This film shows a few days in the life of an active person with needs who requires support.
We’ll meet her in various situations,
beginning with a trip to London with Wendy her PA and Evan her helper dog, for an Advisory Meeting.
I don’t think there is a typical day in my life because I’m always open to the next opportunity.
Come on Evan.
I think my personality can be described as, you either love me or hate me,
because I’m an extrovert.
I usually attempt things that other disabled people, some disabled people would not attempt,
and I’m not afraid of speaking of behalf of disabled people.
There’s a hell of a big taxi queue, so I’m going to see if I can jump the queue.
- Where are you off to my dear? - I’m going to the Copthorne Tara in Kensington.
Kensington right. I’ll try and find you a cab. All right.
Thank you very much. You’re a good man.
It has happened on many occasions where we’ve been to London and a taxi driver, we’ve flagged down a taxi driver,
and they’ve seen that Anne’s in a wheelchair, and have drove off. Or they’ve got out and said, “oh sorry, my ramps don’t work.
I can’t take you.” I think I’ve been quite shocked on many occasions at how people’s attitude really is.
When I get inside, I’ll just put my feet down.
My work, my voluntary work, or what I prefer to call unpaid work,
takes me to all different places in the UK including London.
As I often have to go to a meeting early in the morning and so I get an overnight the night before.
We decided that we’d go to the theatre to see Grease.
We’re quite looking forward to that, especially Wendy, because she likes the musicals
and the dancy part don’t you Wendy. - I love it, yes, yes.
So that’s what we’re doing tonight.
Evan, come on, up … now wait, wait …
Because of the work I do, I check into loads of hotels and there are very few that have got
a wet room so that I can have a shower. Most of them are either a shower over a bath which are useless,
and when I took a bus around the whole of the UK in the whole month,
I had seven showers and two of those were at home.
They seem to go so far, but not far enough when they’re looking at adapting rooms;
unfortunately they never consult the right people, which is disabled people.
Two years after I was on my own, I started getting involved with the Disabled People’s Movement,
and I was introduced to what’s called the Social Model of Disability,
which actually means that although I’ve got cerebral palsy,
it’s not cerebral palsy that disables me.
It’s society because they don’t remove the barriers that make me
become a full citizen with the rest of the world.
It was a great time in my life, that, a time of celebration really,
because I stopped blaming myself for having cerebral palsy,
but then began to fight to make the barriers disappear.
Wendy has now gone inside because as a wheelchair user I can’t go in the front door,
I always have to go in the tradesman’s entrance, so she’s gone in now to find the wheelchair access.
[music]
We’ve just come out of the theatre, it was a bit of a rush to get here.
We never thought we would because we couldn’t get on the bus and then we couldn’t get a cab, but
we made it, and it was worth it, wasn’t it, because it was an absolutely great show.
Here we go, let’s go Evan, good boy. There’s a number 9. Quick, go and get it!
They’re excellent in London, I wish we’d got these buses everywhere,
because the platform comes low and you can just drive on
and it just makes so much difference, and it’s a lot cheaper than getting in cabs.
Evan up, Evan, come on, up. Good boy.
Well that was a bit of an adventure. - Excuse me, could you just move over a bit please …
Anne regularly attends the Partner’s Council Meeting at
the Social Care Institute for Excellence or SCIE.
Mark, can I just interrupt you a minute. I’m facilitating the feedback, so
if I don’t say much, I’ve heard it all before. [laughter]
It’s not my thing to not say much, so I just thought I’d tell you that.
I was just going to say, I thought you weren’t well.
I thought you would, yes. Thank you very much then, thank you.
I’ve realised that there aren’t enough support organisations, especially organisations
that are led and managed by disabled people. So a couple of years ago, I
decided to try to get a social enterprise funding, and I have my own website now,
and the idea of the website which is called, ‘being the boss’ is to support other disabled people who employ their own staff.
When you employ people, it’s a very lonely business. And when you set up a site with a discussion group on,
it’s interesting to see a service user who is employing staff has a particular problem,
and if you can come straight back to them and say well when that happened to me, I did this, it’s really powerful and it helps a lot.
Anne is now back at home.
Right, we’ve had this email here from this woman, and it makes you laugh really, because she’s an Independent Living Advisor
and she’s saying that she read on the website that I’ve put that you cannot
discriminate against people who smoke. - Yeah.
I’m sure I’m right about that. So what I’m going to do is to ring ACAS and see how I get on.
I actually was married to a man that was disabled.
He had a good job as an accountant and I worked in an office,
and up to that point I didn’t really recognise myself as a disabled person.
And it was only when my marriage had broken up, I had to tap into services
that I realised that services in this country were not there, and that made me realise that
I was a disabled person for the first time in my life.
I could have as many as eleven or more different people in my home and I had them
at any time. I got no choice in control over what time I got up in the morning, what time I went to bed
and as a result of writing to the Director of the Local Authority,
and basically telling him the services that he was giving me were not meeting my needs and I had no social life at all,
and I wanted to swap them for cash because I thought they were rubbish,
and it took me two years to do that.
But as a result of that, I feel quite proud to think that I got 35 other disabled people
in Leicestershire on indirect payments.
Myself, I employ six PAs, most of them only work one 24-hour shift a week which is from
8am in the morning until 8am the next day.
When you’re spending 24 hours with a particular person, then if the relationship isn’t right,
I think it would be very difficult to work as a personal assistant.
You’ve got to have a little bit about yourself in the fact that you can get on and use your initiative,
be able to entertain yourself, because Anne doesn’t always want me around her or she goes out and has private meetings
or doesn’t want a PA there at the time, then that’s my role to either get on with the duties that I’ve got or entertain myself.
Evan came to me in August last year and it’s been amazing, the feeling of independence that I have with him.
It makes me have time on my own.
Most people have a problem living with their partners, let alone having six different partners which is what it’s all about.
Good boy. Are you okay with dogs?
- Yeah, I’m fine. - He’s going to pass you the purse and then you take the money out.
Up table, there you go … thank you. Drop. Good boy.
Back. Thank you.
I don’t like the rain because it doesn’t do your hair any good.
Neither me or my PA, Wendy, we hate the rain, don’t we Wendy. - Oh yes, we do.
Wendy actually manages my PA scheme,
and if there’s a problem and we have to go through the disciplinary process, then Wendy can do that for me,
and you can imagine, having to tackle a bit of a difficult issue with a PA,
and then in the next breath asking them to do some personal task for you, that can be quite frightening and threatening to many disabled people.
Well I’ve got two pieces of gossip to tell you tonight and one is they’ve just told me I can have the tickets.
- Ah, are we going up this week? - She’s told me I can have the ticket.
- Right. - Put me on them first.
One of the things that really frustrates me about society and the way they treat disabled people
is that they treat us as being asexual and are horrified when disabled people want to have relationships.
I mean when I used to have indirect services from home care, if they’d rota’d somebody in
to come at 9 o’clock in the morning and I had a man staying overnight, they couldn’t cope with it.
So in the end, I got so frustrated that I put a big notice on the back door
and said no home care today – man in house. That soon sorted it. [laughs]
- One, two three … - Oh that’s a good one.
Another day at the Pridmore’s, rocketing along; it’s never boring is it?
- It’s certainly not. - I’ve got thirty five minutes before my gin and tonic [laughs].
Evan has quite a lot of skills all taught to him by Canine Partners,
and it’s Evan’s big day today because it’s his graduation, so he’s going to be on his very best behaviour we hope.
Okay, as you will see, Evan is a large boy, but a true gentle giant.
There is only person that we could really put him with and knew that he would excel with,
and that was with Anne Pridmore.
Well Anne, I’d like to invite you up to the front so everyone can see Evan. Would you like to say anything Anne?
Yes, I can do, if you like. Where can I start?
Evan is truly a gentle giant, he’s a lovely big dog. He’s wined and dined in the best hotels in London.
I’d like to thank everybody here that brought us together. I’m not going to mention names because there’ll be somebody I’ll miss out.
So thank you. [applause]
Evan’s had a lovely time and he’s met up with his sister, and I think she’s a match for him.
I see myself continuing in this type of work, either until the chair gives out or I get too tired and old to do it.
I think I would have liked to have been a volunteer service person overseas,
and I see myself as going over there and digging for water and things like that,
and in my own little way, I think I’ve achieved that through the work I’ve done for disabled people in the UK.