Crip's Column
View from my wheelchair - Victoria Brignell on life as a disabled person.
Bizarre comments
- Posted by Victoria Brignell
- 08 May 2007
Some strange things get said to people with disabilities. Here Victoria Brignell gives us her top 12 weird remarks
I never cease to be amazed by the bizarre comments people make to me because of my disability, comments they would never dream of making to any able-bodied person - and I’m not alone in experiencing this phenomenon.
Most visibly disabled people will have been on the receiving end of countless unintentionally amusing remarks. Here is a selection from my own personal store of weird and wonderful anecdotes. In a bold and radical break with convention, I’m going to list them in the form of a “Top 12”, rather than a “Top 10”. I assure you, I haven’t made any of them up…:
12. My subject at university was Classics. Once, in the middle of a tutorial on Cicero, the tutor in question suddenly paused half-way through a sentence and asked me out of the blue, “Victoria, how do you get up in the morning?”. Annoyed and disconcerted in equal measures by the inappropriate timing of the question, I was tempted to reply that I got up in the same manner that Wallace does in Nick Park’s The Wrong Trousers. But I’m afraid I simply told him the truth – a considerably duller explanation. (I mumbled something about having carers who assisted me). It’s probably just as well, really as I doubt this particular academic had heard of Wallace and Gromit.
11. In March I needed to catch a train to visit family in Essex. When I arrived at Liverpool Street I asked a member of staff to ring ahead to my destination so that the station knew there was a passenger who needed a ramp to get off. (I didn’t fancy ending up in Clacton – a place I shall forever associate with a geography field trip on coastal erosion). I went on to add, “and please could you tell them I’m in the carriage nearest the London-end of the train”. Nothing exceptional about that request, you might think. A perfectly logical description of my location, it seemed to me. However, the official replied, with a look of astonishment, “Blimey, you know all the technical terms!”.
10. Taxi drivers deserve a category all to themselves in my anecdotes collection. One driver said to me after taking me home, “You only realise how bumpy the roads are when you have someone special in the back”. Special? Why special? Perhaps he intended to say special needs and the words didn’t come out the right way. Whatever he meant, I’m just glad that the only other person who heard him was my carer. If my friends had been around, they would have pulled my leg mercilessly. On another occasion, a driver asked me when we arrived at my workplace, “Have you always been in a chair or did you have an accident?”. I explained that I’d had a tumour in my spinal cord. “Well, at least you keep your mind occupied,” he replied somewhat patronisingly. Great consolation next time I face a stressful day in the office!
9. A few years ago I went to a drinks reception where the “guest of honour” was a senior national politician. I happened to be sitting near the door at the moment he arrived. When he saw me, he shook my hand and exclaimed, “I’m glad there’s somebody else here tonight who won’t be drinking!”. As a matter of fact, I am teetotal but there was no way he could have known that. He saw my wheelchair and jumped to the conclusion that I could not or would not drink alcohol. No doubt he’s forgotten the incident but whenever I see him on the news, I can’t help remembering this gaffe.
8. Sometimes amusing comments arise simply because there are people in this world who can’t get their head around the relatively straightforward idea that not all disabled people are over 60. On one occasion, a care agency sent me a carer who didn’t seem to be on the same planet as the rest of us. She looked at my live-in carer (I need two carers with me much of the time) and asked, “Is she your daughter?”. I was about 27 at the time and my live-in carer was about 21. I imagine that many, if not all, of the agency woman’s clients were pensioners and she probably had come to associate being disabled with being elderly.
7. Last month I had a call from an environmental charity I support, wanting to know if I would be willing to increase my standing order. One of my assistants answered the phone and the charity woman must have asked her if she was talking to me, because I heard my assistant say, “No, it’s her carer”. My assistant then gave me the phone. At the end of the conversation, the charity woman and myself had the following exchange.
Charity woman: “You sound young”.
Me: “Well, I’m 30”.
Charity woman: “But you have a carer?”.
Me: “Yes, I’m a wheelchair user”.
Charity woman: “Oh, I am sorry”.
The charity woman said this last line in an overly-concerned voice as if I’d suffered a bereavement. Was she apologising for being inquisitive or because I am a wheelchair user? Either way, I was left wondering how a conversation about nature conservation twisted into a discussion about my disability!
6. I love going to the theatre and one of the cleverest productions I’ve seen in recent years is Stones in his Pockets. That evening is memorable for another reason as well. I was wearing a red cloak and the theatre’s carpet was also red. As I was queuing up to collect the tickets from the box office, the woman in front of me suddenly swung around and in her haste to walk away almost landed in my lap. “Oh, I am sorry!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t see you there. You blended in with the carpet.”
5. A couple of years ago I went to a public lecture at the British library by the eminent scientist and professional atheist Richard Dawkins, who on this occasion was talking about science rather than regaling us with his views on religion. Afterwards in the foyer, a well-built middle-aged man wandered over to me and asked, “Did you enjoy that?”, in the tone of voice you would normally use if asking a four-year-old child whether she had enjoyed her ice cream.
4. I remember attending a concert at Chelmsford Cathedral when I was about 12 years old. In the interval, a woman whom I had never seen before, walked up to me, leant over and rather abruptly enquired, “What’s the problem?”. I wasn’t sure at first what she was talking about. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute? Sectarian violence in Northern Ireland? Then it dawned on me that she was referring to my disability.
I explained that I had developed a tumour in my spinal cord. “Have you had it removed?”, came the next question. Yes, I assured her, the tumour had been removed. “Good,” she boomed before marching off.
3. In the spring of 2000 I was invited to a BBC party celebrating the 50th birthday of one of its presenters (I was working on this person’s programme at the time). Various members of the “great and the good” were on the guest list. In the course of the evening I found myself chatting with a famous woman, who shall remain nameless (although I will point out that she’s not a BBC employee). At the end of the conversation, she said, “It’s been good talking to you. I’d always assumed before now that people in wheelchairs can’t talk.” I suppose I should give her marks for honesty, but it’s a strange thing to admit in public.
2. I once paid a visit to Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, a beautiful stately home renowned for being the place where Elizabeth I was staying when she discovered she had become queen. Hatfield House had a lift installed relatively early in the 20th century – another reason why I like the building. As I was going up in the lift, the steward accompanying me mentioned that Churchill was among those who had made use of it. He then spoilt his story by tentatively enquiring, “Have you heard of Winston Churchill?”. I assured him I had, not adding that I was in fact working as a researcher on a BBC documentary about World War II at the time.
1. One day during my first year at Cambridge I was going through Gonville and Caius College when a young man came up to me. He stopped and asked in a strong American accent, without any hesitation, “Your face looks familiar. Were you born like that?” I regard this as the most weird comment I’ve come across. Not only was the man a complete stranger, but the second sentence doesn’t logically follow the first. I wish now I had asked the man what prompted his question but at the time I was so taken aback that I just spluttered, “No, I wasn’t”. This incident has intrigued me ever since.
That completes my list of bizarre comments. All that remains for me to do is to thank all the people I’ve mentioned for giving me so many laughs over the years. Without you, my life would be a lot more dull and a lot less entertaining.
Victoria Brignell
April 2007
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