When I was a small child, over 30 years ago, my dad used to swing me up on to his shoulders and carry me through the park.
One day, dad couldn’t do this any more.
It was explained to me that dad had had an accident at work (he was a dustman) and had damaged his back. He needed to go into hospital for an operation. Little did we know, this was the first of many.
Each operation seemed to make matters worse – things kept going wrong, and my dad ended up having numerous operations both at the local hospital and at Southampton General, at one point being told that he could be paralysed, so serious were the problems with his back and neck.
I have many memories from childhood of going to visit my dad in hospital, and of him spending months – including Christmas - flat on his back in a hospital bed.
Even after the final operation, he missed out on things that dads might otherwise do with their small children, and had trouble walking any distance, certainly not without pain. Before this accident, he had been fit, healthy and very active. Becoming disabled changed his life dramatically.
More recently, dad was diagnosed with blocked arteries in his legs and angina, and has had a heart bypass operation. He also experiences anxiety and depression, which can leave him very distressed and upset.
Most of his days were spent indoors, right up until a few years ago when he took up bowls with the support of his doctor as it would help him to be as active as possible while also relieving depression. This has been fantastic as he has become really involved with the bowls club and has given him something to fill his days.
So you can imagine how I felt when I heard that a Sun journalist and photographer had been knocking on his door, taking his picture, telling him that they were doing a story on benefit cheats.
While they were not at liberty to discuss why they had my dad’s name, this appears to follow a malicious complaint made to the DWP scroungers hotline last year suggesting that my dad was a faker, which was fully investigated (causing a huge amount of upset and distress) and correctly found to be a completely false accusation. I feel rather sorry for whoever the person who made this report is, really, as they are one of the many in this country who have been completely suckered in by the Government and media’s anti-disabled people rhetoric, and clearly have no empathy or any understanding that being disabled doesn’t necessarily mean you are in a wheelchair or can’t do a single thing for yourself. There but for the grace of God, some might say.
I don’t feel sorry for journalists, for this Frankie Cary who turned up on my dad’s doorstep tonight, because they should be educated enough and intelligent enough to understand what they are doing and the harm they are causing. I am sure that they are not too dense to appreciate the damage they can cause and the actual truth behind the lies and false statistics that they peddle to turn the country in on itself. Which makes me wonder just what sort of people they are.
Who are you, Frankie Cary? When you decided to become a journalist, what did you see for yourself? Did you see a long and glittering career seeking out the truth and highlighting society’s wrongs, did you see yourself being able to influence the world and all those around you, did you feel proud at getting your degree knowing that you were now in a position of great responsibility and power, that people would be reading your words and learning from them, that you would somehow help to make the world a more open, honest and better place?
Or did you see yourself standing on the doorstep of a 68 year old man with a long standing disability, anxiety issues and heart problems, harassing him and distressing him to talk about the lies you are peddling based on hearsay and rumour?
Are you proud of yourself, Frankie Cary? Would your parents be proud?
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