I Don’t Do Wheelchairs

I’m going on holiday in a couple of weeks. Thought you might like to know that. After all Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard is meant to be at least partly a travel blog. We’re going back to Rhodes having been there in 2015. We don’t usually go back to a place we have been before, at least not one we have been to relatively recently. But with everything that’s been going on with my health over the last 18 months we wanted to take a bit of the stress out of it by choosing somewhere we know we have enjoyed before and will again.

Stress. I know. First world problems. Let’s downgrade that to anxiety. As much as going on holiday will always be a better experience than staying here and going to work every day, there’s still a little anxiety attached to going somewhere new. Will you like it? Will the weather be ok? The hotel? What is there to do there?

Most people don’t have to worry too much about whether they will be allowed on the plane. Short of a volcanic ash cloud, a major terrorist incident or a major Jagerbomb incident you’re getting on that plane. All you have to do is turn up on time, reasonably sober, don’t be a terrorist and you’re aboard.

A large percentage of my experience has been similar. Just turn up. I’ve had the odd mishap as longtime followers of MOAFH will know. It’s difficult when airport staff don’t feel able to talk to me and instead find themselves asking ‘what’s the wheelchair’s name?’. It’s worse still when the toilet on your American Airlines flight to New York (7 hours) is too narrow to accommodate the aisle chair that only exists for the purpose of moving people who cannot walk to where they need to be on a plane. If the inability to walk negated the need to urinate that would be a deal I might strike but sadly that is not how disability works. American Airlines aisle chairs are not fit for purpose. Like Esther McVey. They had to literally rip the toilet door off to allow my bladder any relief.

For all these problems I’ve never yet failed to get on board a plane altogether because of my disability. There’s always someone there to assist, even if at some airports in non-English speaking countries alert you to their presence by grunting at me and in some cases manhandling me. And while we’re about it, I am sad to have to point out that people are still putting their hands on me in the street here at home too. They see me pushing up a hill or getting out of my car and they offer their help. Now this is a kind gesture, but when it is politely declined (as it always is initially) it is not then cool to rush over and put your hands on me or my chair and begin propelling me to where you think I want to go at a pace you deem appropriate. What is wrong with people? If I started putting my hands on people who have politely declined my help I’d be risking a sexual assault charge.

If none of that convinces you then consider this next time you feel tempted to accost me over Saints Bridge. How likely is it that I only go out on my own on the off chance that you will help me? Some disabled people do need help, admittedly. And since education on disability is only a slight notch above education on Brexit in this country it is just about conceivable that you might not be able to tell the difference. People who refer to me as a ‘wheelchair’ don’t do so by accident. They do it because a wheelchair is genuinely all they see. I correct them every time. Some are rightly shamed by their ignorance and apologise. They’re the good ones. Others just shoot you a baffled look as if they genuinely don’t see a problem. In their world there are men, women, boys, girls and wheelchairs. And walkers, so it transpires.

Taxi drivers are the worst for it.

“I don’t do wheelchairs...” they protest.

“Bad back.”

The irony of using their own perceived disability to discriminate against the disabled is lost on them.

Where was I? I’ve gone off beam. Aeroplanes. I’ve never been refused permission and assistance to board an aeroplane, a fate that befell Matt Byrne from Nottingham last week. I know Matt a little from my time involved in wheelchair basketball but just to put you at ease I don’t know him so well as to have any bias towards him. I’m not fighting his corner because we’re acquainted. I’m fighting his corner because he’s been horribly treated in this instance. He was at Dublin Airport trying to board a flight back to Nottingham. As he waited for the assistance he needs to get on board he was informed that the pilot had taken the decision not to allow him on board because the plane was late. The plane was late. Matt wasn’t late. Nor was he drunk, aggressive or rude and nor is he a fucking shoe bomber. The plane left without him all the same and he had to catch another flight some hours later. And all this after he had been directed by airport staff to wait until all the other passengers were on board before getting his chance.

Not that any disabled person deserves this sort of treatment but it is noteworthy to add that Matt is a Paralympian, winner of two bronze medals with the Great Britain wheelchair basketball team. Where he not disabled he would be treated like a celebrity. Instead he is fobbed off by Ryanair - yes I’m naming you, don’t think I won’t - in the most shabby and unacceptable fashion.

Since the incident Ryanair have spent much of their time passing the blame on to OCS, the company responsible for providing assistance to passengers with mobility issues via lifts and undersized aisle chairs and so forth. In fact they seemed slightly affronted that the money they paid OCS did not secure the completion of the job. Yet it was their pilot, aviation’s answer to the St Helens taxi driver who ‘doesn’t do wheelchairs’ and who pulled the plug on Matt’s travel plans.

It’s not bloody good enough.