Next stop Coventry
Comedian Liz Carr takes a look at the Transport for Disabled People Exhibition in Coventry
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As a stand-up comic who performs all over the UK, I spend a lot of time travelling.
Because many of the comedy gigs I perform at will finish after the last train has left I often have no choice but to take the car. And I hate it. I’m a wheelchair user and I don’t drive. Instead my personal assistant, (the person who does the things I can’t do for myself), drives me from A to B. But I’m the worst passenger; I’m a very nervous back seat driver who closes my eyes whenever a car overtakes, who grips onto my seat belt for dear life and who usually arrives at the destination an ashen shadow of my former self.
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Sometimes I travel by bus. I live in central London and the difficulty of finding blue badge parking, coupled with the almost permanent rush hour traffic mean it’s usually quicker and easier to catch a number 10 into town. I love catching the bus - when they drivers actually stop, that is. If they do stop, it’s always a gamble as to whether the ramp will work. And then there’s the drunk people who always want to talk to me or cure me or tell me how much they love me.
It’s perhaps unsurprising then that my favourite way to travel is by train. For me, if I have to get somewhere, anywhere, for work or pleasure, then my first choice is always to take the train. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a card carrying member of the ‘Disabled Person’s Railcard’ gang. How smug I feel when in the ticket queue, I pull out my little transportation gold card and wheel away with at least a third off.
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Of course, getting on and off the train can be an adventure in itself - you’ll know exactly what I mean if, like me, you didn’t pre-book assistance. Shock horror, you want to be spontaneous? And then there’s the game - ‘Ramp Russian Roulette’? You arrive at your destination, never knowing if there will be anyone there with a ramp to assist you off the train. No ramp? You lose. What fun!
I experienced this first hand last week when I travelled to Coventry. Three hours away by car or an hour by train? As the American’s would say, the decision to let the train take the strain was a ‘no brainer’.
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I like to live on the edge so I hadn’t booked assistance at Euston station. Instead, I wheeled along to the customer services office and thought I’d mistakenly entered a day centre - the place was full of disabled people. I befriended a woman with a white stick who was taking the same train as me and my personal assistant.
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When we arrived at the platform for the Wolverhampton train, the steward fetched a large yellow ramp and tried to help me wheel up it into coach D. It always makes me giggle when people grab hold of the handles of my wheelchair and think that they’re pushing me along. They never seem to realise that in fact, it’s my electric wheelchair doing all the work. Up the ramp and barging through all the suitcases in my way, I made it to my precious wheelchair space. I asked the man to let them know at Coventry that I would need a ramp and once he’d assured me that he’d phone through to confirm, he went back to the safety of his buggy.
I manoeuvred myself behind the height adjustable table and surveyed what would be my world for the next hour or so. There was a power socket, somewhere to plug my headphone’s in and even free Wi-Fi. What should I do? I could tippy tappy on my laptop, read a book or maybe just watch the world go by? The snack trolly passed by and tempted me with some deliciously overpriced treats and just in case of emergencies, there’s a big red help button at hand. I had everything I needed until Coventry.
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Just before we arrived, I put my coat on and prepared for my escape. As Coventry wasn’t the final destination, there wasn’t much time to disembark so it was extra important that the steward was there with the ramp. The train stopped. There was no ramp. I was nervous but not too worried; I’d played this game many times before. My PA wanted to go and get someone to help me off but I tell her not to go anywhere. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in the train vestibule until Birmingham whilst she waits for me back in Coventry. Instead, she stayed on the platform, by the open door and eventually, someone came over to us, wondering why we hadn’t shut the door. Once again, my plan had worked and within minutes I was off the train and wheeling my way to the Coventry Transport Museum to visit their new exhibition, Transport for Disabled People: Past - Present - Future’.
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I could have taken the bus to the museum (apparently the 17, 27 and 49 all run from the station to nearby the museum) but since this was my first time in Coventry, I thought I’d wheel the 15 minute journey instead. Apart from the April showers, it was an easy trip of dropped curbs and underpasses which took me through the city centre, past Coventry Cathedral, the statue of Lady Godiva and down to the impressive Millennium Square where the Transport Museum is located.
‘Transport for Disabled People’ is a free exhibition which runs until July 4th 2010 and is well worth a visit. The gallery is full of weird and wonderful three and four wheeled contraptions that at some time or other have been used to transport disabled people - a wicker bath chair dating back to the 1800, a huge black pram like object macabrely called the blood wagon which was used to wheel around a Colonel injured in the Boar war and a whole display of the iconic light blue Invacars.
In the present, there’s a selection of modern vehicles with a variety of adaptations to make driving possible for all kinds of disabled people - and the great thing is that you can try many of them out while you’re there. As to the future of disability transport, well that is really for us, the visitors to think about and design - personally I’d like a electric wheelchair upholstered in purple velvet that comes complete with an i-Pod dock, a latte maker and a sat nav system.
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Before I left, I bought a little something in the museum gift shop, made use of the accessible toilets and as I wheeled back to the station at the end of a tiring day, I felt very, very thankful for my relatively comfortable, relatively modern electric wheelchair.
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Released at:
12:00 10/05/2010
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