Director & Access Auditor

I’ve been a full-time wheelchair user since contracting polio as a child. However, as a Yorkshireman born and bred I’ve not allowed this setback to hold me back.

I graduated from Manchester University at a time very few disabled students took the plunge and then after a gap year hitch-hiking around Canada and the USA, I entered the teaching profession. Again, a road less travelled by disabled people in those days. I then worked for nearly thirty years as Head of various Departments in inner city, state comprehensives.

Now reinvented as an Independent Consultant on disability matters, I travel the country conducting Access Audits on every type of building or organisation imaginable from hospitals to tower blocks to museums to country parks and everything in between. I also deliver training courses in Disability Awareness, tailored to the needs of the particular audience and I give specialist advice.

My partner and I have four sons and ten grandchildren scattered around the UK and beyond.

Outside work I love extreme travel – imagine being carried by Sherpas over every rock on Macchu Pichu, sitting in my wheelchair, slowly sinking into the rush mat floor of the floating islands on Lake Titicaca, watching Sumo wrestling in Japan, being transferred from one broken down Jeep to another amongst a herd of elephants whilst on safari – that sort of thing!

I know about disability and I know how to overcome it.