This Is What Happens When The Disabled Go Out After Sunset

I went to Wembley at the weekend. It was mostly amazing. The weather was glorious, Saints won and for an encore there was some great musical entertainment at BOXPARK. The capital letters are their’s by the way. They are quite fitting as BOXPARK is a venue at which shouting is encouraged. 

But there is always something, isn’t there? Something which puts a dampener on the experience and leaves you feeling like if you were considered an afterthought it would be an elevation from where you are currently. Let me explain the background to the ensuing farce. Emma and I stayed in High Wycombe on Friday and Saturday night. Emma’s mum and dad live there so it was a chance for us to meet up with them and then make the short train journey to Wembley on Saturday morning. Emma hasn’t seen them much during the pandemic, maybe once. I hadn’t seen them for several months before the first lockdown. 

On Saturday morning there were other Saints fans at the platform at High Wycombe station. Clearly travelling to London from High Wycombe is not so unusual, particularly on Challenge Cup final day. Yet for us it ended up feeling like we had tried to get back home from the moon on the back of a scooter. 

Things seemed fine before the game. We bought return tickets and received all the right assistance to board the train. The fact that people with my level of mobility still need assistance to get on a train in 2021 is a bloody outrage but I was prepared to grin and bear it to get to Wembley to watch my team play. Saints win a lot. They have now won the Challenge Cup eight times in my lifetime and have also added another eight Super League titles in that time. But before Saturday they hadn’t won at Wembley since 2008. That is 13 years. Who knows where any of us will be in 13 years? I don’t take their success for granted so if they get to Wembley I want to do everything I can to be there.

Another obstacle to that aim was overcome when we were met at Wembley Stadium station by another ramp-wielding assistant. It’s important to make a distinction here. Wembley has two stations. Wembley Stadium and Wembley Park. The vagaries of the transport system mean that the overground train from High Wycombe only goes to Wembley Stadium station. Had we been able to travel on the underground to Wembley Park - as we did when Saints lost at Wembley in 2019 and we stayed in London - I would have been able to get on and off the train without assistance. Whoever upgraded the London Underground system - presumably before the Paralympics in 2012 - understands what is meant by wheelchair access. 

Instead after a successful disembarking we were stopped by a staff member at absolute pains to explain to us exactly what we needed to do to get back on the train to High Wycombe later. Go over the bridge, take the lift, security will help you. She even spoke to someone on her radio to make sure that the lift was working that day. I mean why would it be? There were only 45,000 people trying to get to Wembley after all. The lift was confirmed as operational and so that was that. All we had to do was make sure we didn’t miss the last train, which as it turned out was not until around 10.50pm.

We left BOXPARK about 9.30. We knew there were around three or four trains to High Wycombe after 10.00 but we also knew that we are never the best at navigation in unfamiliar surroundings, especially after drinking since midday. We needed to give ourselves plenty of time. Predictably there was a fair amount of self-inflicted stress as we wandered around not really knowing for sure that we were going the right way. But we found Wembley Stadium station in what we thought was plenty of time. It must have been about 9.45-9.50. We found the lift we had been told about at the start of the day pretty easily. But - and you’re probably ahead of me if you have read MOAFH before - it was not working. Not only was it not working, nor was the telecom system used to call for assistance on either the lift or the ticket machine. 

There were no staff around. We didn’t really know what to do. I’ve never slept on a railway station platform before but it was starting to look like a possibility. I did almost end up roughing it in Cardiff after the 2004 Challenge Cup final. I ended up paying more than £100 to stay in the only hotel that my cousin and I could find that had room for us. At their prices it’s easy to see why. But that was our fault because we drunkenly but quite deliberately missed our mini bus back to St Helens. This was different. We’d seemingly been left high and dry by shite advice and for having the temerity to stay on for a few drinks after the game.

Emma went down the stairs to the platform to see if she could find anyone who might resemble staff who might help us. For several minutes I could see her in conversation with the driver of a train which had just stopped. It didn’t seem to be going well considering how long it was taking. When she came back she told me that the train driver had phoned somebody to arrange for a taxi to take us back to High Wycombe. In essence what they were saying is that it is not possible for a wheelchair user to get on a train from our national stadium to High Wycombe or anywhere else after dark. Which makes perfect sense because as we all know disabled people couldn’t possibly need to go anywhere after sunset. Even if I had been able to get on to the platform the only person who would have been able to assist me on to the train would have been the train driver. In my experience their willingness to unlock a small ramp and plonk it on the platform up to the train is a bit hit and miss. If I had been on my own I would have been on the platform for the night, no doubt. 

I was irked by this as you might imagine, but slightly relieved that it now looked like we would at least get back ok. Yet it got worse before it got better. Emma received a message to say that a taxi had been booked and that we should be met on Preston Road, which is the road on which Wembley Stadium station stands. We were not sure which side of the station was Preston Road but we reckoned they’d find us. Emma then spoke to a driver. She explained where we were and where we were going and why. He agreed to everything and we had an update to inform us he was one minute away. Moments later we received another update telling us that our driver was EIGHT minutes away! How had this happened? Had we made some sort of leap back in time? We never got an explanation. I suspect the driver - having listened to Emma’s explanation - just cancelled us. Couldn’t be arsed. Disabled people are just too much trouble, aren’t they?

Ten minutes or so passed during which I was convinced we wouldn’t find any driver willing to help us and that the one who had been eight minutes away would soon update us with news that he had been urgently called away to Glasgow. It was longer than eight minutes but thankfully the next driver was a good deal more civilised and did his job. His fare was around £100 and I hope he got every penny of it from Chiltern Railways. Sadly, even if they had to pay it I get the feeling that they would rather do that occasionally than pay whatever it would cost to make train travel accessible. Or even to just staff the bloody station at night. 

Naturally I complained. Firstly on Twitter but Emma has also emailed them. Guess what? It’s our fault. Wembley Stadium station is not a staffed station except when there is an event on. And that is only due to the safety issues created by having so many people attending. So essentially accessibility is not an issue as far as they are concerned and this is fine because apparently this information is available on their website. This information is not available on Google Maps but even if it were, there is no justification for just not being arsed to provide access, and for not explaining this when we arrived. It is effectively banning disabled people from travelling. If a train company banned any other minority group would it be ok as long as that information was available on their website? 

We’ll be staying in London next time. Even if it is in 13 years time. On this evidence and given how far there is to go the chances of overground rail travel being fully accessible by 2034 are somewhere between slim and none.

Vaxxed Up

Some of you will have seen my Facebook update about receiving the first dose of the vaccine. If you have - or even if you haven’t - you may be interested in finding out a bit more about the process. It won’t change your mind if you’re an anti-vaxxer. The kind of person who worries about what might be in it while simultaneously gorging on pigs’ dangly bits from Greggs. But if one undecided or apprehensive person reads on and feels a little more comfortable as a result then it will have done some good. I can’t describe how important it is that as many of us as possible go and get vaccinated when the opportunity arises. Ten months of on-off lockdowns do not constitute an exit strategy.

Like many across the city region I had mine at the rugby league ground that dare not speak its absurd vape-shifting name. Saints RLFC in old money. I was met by a car park attendant who instructed me to park up and then go to the entrance five minutes before my appointment time. This isn’t enforced particularly but I don’t see anybody trying to get in early or making any attempt to form or join anything resembling a queue. That’s either because it’s January and consequently absolutely bone-chillingly cold or because everybody is genuinely terrified to get within two metres of another human being from a different address.  

At seven minutes before my appointment time I stop listening to Darren Gough warbling on about Frank Lampard’s sacking at Chelsea as if he’s a football expert and not a retired cricketer and pretend ballroom dancer and make my move. I added two minutes on for getting my chair out of the car. That process doesn’t happen as quickly at 45 years of age as it did at 25 touring around the UK masquerading as an athlete. Especially when you have the energy levels that 18% kidney function bestows upon you. Lockdowns reduce opportunities to practice even further. Mercifully, I was not offered any help by any of the octogenarians present. You’d think that kind of offer wouldn’t happen with social distancing in place but somebody did it when I went for my blood tests at the Royal a couple of weeks ago. If we’re looking for reasons why Covid has got out of control then watching these people go about their daily lives might be instructive. If they are willing to offer unnecessary physical contact to a stranger pushing a wheelchair over Prescot Street then what other kinds of contact that is currently frowned upon are they engaged in? Makes you think.

As I approached the large tent-like walkway that has been erected just outside the main entrance I am asked whether I’d booked through my GP or the NHS. This is the first and only real bump in the road throughout the whole experience. The answer is both in a way. I got a text from The Spinney which is my local GP surgery but it was just a link to an NHS booking site. The reason they ask is because there are separate queues to join for either GP or NHS bookings. They then contradict that by telling me it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m not so sure. I didn’t check but I wouldn’t be surprised if in this tier-loving version of Tory Britain the other queue led straight to a private jet which takes you to a hot, sunny island which has handled Covid a whole lot better than the UK has. There are plenty to choose from. Probably cost you though...

They asked me to sanitise my hands then showed me through to a large room with rows of tables and chairs. My first impression was that it reminded me of the Blue Peter bring and buy sales we used to have in the school hall at Hamblett. Bring and buy sales were what they did in the 1980s instead of educating the disabled which was considered largely a waste of time. I’ve obviously been to college and university in more enlightened times since then but my knowledge of Shakespeare and the literary classics has never recovered. 

The room was on the ground floor, so not the conference rooms they use for the forums I have been to when pretending to be a writer (like now?) and a broadcaster with my mates from the 13 Pro-Am podcast. I was then asked to wait and I made the mistake of taking my coat off. I thought someone was going to come to me but the drill is that you go to them when someone is free to vaccinate you. Coat back on, which takes an embarrassingly longer amount of time than it would under less pressure. There are other people waiting. It’s not a queue exactly. They only let in as many people as they can fit into a line of chairs spaced suspiciously less than two metres apart. So it’s more of a row but with an order, like waiting for a pizza from Geno’s on a Saturday.

At the vaccination table there were two people to assist. An Asian man and a white woman. They asked for personal info - name, date of birth, address and postcode, whether I have any allergies or blood disorders, favourite Shakespeare play (no, not really). I was then asked to take my jumper off (I’ve already removed my coat again at this point) and the man starts wiping my upper arm in preparation. I’m expecting it to feel like a blood test but it’s less than that. It’s less of a scratch than that and it takes less time because they’re not trying to find one of my camouflaged, dried up veins. If the vampires ever capture me in some kind of gothic apocalyptic scenario they’ll throw me aside because I am a bloodless individual.

And just like that it’s done. I asked about side effects and the man was very non-committal.  He handed me an information sheet and a card with a number on it. He told me I’ll get another appointment in 12 weeks. I’ve had the Pfizer vaccine and he told me not to worry about side effects. He said the info sheet would tell me what to do if I have any. It kind of does. It tells me the numbers on who gets side effects and what they’re likely to be but it doesn’t tell me whether I’ll get Covid-like symptoms. He doesn’t either.  I’m assuming that wouldn’t be a normal reaction. 

Being one of those melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone that Green Day used to sing about I have spent large parts of tonight (24 hours on from the jab) wondering if I have a bit of a sore throat coming on. I don’t think I do. I’m not a medical expert but I don’t think that things like that come and go according to how much time you spend thinking about them. The information does mention chills and headaches but I’ve had no hint of anything like that. I thought I might considering the number of nursing students I have spoken to this week at work who have reported feeling unwell after their vaccine. Then I remember my own uni days during which I would have explained that I had malaria, small pox and the plague itself before I’d turn up for a shorthand session. That’s come back to bite me. The only thing I have to report so far is a bit of a sore arm. Like a bruise, nothing drastic. Better than Covid.

The last thing I’m asked to do is go over to another row of chairs and wait 15 minutes before leaving. Again there is a questionable interpretation of two metres between them so if you are having your vaccine at Saints keep your mask on and don’t start any conversations about last night’s telly. Nobody enforces the waiting time. Nobody releases you. You just time yourself and go. In theory you could just get straight off but I didn’t. It was Monday night. There wasn’t much to do and I’d recorded House Of Games so there was no fire.

All in all it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. The people there are doing great work and it is not often you can say that St Helens is involved in something which will genuinely change our lives for the better. I feel privileged and fortunate to have been involved, particularly since the government did not consider me clinically vulnerable until last week. My surgeon disagrees based on our last conversation in November, but I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to get the vaccine once it arrived. 

We all need to go and get jabbed the first chance we get. It really is the only way out of Joe Wicks exercise videos and back to the pub.