Old Farts with Acquired Disabilities

One group of disabled people who really annoy me, and I have to admit that I am frequently annoyed by other disabled people are, Old Farts with Acquired Disabilities.

Why should this particular group of old farts annoy me in particular, I hear readers asking themselves.

The reason for this is their attitude.

I think that the first time when I really found the old disabled farts irksome was when I was 16 and at Hereward College. There was a group of us, young disabled people from the college, and we had taken ourselves to see a football match at Coventry. The majority of us were wheelchair users and Coventry City Football Club had quite correctly let us in to their wheelchair enclosure - a dugout along the entire length of the touchline. As we were there first, we had chosen to place ourselves in the centre so that we could get a really good view (none of these spaces were reserved for individuals).

About 5 minutes before kickoff this old fart in a wheelchair came along and asked us to move so that he could get to "his" space. This would have meant shunting about a dozen wheelchair users about and there was ample room for his wheelchair elsewhere so we told his to go somewhere else. He called a steward over and the steward also told him to go elsewhere.

The old fart then complained to the steward, "I've fought in the war for that space." The steward looked aghast and, understandably, in unison, we told him to "Fuck off".

I think that it is, the attitude that the world somehow owes them something - just because they are older.

What these old farts fail to realise is that before they became disabled, they had the same advantages at their peers - I'm not saying that their lives were easy or somehow privileged, in many cases their lives were far from easy. The important thing is that they had the same opportunities as everyone else to an education, to get a job, to buy a house, save some money, have a family etc.

Those of us who have been disabled since birth have been denied these opportunities.

I went to a "special" school and I certainly did not find anything very special about the place as we were denied the depth of learning that is offered to non-disabled children and denied the opportunity to take any qualifications.

I was fortunate in that I was able to get a place at Hereward College in 1975 and this enabled me to get some qualifications and thereby get a reasonable career, but it took time to catch up and my knowledge base is still relatively narrow, which has in the past been a disadvantage. However most of the kids that I was at school with ended up attending their local council day centres, which are little more than adult "baby sitting" centres. They certainly have not had the opportunity to get jobs, save some money, buy a house and as for having sex - disabled people are not allowed to do that, did not you know!

Today, I had a situation where I was waiting patiently with my indicator flashing, for another disabled driver to vacate a designated parking space (she was genuinely disabled and was taking rather a long time - that is OK). I have a van-based wheelchair accessible vehicle and it is not as maneuverable as a car. The woman moved out the parking space and this elderly bloke in a Ford Ka just drove straight in from another direction and beat me to the space - Ford Kas are not available with automatic gearboxes and therefore are not usually driven by with lower limb impairments or mobility impairments.

The guy got out the car and he had a slight limp but could walk at a normal pace. How did that old fart qualify for a Blue Badge - it was very suspicious!

I hope he gets four flat tyres!