hello
my wonderful friends and welcome back to
another video
i hope you are doing well today just a
couple of things before this video
starts first of all thank you so much
for your support
on last week's video regarding disabled
parking being blocked off due to social
distancing measures
and other accessibility issues as well
in that video i speak about the petition
i have started that i'm going to be
sending off to justin tomlinson who is
the minister of department work and
pensions
calling for councils to wake up
themselves music low more
the link to the petition is in the
description box
thank you so much everybody who has
signed it and importantly
shared it as well um i think we've got
nearly
two..7 000 signatures already
so that is fantastic also
the disabled bays that were outside the
iv that i needed to park in that have
been blocked off for social distancing
measures are still blocked off
but they have replaced the two loading
bays
to be disabled based so that is a result
i like to think that it might have been
my awareness
that might have helped that but um i
think we did it all together
i don't know if it's just a coincidence
or whether
you know we have helped spread awareness
of this issue so today's
video is an interesting one one that i
didn't think that i would kind of be
was ever gonna make but here we are
things never cease to amaze us do they
it's a story time
and it happened last week
basically i have two lovely followers
who i mentioned in my last video
lisa and barry um who i would regard as
my little online friends
as well who have been amazing at helping
and supporting me
through this journey as you all have um
but lisa
is an artist and we are really
overexposed
so lisa is an artist and um i will leave
her
instagram handle so you can check her
artwork out
but i was so so touched
when she sent me this
there we go it's a watercolor of
me on the batec daisy shawn and bindi
who you can probably hear
snoring in the background
and obviously it needs a frame
because it is so beautiful and i need to
put it in pride of place
last week against my will i
went to the range sean really wanted to
go to the range
i am dead against the range for obvious
reasons
so we go in i am in a bit of a a little
bit of a fluster and a bit of a
kerfuffle
i have a hoodie
on my lap and i'm
fiddling around with my mask and
i'm conscious that i'm in the way of
everyone i think i've got my phone on my
lap
you know what it's like when you've got
lots of things anyway the first aisle
that i come across
um has got picture frames in it so in i
go
to the picture frame aisle now daisy and
i
as you know if you follow me on
instagram we filmed a little
reconstruction for you
so i go into the aisle i have got
a frame on my lap and i put
one brake on because it's so cheap and
nasty in there
the floor's not even flat so um
i'm slightly rolling away i'm sat there
and i'm feeling really anxious anyway
because just going out makes me feel
anxious at the moment and i'm looking
at some stuff and i'm like is this right
will this work
kind of thing then i get a sense of
someone behind me
bear in mind the isles in the range are
quite
narrow much narrower than in our
reconstruction video
so the they're probably about a meter
and a half wide so i look behind me and
oh so i'm i'm you know balance counter
balancing everything on my lap
trying to get my break off also wheeling
with one hand and steering by moving my
upper body
you know what i mean and then all of a
sudden i feel something on the back of
me
and i look round and this man who i was
trying to you know make way for
looks me dead in the eye and i think it
must be
i must know someone and i look at him
like this i thought it was my
neighbor actually i thought it was
someone playing a joke on me and what he
had done is as he went past me
he grabbed the back of my wheelchair and
shook it as if to
move me out of the way and i looked at
him like that he was on his phone as
well
and it's like so i'm only joking and
walked past
and honestly my heart started to go i
felt really really shaky
and like really adrenaliney like even
more so
i just literally dropped everything and
went and found sean and daisy who were
in the
next aisle along i went up to sean and
he was like well did you say anything
and i was like no
you know that you know when you feel
they say paralyzed by fear
in that moment i was just so shocked
first of all i couldn't
see him because he had a mask on so i
was trying to work out if i knew him and
second of all i was
just so shocked that it actually
happened
that you know it all happened so so
quickly kind of thing
so when i was telling some people about
my experience
and the way that the man acted towards
me
they were asking what he was like
and no we can never ever judge on
appearances
but he was your average
middle-aged man who i just think was a
bit
cocky and just felt like he was being
funny
um he was well dressed as i said he had
a mask on
and you know just look like any
person that you would pass in the street
and i just think it's so ignorant and
so rude and it's really
put me off going out first of all okay
before corona you don't touch anybody's
wheelchair
unless you have permission to do so or
you have
asked our wheelchairs are an
extension of us you wouldn't go up to
someone and shake them by the shoulders
you wouldn't go up to someone and shake
them by the hips you know
my the back rest of my wheelchair is
about hip height
you wouldn't do that that that's
harassment you don't do that
to a wheelchair user you don't touch
their wheelchair you don't move their
wheelchair you don't lean on their
wheelchair
you don't kick their wheelchair which i
had happen not long ago in primark
you just don't
so this video i hope is raising
awareness that you
need to respect wheelchair users in the
fact that they are in
a wheelchair is an extension of our body
in fact mobility aids are extensions of
our bodies
and they really need to be respected as
sort of like a body part
they are invaluable they are neces
they are a necessity to our everyday
life
also can i just point out that we are in
the height of a global pandemic
so you need to maintain social
distancing and we still need to
respect boundaries scope have found
that a quarter of disabled people have
faced negative
attitudes from other shoppers when they
have gone out
86 of disabled adults
are worried about the negative impact
the pandemic has had
on their mental health and 59 of
disabled adults aren't even leaving
their home
at all i do actually feel like having a
sign on the back of my wheelchair don't
touch me
and keep two meters apart people don't
care
i know in the past i have spoken about
um assistance dogs
and i know that you have asked me
questions in the past as to whether i
would think about getting
getting an assistance dog i get a little
bit of imposter syndrome
and i think that there are people who
are
more deserving of an assistance dog
however
i think there are things that an
assistant store could really really help
me with
especially now um with these anxieties
that i have
and that experience that i have thought
to myself i wonder
if that would have happened if i had a
dog with me literally in the last two
weeks
i have had really negative
experiences with the outside world and
it is making me less and less
like i want to go out or i just want to
go out in my back
keep myself to myself and just get in
and get out as quickly as possible
i had one woman stop my mum and my
sister in the ivy telling them how
inspirational
they were for taking me out and
how aspirational it was that disabled
people
could be in somewhere so nice
i had someone tell me that my problem is
that i should have been a paralympian
and then i had my experience with um
that man
in the range we'd love to know how
you're feeling
do i need something on the back of my
wheelchair i have seen people put signs
on the back of their wheelchair
to respect social distancing i'm quite
keen to get them now
let me know your thoughts do you think
the man was wrong
or do you think he was just being funny
and i am being too sensitive
if you enjoyed this video please go and
watch
10 things you should know before pushing
a manual wheelchair
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thumbs up if you enjoyed this one and i
look forward to seeing you in my next
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you
