raw materials. The men were less prejudiced about us than most people. They were all men who had obviously played very seriously with their Lego and Meccano sets when they were boys, and were still doing it, only now on a larger scale. We were starved of social contact so it was a treat to spend time with the brown-coated, mechanical-engineering wizards in the workshop. Big cots with tall sides, so it was like being in a cage.Ībout once a week, a group of us would be taken to workshops across the road to be kitted out with artificial arms and legs. The toughies were accommodated in large dormitories, 20 or 30 to a room, with our metal cots laid out in rows.
And for us toughies, as we were called, there was the outer part, which didn't have heating and was freezing cold in winter. It was where the more delicate types like the spina bifidas lived. The inner was warm and had central heating. We became a close-knit trio of adventurers and mischief-makers.Īlban Block, the building where I lived, had two parts: an inner section and an outer section. She was the "bright one", destined for university and a top-flight career. Tara had short, truncated legs and arm stumps. As an adult he won gold and silver medals for swimming at the Paralympics. Peter had no legs, just his upper torso and two pointy stumps for arms. I had two special friends, Peter Hull and Tara Flood. Mostly we children looked to each other for friendship. The nursing staff had been taught that it was not advisable to get close to the children, so they were not very affectionate or loving. Even though some of the children had parents who visited them from time to time, they weren't necessarily happy occasions. By the age of one or two I think we all somehow knew we had been abandoned and, in varying degrees, we were traumatised by the fact. The staff called us "the strange little creatures". We were about 250 children with a variety of impairments: thalidomides, spina bifidas, cerebral palsies, limb-deficients, mentally deficients and many other types of impairment, all lumped together on one big residential site. Sometime before I was seven weeks old, I was shipped to a children's home where I remained for the whole of my childhood. I was considered to be severely disabled. The word phocomelia combines phoco-(seal) and melia (limb) to designate a limb like a seal's flipper." Nobody knew what caused it. The On-Line Medical Dictionary says: "A congenital malformation (birth defect) in which the hands and feet are attached to abbreviated arms and legs. I looked like a thalidomide child but my actual condition was phocomelia. And my legs had no knees, just the thigh bone ending in my feet, which weren't quite right, either. He told my mother it would be best if I were looked after by the state and that she should put me out of her mind. His response was direct and to the point. She plucked up enough courage to ask the doctor about me.
My mother was released from hospital and a week later went to see her regular GP. Of course, the baby was me, but my mother didn't know that. The nurses say she'll die in a day or two, or else be a cabbage for the rest of her life. She's got no arms or legs and there's a big red mark all across her face. "Can you hear all that screaming down the corridor? That's a baby that's just been born. She looked at my mother lying in her hospital bed and noticed that she was awake. Later in the day a cleaner came in to tidy up and mop the floor. She could hear the sounds of hospital life outside her door and once or twice a nurse came in to check on her. Where was the baby now? Why hadn't they brought it in for her to see? She couldn't remember anything about the birth, but she did remember that she had come into hospital to have a baby. Now she lay there feeling limp, her mind foggy with the tranquillisers. All she knew was that she'd been brought in to have her baby in hospital because it had been in breech position.
She had been sedated by the hospital staff and couldn't think very clearly. My mother lay alone in a small room at the hospital in Burton-upon-Trent. I t was April 8 1965, the day after I was born.