Dear Diary....

To everyone that reads my blog, I have decided to change what I use it for. You see I have lust landed a post of columnist for the new magazine PosAbility and kind of want to keep a lot of the stuff I would have once blogged about for publication. Instead I thought I'd turn this blog into a diary type affair. Of course there'll be comment, as nothing can stop me moaning, but with a more personal edge.

2012 started off as a weird year. I spent most of the festive season struck down with a succession of illnesses. While most were just the standard Man Flu stuff, I also spent most of Xmas reeling from one of the fun elements of my disability. I don't know how many of you agree with me, but I know I have always been amazed at how little information you get from the medical profession when you are disabled. I have always found that if I had been informed about what the future might hold for me thanks to the effects of my disability I might have made different choices. Ever since I a baby, the treatment I had for my cancer has been effecting my body but I have never been told in advance what might be coming. I understand that not many people survive cancer for as long as I have, and that being used as a guinea pig for a new treatment as I was means that no one really has any idea of what is around the corner but it would have been nice to have been given a vague hint of what might be possible. Take my spinal collapse when I was 15 for example. Only after it collapsed did my medical team inform me that they were planning to fix the issue with my back, but they wanted to wait until I had taken my exams. My spine collapsed on the day of my first exam, my German O Level. Now if I or my family were included in this decision, and I am sure we would have preferred to have my back fixed. Especially as I ended up having to go back a year to take my exams anyway... oh and I got a present of paraplegia out of their choice to wait too.

As I get older I find that other issues are coming up from the radiotherapy and chemotherapy I had as a baby, on top of the usual getting old crap. They are nothing too terrible at the minute, but they do mean I have to keep an eye on things as I rush towards old age. I know that many of them could have been lessened if I had known about what my future held when I was younger. Mainly as I might have changed the way I lived and thus have had some kind of control over my body. It's funny but I have always been obsessed with controlling my body, so I know I would have been obsessive about looking after myself. I mean I am now a tea total, non smoker, who eats healthy and tries to exercise all in an effort to ensure I am in control of my body, yet when I was younger I can only describe my lifestyle as... unhealthy... very unhealthy! I admit I had a pile of fun and am not sure I would have wanted to miss out on what a good time I had. However it would have been nice to know not only the obvious issues I was dicing with but to also have known the problems I might have been causing that were special to being me. Then no one is to blame for whatever happens except myself.

Of course, this is all a bit self indulgent. I am one lucky little sod really as I beat cancer and a really nasty one too. Neuroblastoma is a real pig of a tumour, and I am one very few people who have beaten. OK that number is growing, with a large amount of help from the Neuroblastoma Society. They fund research into finding a cure and give help and support for families going through treatment. I am a patron and working with them really made me realise how lucky I really am.

Having said that, I have also had some annoying experiences around access so far this year that demonstrate how far disabled people have to go in this society. The first thing that happened was I have been asked to leave a local campaigning group after I insisted that access was as important as other local issues. It is a collection of local interest groups all giving their opinion on a new development where I live in Camden. I don't want go into it too much but on many occasions I have found that my attempts to make people understand that access cannot be bolted onto buildings as an after thought, but needs to run through a design from the ground up, have been met with hostility. Mainly as many of the other people in the group had their own areas of interest. The people who were interested in heritage seemed to be especially upset by my fight to make Camden more accessible. I have never understood why heritage and preservation bodies find the idea of making changes to improve access so sacrilegious. They seem to imagine that the only way to make somewhere more accessible is to destroy their precious heritage, and do not care that maintaining it at any cost leads one section of our society to be left out in the cold and may even not be able to experience or witness the heritage at all. But whatever the individual group's area of interest, surely access should be of interest to all of them? I know there are methods to allow all of us to work together in such a way that we can all get what we want. Sadly I shall no longer be part of this group, but will continue to fight for a more accessible Camden. At the minute Camden is a very inaccessible place, and I will not rest until it gets better.

I realised just how inaccessible the world can be for disabled people this week, when I attended the funeral of my mate's father. It was held at the same place as my Dad is buried, so I went up early to visit my Dad's grave. However I could not get to it, as it was in an corner of the cemetery that I couldn't get to without pulling a wheelie over other people's graves. Something I felt I couldn't do, partly out of respect and partly for my own safety. So instead I had to ask my wife to take a photo of the headstone to allow me to see it. I haven't seen it since I went into my chair, 31 years ago. As I sat there in the freezing cold, trying to look at a photo on my wife's smart phone it really hit home just how far away an inclusive world still is.

Anyway, here is that picture. That way not only can I look at it whenever I want, but so can members of our family who are spread all over the world.


That's all for now, until next month,

Mik

With age comes wizdom... or what was I like?

At the minute I am transferring some of my previous TV work into the digital domain so I can up load it on to You Tube, in the hope that it might get me back into the media. While most of what I did was really very good, even if I say so myself, there are some items that made me squirm as I watched them. Back in the early 2000's I was regularly asked to come in to the BBC's News 24 studio to review the newspapers. I thought I was there to be a bit out spoken and unlike the usual paper reviewers, who were normally editors and columnists from those very papers and I remember my appearances as being quiet rational fun comment on the news of the time.

Oh boy, was I wrong. As I watched 5 minute clip after 5 minute clip, I found myself wanting to go back in time and slap myself. OK, there was the standard Mik Scarlet left wing rantiness which any of my regular readers know and love (?), but I also had a few subjects that seemed to throw me into a crazy irrational state. One of my favourite targets was the farming industry. At this time Foot and Mouth gripped the UK farming industry, and the hunting ban was being discussed. Yes, I have strong beliefs on methods used in modern farming and equally strong feelings on hunting (and the current cull of badgers being considered at the minute) but I seemed unable to even see the opposing view.

As I realized just how many reviews I had done, and how often I seemed to go off on a crazy rant on various personal hot topics, I felt feelings of shame and embarrassment creep over me. Just as I was about to rush towards the off switch of my coping machine to prevent me anyone from ever seeing me make a fool of myself, it hit me. This was a really bad time for me. I had found it necessary to stop working as a presenter, due to ill health, and this was pretty much the only work I was doing at that point. I know myself well enough to see that this angry 30 something in front of me had been made that way as he was in the grip of a serious and life threatening problem with his spine. Yeah most other people would have tried to be measured and thinking of the future, but I was really unsure I'd have one and so felt this was my chance to comment on things I felt were as unfair as my illness. I have always found that getting angry when I'm ill gets me through. It might not make me fun to work with, or the nicest guy, but the energy it creates gives me the strength to get through.

The weird thing is this is the first time I have been able to see myself during one of these phases, and it has really freaked me out. I look back on that time and know how bad it was and I now feel I owe a debt of gratitude to anyone who stuck with me. Especially my wife. I also would like to say sorry to anyone who found me difficult going during this time. I know I alienated some of my friends and people I worked with, and I also know that my attitude during this period did effect my career. To anyone who worked with me between 1999 and 2005, I am sorry if I was an arse. I hope you understand... and might even forgive me?

As well as the realization of why I was so confrontational, I found myself confronted with the truth that your state of mind can really effect your politics and beliefs. The stress and worry of being so ill had robbed me of my ability to show any empathy, and I wonder if the entire country is not going through something similar at the minute? The dire financial situation, and personal worries regarding money and jobs is causing society to become like I was during my newspaper reviews. Fixed in an extreme position and unable to see how that position might effect other people.

So I ask everyone who reads this to remember this phase will pass. I am now back to full health, and feel much more positive. The world will come out of this period of financial chaos. When it does, and it looks back on all the things it did and said during the fear and worry of it's past, I hope it hasn't done anything that can't be undone. I'm lucky. Most of the stuff I have appeared in on TV exists almost no where except in my box of VHS tapes, and now on my PC. I doubt I'll put the more extreme ranting online for others to see, and I will definitely learn from my mistakes. As a society we might not be so fortunate. Major changes to our society made while we are frantically scrambling around for a solution for our current hassles might really damage the steps forward we have made, and may never be able to be undone. I won't say what changes, but I do hope we really examine what legacy each new decision and direction we take will leave behind. If we do, we will not have the awful feeling of looking back to wish we could undo something that caused great suffering during a difficult period.

On a lighter note, the one great thing about looking back at footage of a younger me is that I haven't aged anywhere near as much as I thought I had. In fact I even look better now than I did in some clips. So while I hope I may be wiser, I don't look that much older. Now that has made me smile... a huge wide cheesy smile. Tee hee.

Oh, to be an able bodied older woman!!??

I was very pleased to hear that Miriam O'Reilly won her case for age discrimination yesterday. It is time that the BBC's obsession with youth was ended, but I do feel it is important to point out that however bad it might be to be a female presenter/broadcaster of advancing years the discrimination that they might face is nothing compared to what disabled talent face whatever age they are. Sadly when Ms O'Reilly announced that she was going to sue the BBC a while back she claimed that no other groups would be treated like she had, and included disabled talent in her list of people who had it easier than she did. I was so upset I even e-mailed her and her legal team. But it does just show how little everyone else in the industry understands the truth about disability and the media.

However much the media talks the talk around disability, the total lack of disabled people actually on our screens working as presenters shows the truth. In fact in the last ten years the whole industry has gone back to the position it was in pre 1970's. The only person working as a regular broadcasting presence on our screens is Gary O'Donahue, who is a journalist on BBC news. And he only got to this position by suing the BBC after they gave a story he had discovered to an able bodied journalist claiming that no one wanted to see a blind reporter on prime time news. Back when From The Edge was cancelled, the powers that be claimed that they wanted to mainstream disability. Yet what actually happened was that while the back room talent was moved to other roles in the BBC, all the on screen talent was dropped. Gary moved to news, and Kim Tserkezie got a role acting in kid's show Balamory, but the rest of us were mainstreamed to invisibility.

But this was mainly due to the fact that whatever the grand plan was in the board rooms of the BBC, the people who made the programs still felt that disabled people as part of their presenting team was a total no no. I had a meeting in the late 90's with the series editor of Watchdog, and with my track record working on FTE I would have been a superb addition to the show, but during the interview I was informed that "they'd be no f**king cripples on my show". Lovely. In a way this level of blatant discrimination is easier to deal with. He was a bastard and was sacked shortly after. The major problem is the less obvious way disability is mistrusted by those who decide who gets to be the faces on our screens or voices on our airwaves.

Just after FTE was cancelled I landed a job as roving reporter on the BBC LDN's breakfast show. During the interview I had asked that I was always accompanied by an assistant, to carry heavy equipment and help with any access needs. The BBC employed a team of access workers and so I knew this was possible. On my first day I arrived to do my first outside broadcast, only to discover that my "assistant" was a heavily pregnant radio producer who refused to carry anything at all. I fully understood why, but that was no help to me. As it was my first day, and this was a major break for me, I gave in and tried to hump around a heavy radio pack to carry out some interviews. As I jumped off a curb with the pack's strap round my neck and the pack on my lap, I pulled a muscle in my back and did myself a major injury. The pain was so bad that for the rest of the morning I found myself fainting, yet I still managed to carry out the interview. My wife was listening and had no idea how ill I was until I wheeled through the door when I got home. Yet the next day when I rang to find out how the team felt it went I was told not to bother coming back. I took this to the BBC legal department and an agreement was reached ensuring me a post at BBC LDN once I had recovered from my back injury. During this time it was discovered I had broken my back again, after a car accident I had in 1999. The pulled muscle was actually my spine pulling apart, and the injury was now life threatening. Once the BBC found this out, the agreement was broken and I was back in the wilderness.

By now I was having to take morphine for the pain while surgeons tried to work out how to fix my now twice broken back. Morphine is way too strong of a drug to be able to work as a TV presenter, and with my image most people in the industry thought I was using heroin, so I decided to focus on getting well. So I stopped pushing and searching for jobs in the media. Shortly after I had my spine op, and spent the next few years being very ill. All the while I watched TV and listened to the radio, waiting for the new Mik Scarlet to come along. What happened? Well Ade Adepitan did come through as a major disabled media talent, but even he didn't exactly become a major on screen presence.

No in the eleven years since FTE, the last of the special interest disability programs, was cancelled and mainstreaming was the buzz word for disability in the media we have not one disabled presenter on our screens. Instead we are still in the position of needing a forum on BBC Ouch to shout our joy at seeing a disabled person on our screens. We might get the occasional person being interviewed on show, or see a disabled contestant or contributor, and even get a short item fronted by someone disabled but there is not one member of what might be called key talent with a disability anywhere on any of our British TV output. So much for more choice in our digital age eh?

So however hard it might be for a women who is of increasing age to get onto our TV screens, the battle they face is nothing compared to the huge number of talented disabled broadcasters out there. Not by a long shot! So if the BBC is going to try to get more representative faces on our screens, let's hope they focus on all the groups they ignore. I mean I am now an ageing disabled broadcaster, so I cover two of those groups. Gizza job!