NEWS

Classroom doors shut as students reach 16

BLIND and partially sighted students are finding themselves locked out of education once they hit 16.

Despite a legal responsibility for local authorities to provide support up to the age of 25, a shock report says it either drops off or vanishes at 16.

The report, Give meAccess to College,

shows a fragmented and unreliable system of support for blind and partially sighted students as they leave secondary education.

One local authority admitted: “We do not support students in a mainstream college. They access their own support, such as from charities. ”

Tara Chattaway, Head of Education at Thomas Pocklington Trust, said: “Urgent action is needed. Blind and partially sighted young people must leave compulsory education with the skills and knowledge they need to use mainstream and assistive technology. ”

I ditched telly and found YOU!

All Together NOW! is a great paper

full of interesting topics, stories and information.

Despite your free paper being published for 17 years, I only discovered it last year after cancelling my TV licence and looking for things to do and read. I’ll now be looking out for future issues!

Thank you – Carol

Don’t judge a bloke by his cover

ADRIAN GRIST is the author of Transplanted & Exposed, a memoir-cum-anti-ableist rant that serves as a window on life with hidden disabilities. He has undergone a kidney-pancreas transplant, six surgeries to save some of his eyesight, and lives with a chronic bone condition.

IN my day to day life, I don’t feel like I get dressed every morning: I feel like I am putting on a disguise

And I’ve got pretty good at mastering my camouflage. Over the years, I have figured out that a turn-up on my jeans helps hide my foot deformities – caused by a combination of a badly-healed Lisfranc fracture and Charcot foot – and what tops to wear to help disguise my new kidney which freakishly protrudes from my lower abdomen.

No one looks at me and quietly ponders with pity, How does he live like that? How does he sleep/eat/pee?And as someone with a number of disabilities and significant health issues, I know how very, very fortunate I am to be able to say that.

But here are some things you cannot see: you cannot see the transplant scars, so glaringly huge I can jovially pass them off as shark bites; you cannot see the bullet-like wounds where various tubes have been stuck in for months on end, or the mysterious hernia-looking bump which I have no clue about, but it doesn’t worry the doctors, so it doesn’t worry me.

You cannot see my wheelchair that I dread I will have to use again. It’s currently on loan to a family friend who probably dreaded needing it in the first place. You cannot see any of that, but then, I cannot see you either, at least I cannot see you very well, as my partial-sightedness puts paid to that.

But I look healthy. Healthy enough, anyway.And that’s just great, but here’s the thing. For the better part, my outward appearance comes with a sense of “got away with it” , and how very empowering that can feel.

Yet the physical disabilities lurking beneath the scars and lumps are never far from the surface: If I walk too far, my feet are screaming for help via the agonising medium of neuropathic pain; entering a dimly-lit shop or restaurant is akin to being in the furthest reaches of a cave with a broken torch, and if I see an oncoming flailing-limbed infant I instinctively and subtly shield myself in fear that a stray fist to the kidney will put me back onto the least desirable of waiting lists.

On top of that, I’m permanently weakened by my once-shredded stomach muscles – when I help friends move house, I’m on holding doors open and lampshade carrying duties only.

And it is when those physical ailments expose themselves that my fraudulent healthy exterior comes crashing down and is transformed into a curse, of sorts.

How do people judge the empty-handed man casually strolling home on a Saturday afternoon, while his wife adopts the role of pit pony and lugs two bags of grocery shopping in each hand by his side?

What about the seemingly able-bodied passenger who makes a beeline for the last available seat on the bus, a seat reserved for the elderly or disabled?And what about the fortysomething who collapses in a heap after miscalculating the steps while exiting a bar at midnight?

Eyes roll, mutters are breathed and disapproving or mocking glances are fired from every angle. By blending in with the “healthy” , I have to blend in with those who display acts of selfishness, laziness, social ineptness and drunkenness.

But putting the oh-woe-is-meism aside, online transplant forums are littered with such frustrations, and I’m sure the issue of perceived good health extends well beyond those living off recycled body parts.

And it is not just the cynical judging strangers; while our nearests and dearests are still painfully aware of our limitations, it is the extended circles of friends with their “blimey, last time I saw you, you were in a wheelchair” comments, followed by their “wanna join me and some mates for a hike up Snowdonia?” suggestions that prompt us to reluctantly reel off lingering symptoms and medication side-effects.

Once you’re off your drip, your dialysis, your chemo, your ... whatever it was that kept you alive long enough for successful treatment, you’re perceived once again as a fully functioning adult. Sadly, the reality for many of us is that what has not killed us has made us weaker; the ghosts of past ailments and conditions can still haunt us.

Get that early bird feeling for

There’s never been a more important time to start planning early to get Christmas 2023 sorted.

Pay off your order bit by bit every month and get it back as vouchers or gift cards in plenty of time for the big day.

n You can read more about the

book Transplant & Exposed, available viaAmazon, or at adrian.gristwrites.com