Hello, and happy International Wheelchair Day!
With all that’s going on in the world, I wondered what I should cover this week on The View From Down Here, especially whether I should look into what’s happening to disabled Ukrainians. But I don’t think this is really the place for that, and I am nowhere near qualified to do it well, so I have decided to carry on as usual. Normality is good, and allows us to turn our attention back to events in a calmer and more useful manner. If you want to help disabled Ukrainians, there’s a dedicated fundraiser here.
This year, as I’ve been planning my book, I’ve been reading a lot of disability memoirs. So I was really excited when Sophie Morgan - TV presenter, disability campaigner and all round babe - sent me a review copy of her upcoming book, Driving Forwards.
From my conversations with Sophie (small disclaimer: we know each other a little), I knew that she had interesting things to say on disability and that we shared a similar worldview. But I was intrigued to see whether her experience of becoming disabled at 18 influenced her understanding of disability, and how it differed from my disabled-since-birth perspective.
Interestingly, the differences are minimal. Sophie’s book is decidedly not a medical-recovery memoir; the familiar story of ‘getting better after an accident’ that so often becomes ‘how I overcame disability’. Instead, it is a story of learning to live - and live well - with disability. While Sophie of course has to adapt to her new body, and doesn’t shy away from detailing the difficulty of doing so, the book is really a story of finding an identity, a drive and a purpose in making society more inclusive. There is such power in someone like Sophie, who was once able to walk, asserting with absolute conviction, as she does at the end of the book, that she loves her disabled body. That love she has for herself - and for the life she leads - is not something we expect from disabled women, and yet, despite the frank retelling of what she has endured, it shines through Sophie’s writing. This is a woman completely happy to be herself, and how often do we see that?
The focus on a good disabled life is equally refreshing. And in her writing, Sophie shows what we all know to be true: what makes a disabled life good is what makes any life good - friends, opportunities, travel, love. The most emotional scene is not the accident, or even being reunited with the boy she loved before it, or even her finding the last picture of herself on two feet. No, the scene that made me tear up was Sophie’s friend helping her learn how to do a wheelie, catching her over and over again until she learned not to fall. I thought instantly of the many friends who have physically and metaphorically held me up over the years, and how grateful I am that my extra reliance on them has strengthened our bond in a way I don’t think nondisabled people get to experience. What Sophie is saying is this: with the right help and support, and a lot of laughter, disabled life is just as good - better - than its nondisabled equivalent.
Yet disabled people are still routinely denied access to the things that allow for such an outlook. Sophie tells of her shock at discovering how disabled people are treated on her first trip to a shopping centre as a wheelchair user - ignored or stared at, pitied or praised - and then her anger when her local arts college refuses to accommodate her. We get to see the making of an advocate, ridiculous situation by ridiculous situation.
Sophie’s prose is urgent and vivid. You often feel as if you are witnessing her life in real time. She does a great job of acknowledging and revealing how something felt at the time, even when her feelings have changed over time as she has adapted - rather than just imposing the latter view on the past, she takes us along for the ride. There were several chapters that I raced through at speed; not through any sense of jeopardy but because Sophie’s voice - raw, unvarnished, radically honest - is so compelling. Her palpable optimism puts you firmly in her corner, willing her on, and spurs you to read even faster.
If you want a ripping yarn that teaches you so much about disability (and why wouldn’t you?), you should read this book.
Driving Forwards is published on 17 March. You can pre-order a copy here.
See you next week,
Lucy
Links of the week
There’s some amazing reporting being done in Ukraine and the region, but in the interests of light relief, here’s some Cool Internet Stuff to read:
Check out #InternationalWheelchairDay on Instagram - it brings me much joy to see all the ways people love their chairs
As someone who enjoys being awake in the small hours, I enjoyed this Atlantic piece - although it did make me think I should probably go to bed earlier
When everything is bad, books are your friend. The Guardian’s pick of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time is a good place to start