In 2025, one in four people in the UK are disabled. And it’s increasing.
But who is actually doing this disabling?
In my book, I show that disability is a concept, done to us by our physical environment, other people and then strengthened by ourselves. Only by understanding this, we can begin to change it.
Join me on my 35-year journey with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a super rare and progressive nervous condition, as I work through the guilt and shame of living with disability, find love, become a dad, retire, lean into volunteering and am awarded an MBE.
Disability is Other People: My Superhero Story is not a story about overcoming disability but living well with it. As a child, I think my talent for charming is my superpower. My diagnosis with a progressive neurological disorder at 14 changes everything. As with all great stories, everything changes when I fell in love. I begin to realise that I was wrong: that I could achieve everything that I thought was lost.
Back on track, I go to university and started my career. Drawing on experience and humour, I share everything I learned through my triumphs and mistakes, deconstruct traditional perspectives on disability and draw out the links to other oppressed communities struggling for Equality. I show how the attitudes and behaviours of Other People are disabling forces and consider some of the big issues I have faced along the way: Hope, Death, Ableism, The Media, and Political Correctness.
When I take early retirement, I realise that I have been ticking boxes in life, not living it. I had been living with the ambitions and limitations of Other People, As I journey through many and varied voluntary roles looking for new meaning and purpose in life, I learn that we don’t usually see ourselves as part of a problem and that getting to know the Other People that we meet through working for each other is actually one of the core values in life. I show how we can all make the world a better place and offer my own advice on how to take control and live with disability. As 14 years of austerity and the trauma of the Pandemic change the world around me and sharpen my developing activism, what have I learned? Do I have Superpowers after all?
Disability is Other People: My Superhero Story 