Some of these pieces were originally on the 'Red Squirrel Party" Blog, but I thought they might detract a little from the more political polemic there.

So I started this one.

The title, just in case the odd reader may not have fathomed it, is a deliberate mis-spelling. Because those of us who are disabled know very well how the non-disabled are all too prone to "diss" us about what we are (or or sometimes erroneously think we should be) able to do . . .

Sunday 28 July 2013

Can you Climb Everest in a Wheelchair?

No; and you can't get up all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in one, either. . .As a 'crowd-funded' disabled American making a film about it has just discovered. You can't get up to the dome of St Paul's cathedral in London in one either.


“I was right,” said Reid Davenport to his friend on the London Tube, according to his article in the Washington Post. “Europe is not accessible.”
And how did he reach this conclusion? 
I sat in the underground train exhausted, wondering how long it would be before we got to our stop. There was no announcement coming from the overhead speakers, but a man’s voice saying “Mind the gap” rang in my ears. My friend Pat was sitting next to me, holding my collapsible wheelchair in place.

I was visiting Pat and two other American friends studying in England. As we made our way to downtown London, Pat had to carry my wheelchair up and down flights of stairs at various tube stations because most of the elevators were out of service. Because there were no ramps, I was constantly forced to get up from my chair at various points to mount a step or more. And the 18-inch gap between the train cars and the platform made me wonder how British residents in electric wheelchairs manage to get around.
Well, Mr Reid and Pat, the answer is by bus. Did no-one explain that every single bus in London has a ramp and a wheelchair space? And wheelchair users travel free? (Your 'free bus pass' is your wheelchair.) I travel on them all the time in mine.

He claims, by the way that the Paris Metro, in comparison to London is all wheelchair accessible; it isn't. And, unlike London, not all buses have ramps. And if you travel by TGV (as I do) there are steps up onto the trains from the platforms, which are lower on the continent than in Britain. You need to arrange help.

But Europe-bashing generally seems to have become an increasingly popular sport in the US media ever since that infamous outburst about 'Old Europe'. It's just a little surprising that we should be written off for disability access as well like this.

Heaven knows, I moan about the kind of advance planning you have to do even here in London if you use a wheelchair; but that is true of anywhere. I keep wanting to try the Tube myself, and there is a map online which tells you exactly where you have to 'mind the gap' and the still infuriatingly few stations that have lifts and level access to the trains and the street. (Which neither Reid nor his |London friends knew about?) I'll get around to it one day; it's just that I live in a bereft area ass far as wheelchair access to the Tube goes, and getting on the Tube in a wheelchair involves getting on buses to get onto the tube anyway. . .

Mr Davenport 'did' four countries in twenty days. Or was it four cities? Dublin, London, Paris, Brussels. And the latter two by air, apparently. That would have been easier by Eurostar and TGV. Then his wheelchair might not have been damaged in the hold of the plane, either.

He made a film about it. I don't think I'll look out for it. 

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