Well, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview Mark.

Can I start off please by

asking you when were you born?

The third of the eleventh, 1958.

And whereabouts were you born?

In, in Gloucestershire

What did your parents do?

My mum was a secretary for the colleges, my dad was a painter and decorator.

Did you have any brothers or sisters?

I have a sister called Joanna.

Is she older or younger than you?

She's 18 months older.

Did any member of your family have any health issues or disabilities?

Yes, my mum and dad met in Papworth Hospital where my mum had all of her lung
removed and my dad had half of one of his lungs removed.

Was this because of Tuberculosis?

Yes.

What was your house, like growing up?

Oh, we started off very basic but then, with the alteration my dad did, it had an inside loo
where at one stage we just had an outside loo.

Did you go to sch- did you stay in Gloucestershire?

No, we c-, we moved to Cambridge when I was 18 months old.

Why did you move the Cambridge?

Health issues I think.

There- it was easier for your parents to be closer to the Papworth Hospital?

Possibly, but I'm not sure.

Whereabouts in Cambridge did you live?

In Belvoir Road, Chesterton area.

So um, what's your earliest memory?

Um...uh, possibly when I was about three. And I was, no it was before then, it was when I
was at nursery school. I used to go to school, a nursery school called Whittes Hoddes at
the bottom of De Freville Avenue and we used to do things like um, dancing around the
Maypole which you don't see nowadays, mm!

Did you um, did you have any hobbies as a child or any particular interests?

Apart from skiving off school, no. I hated school, I loved work. And now at, sod's law has it,
I end up here. I have to, I have to um, yes, give up work and end up back at a place like
school, mm!

How old were you when you left school?

Twelve, no I was 16.

And what did you do when you left school?

I became a telegram boy.

Whereabouts was that?

Uh, it was in Cambridge. And the mopeds were round the sorting office down Maeve Road,
uh but the main office was in town down St. Tibb's Row.

Did you enjoy that?

Yes, I still say to the day that was my best job.

So that would have been abou - '58 - 1974?

Yes.

Ok, what um.

Uh, no. I left school in '75.

'75.

Uh, so I remember the hot summer in '76 and we weren't allowed to go out without our
jackets on.

What um, what did you do after, how long were you a telegraph boy for, telegram boy
sorry?

18 months.

Mmhmm.

And then I had to be a postman.

Working for the Royal Mail?

Yes.

How long did you do that for?

I wasn't a postman for very long. About six months and then I left them and went on
working for Bevis.

What were you doing for them?

I was a chain man. Helping the engineers.

Ok. Did you enjoy that?

Yes, it was a variety of work I had to do like holding stops for engineers and steel fixing
and crawling through steel when they did the bridges for the measuring. And was quite
funny as well, especially when one of the engineers gave the tape um, he gave the end of
one of a tape measure to one of the Irish men and it was a 30 meter tape and he was
looking and going back and back, back and all of a sudden it started to unreel, and he
looked up and the Irish man had gone back off the edge! And he was falling to the ground.

Was he alright?

Yes.

So how long did you do that for?

Um, about two years.

And where did you go then?

I went to Mart-, no I didn't, I went to Barratt Homes.

What did you do there?

Uh, labouring. And that's all I did there. Worked and make, get the bricks for the um,
yardsman, and things like that. And threw scaff-, uh scaffolding on the foreman's head!

Haha ah brilliant! Hehe. Uh, so how long were at Barratt's for? Or where did you go after
that?

I was at Barratt's for about two years and then I went to Marshall and Bartlett's down
Cromwell Road as a labourer there. Uh, but being Glass Merchants, it wasn't long before I
became a, an edge polisher of glass and a glass cutter.

Wow, what um. That must be very delicate work I would have thought?

They say there's nothing more dangerous than glass. And I suppose they would be right,
because allthough sheets of steel are sharp, they don't break, not like glass does. And we
had some glass, and, patterned glass, and if you didn't carry it right it broke just through
you gripping it.

I'd be too clumsy for that.

It was called a bit, an old German word 'Putzon'.

Did you enjoy that job what, did you like working with glass?

Yes.

What was it about that that you liked?

Well it had a great variety.

It strikes me you, probably you, you get bored quite easily?

I did do but I found my forte was glazing, because I had four jobs before going into hospital.

So how long were you working with glass for?

Oh, all my life off and on. Well, after, after working at Barratts. When I started at Mastilles I
left there and went to GT Glass and then I got laid off there and I went to Go Glass and left
there and went back to um, Solar glass, which was Mastille and was its, it was taken over
by Solar Glass.

It strikes me that, working with glass like that must be a similar sort of art to working with,
well other substances like you have carpenters and um, stonemasons and stuff like that,
and it must be as intricate with the same sort of rules?

Yes. Um, mind you as my dad always said, its preparation preparation preparation.

Yes.

You always had to sort things out first, think ahead.

Did you ever get married?

I did.

Would you mind telling me a little bit about that, how you met your wife and stuff? That
would be interesting, please?

Mm! Well it's a bit embarrassing really because she was married at the time. And she left
her husband to be with me. And then she left me after six years of marriage and five years
of living together. We lived together for five years then got married, and then after six
years of marriage she left me and she said there's no-one else as I was paying
maintenance for the kids. And also we had Relate, where we went to Relate uh, for advice
and she wasn't interested really. All she really wanted was sex. And even after the divorce
she said, stay round here. So I did for a few nights and then she got married again.

Tell me about your children.

My oldest will be 35 um, next month. No, two months' time. Um, my middle one will be 34
in September and my youngest will be 31 in December.

Are they girls or boys?

The two eldest are girls. The youngest is a boy.

What do they do for a living?

I'm not sure about the eldest but the middle one, middle girl and my son, make jewellery
and sell it. My son made a ring and he took it to a woman in The Shard in London to sell it
to her, so I don't think he's, he's short of a few bob.

So, could you tell me how you, why you started coming to Headway please?

Well I, I first of all went into hospital on the 20 th of March 2000 and I went in because they
thought it was calcium on the nerve of the eye but when they were operating they found it
to be a tumour and whilst taking the tumour off I had a stroke. And when I was in A5 Ward,
a nurse said to me, do you feel alright? I said, I feel rotten really. I said, why do you ask?
She said, uh she asked because your eyes have gone red. That's because I was having a
haemorrhage. I presume when they took uh, some of the tumour off the nerve of the eye it
started to bleed and fill my head up with blood. And that is what I gather although I'm not
sure. I do know one thing though, it has buggered me up.

How long were you in Hospital for?

Eight, eight and a half months. Just a routine op. And that's just it, I walked in and eight
and a half months later I got to go then, and 16 years later I'm still in this bloody thing. Big

wheelchair.

Were you still working with glass when you went into Hospital?

Eh no, I had left Go Glass and became a delivery driver for Pinder Freight.

So I presume you had to give up work, when you?

Oh definitely.

So when you came out of hospital, um how much kind of help did you get? It must have
been an incredible change in your life?

Oh it was considering I used to do everything myself and I ended up not being able to do
anything. Um, how I found out about Headway was through Addenbrookes Hospital and I
would use Gill, who, who started Headway up. She was coming to the hospital every so
often and that's how I found out about it.

Were you living in Melbourn at that time?

No, we only moved to Melbourne after I had a stroke. I was living with my parents in Little
Eversden.

Did you continue to live with them after your stroke?

No, Addenbrookes found a place in Melbourn.

Is it like sheltered housing?

No. No. It was just an ordinary bungalow, but they did provide us with lots of help like
taking out the bath and making it a wet room and putting up rails outside so I could walk.
But then we had the offer eh, to move bungalows eh, to a new place which would have
been built and was purpose built for disabled people. So we moved there instead and they
won't put up bigger rails and it's all this bloody health and safety and they say it's too
dangerous and Denise isn't qualified and she said, Ive only been getting him in and out of
bed and on and off the toilet for fifteen years and I'm not qualified?! So I think it's a load of
bollocks. Excuse my French. Mm!

So who were you living with at that time? When, who did you live with in Melbourn?

My partner, who I live with now.

Did you meet her before you had your operation?

Yes.

Ooh, could you tell me a little bit about her please?

Eh, she was a cook down at my local pub, The Wheatsheaf, and I used to go in there to
play darts and that's how we met. I got to know the landlord and landlady and they
introduced me to her that way and plus I became a barman as well.

Whereabouts was The Wheatsheaf?

Harlton Road, on the A603. It's opposite Harlton Road. It's called The Pagoda now,
Pergola.

Did you enjoy doing bar work?

Yes, it was one of my four jobs.

Did you like a drink?

Yes, I probably drunk too much.

What was your, what was your drink?

Mmm! Eh, fluid!

Haha! What was your sorry, what was your favourite thing to drink?

Lager.

Lager, mmm.

Strong lager.

Do you still drink now?

No, not very much because I'm always dizzy and when I have drink at Christmas if it
makes me too dizzy then I feel rotten.

What's your partner's name?

Denise.

Denise. And, she um, how, how do you feel that your um, that the after effects of the
operation affected her?

I wish she was happy-go-lucky but she's had to move away from that to look after me, give
up her job and to look after me and I am her priority now whereas before I think it was her
children.

Did you have children with her or with your wife?

No, with my wife.

And Denise has children of her own?

Yes, her husband died funnily enough. It's not funny, but when I went into hospital
because I was, I had cancer of my left kidney and they operated on the 22 nd May 2015,
she said her husband died on the 22 nd of May but she wasn't going to tell me that. She
said, I didn't want to frighten you.

Are you recovered from that cancer now?

I will tell you next month when I've had the results back from my scan, but originally on the
CT scan when they looked at it they said, all clear. But it was only today that I've been in
the gym and was saying to Veer that I've been having stabbing and pins on my left hand
side where my kidney was, and he said, let me know. So after half an hour I said, I can't
stand it anymore. So I went to the bars and I was yelling in pain and he said, I've never
seen you look like that before. He said, shall I call somebody? And I said no, it will pass
and it has passed. And sometimes I get cramp in that side and today I think today it just
came to a head.

Do you enjoy coming to Headway?

Yes, I wouldn't be here after 15 years if I didn't.

I bet you've seen some changes here.

Mainly staff and, and, as one of the members said, we're not called members any more,
we're called clients. I said, I signed on as a member and I'm staying a bloody member.
Sod them. They can please themselves but as far as I'm concerned, I've got it in writing
that I'm a member and I'll given Claire a photocopy of them. So she's got them locked
away in her drawer somewhere. And that Austin said, when I had a barney with them,
because they charged me for a day off sick because I'm self-funded. And he said, we've
got to charge you for the day off because of the staffing. I said, get rid of some of the staff
then and he said, we can't do that. And instead of talking to me he was talking at me and
telling me what I wanted to hear, so I just turned off. And I thought, well is that your attitude?

Then fine. I know they've got to pay the staff, but if I'm not here there's other people here
so they're not losing money really. Cos the way I look at it is, this is swings and
roundabouts. If they can do charge for being off sick, then I will come in when I'm sick and
give my germs to everybody else and that way at least I am paying for a service. I'm not
paying for something I'm not getting.

How often, how many days a week do you come to Headway?

Just one now. I used to come on the Monday as well but they decided to shut it down
because they said, money again. I thought, well there's always a way around it. It's money.
It's always money. Everything's about money.

What do you when you're not at Headway?

Watch telly. Go on the computer.

What sort of stuff do you watch on telly?

Um, quizzes, mainly and uh, and, antiques shows.

What about on the computer, do you go online?

Sometimes, but mainly its games.

What sort of games?

And um, um, it's Puzzle Park, which is a load of different things and some of them unlock
them. To unlock them you've got to make three in a row. And some might have locked, so
you've got to do it again before you break through it.

How do you think over the course of your life, not in relation to you but just generally,
things have changed for people with disabilities. For instance, when you were a child, did
you know anybody with a disability? Obviously your parents had a health, health issues,
um, but did you have any friends or school friends who had disabilities?

Well, I had a school friend who had half a leg but that didn't really seem to affect him in
any way. He had grown up with it. He got run over by a milk float when he was three.

How d- do you think things have changed? Do you think attitudes have changed over ,
over the years towards people with disabilities?

I will say in general that, um, things couldn't be any more helpful at the moment. But I will
say, off the record of, that things at Headway have gone downhill.

I can cut this bit out. Um, what makes you say that?

Uh, because it's true, haha!

Yes, but is there anything in particular that you, that you um, that you've, you notice that
you think's changed?

Yes, I still stay in touch with the people who set Headway up. Pam Davent and Tina

Davies and when I spoke to them about payment, um, they both said it didn't matter about
payment, how much money you had. In their day you came to Headway because you're
disabled and it wasn't to do with money. But nowadays it's all to do with money. Mind you,
uh, I'm a right one to talk. I keep looking for the best interest rates, which are non-existent
nowadays.

Do you feel that, through um, do you feel that through the course of um, your life since you
had the oper- the operation. Do you think that you've, that like, things like the NHS and, I
don't know, Social Services and stuff like that. Do you feel that they've helped you, looked
after you? You, I mean obviously you worked all your life up until um, you had that
operation, and you paid your National Insurance and you paid your taxes.

Yes.

And you were paying for people in a situation then to be looked after and now you get,
you get, you- you deserve the same level of assistance. How do you feel that has panned
out?

Uh well, I can't really fault it. I, I've got nothing bad to say about it in general. They've all
been good to me though I will say I would like to have it explained a bit better, what
happens to me.

In terms of treatment and stuff?

Yes. I know its a broad spectrum but I've learnt all of it after sixteen years. I was never told
it to start with. Perhaps they thought, he won't remember uh, but I will say I've got a better

memory now than I've ever had, probably because I don't have to remember so much. Mm!
That was what I put it down to anyway.

Do you think that the changes that are happening in terms of benefits and stuff like that
and the cuts that are happening generally, has that affected you or have you seen an
effect elsewhere, um?

Um, it probably has affected me but I don't know what's going on for a lot of the time as I
don't read things 'cos I can't seem to read. And when I came out of hospital I was nearly
paralysed from the neck down. So when I, I've got a rail across the sink in the bathroom,
when I actually lifted my hand off it I cried with joy. But it's just getting the left one working
now.

Are you seeing a constant improvement? Slowly, but are things-?

Uh slowly, yes.

That's really good.

I remember coming to Headway when we were at Mill Road site and Kate giving me a ball
and she said, pass the ball around and when she passed it to me I couldn't take it. There
was no way I could stretch out my left arm. I didn't even try and take it.

What changes could happen in, like, the level of care and the things that are out there that
would improve things for you? I mean obviously, there are things within yourself physically
that you would like to improve or change, but what changes outside of yourself could you

see that could, yeah, make things better for you?

Well, I don't know offhand. I haven't given it a lot of thought.

I think we're coming to the end now, um, of the interview. What do you think the future
holds for you? What are your hopes, or?

At the moment, when a volunteer, Kieran said about something and I said about chopping
someone's head off, he said, I will chop your head off. I said, you'll be doing me a favour.
So I think I would be better off dead. Rather than live this life being a burden on people
and being dizzy all the time, not being able to... as Veer said when I was in the gym, he
said he's going on holiday to Yorkshire. And I said, lovely part of the country. He said,
staying in a log cabin. He said, it's nice, just to be able to look at the scenery. He said, you
ought to try it. I said, I would but I can't even see the scenery properly. I can't get up and
walk anywhere. I can't talk properly. I can't move about like I want to. I can't see properly,
so what is the point? That's the way I look at things anyway.

How do you keep going?

Food. Food. Ha! No, but seriously I think it's just my partner. She does a lot for me. More
than I could ever say to her because, well I don't know really. I try and say things but it
keeps coming out wrong.

Shall we end it there? Thank you, thank you Mark.

Yes.