The Friendly Times

Every so often, another report lands reminding us that disabled people still travel far less than everyone else. The latest research from the  National Centre for Accessible Transport (NCAT)  and the  Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RiDC)  shows that disabled people make  38% fewer journeys  than non-disabled people — and that figure hasn’t changed in over ten years. You’d think that after decades of work on accessibility, that gap would be closing. But NCAT’s new report,   Invisible Barriers: How Public Attitudes Affect Inclusive Travel , makes it clear that the problem isn’t just about step-free stations or broken lifts. It’s about   people’s attitudes . The invisible barrier we don’t talk about NCAT found that   59% of disabled travellers regularly encounter negative attitudes   — from staff, fellow passengers, or even bystanders. The stories are painful, and sadly familiar. People are disbelieved when they ask for help, m...

In November, I’ll turn 80. It feels a bit like I’m sitting astride the mountain of life, catching my breath and looking back at the path I’ve climbed. The journey has been long, sometimes steep, sometimes surprising, and now I find myself reflecting on what I’ve learned along the way. No Regrets The first thing I’ve realised is that regrets are a waste of time. I don’t mean I’ve always made brilliant choices — far from it. But even when I didn’t get what I wanted, something better usually turned up. Take the job I was sure was made for me. I didn’t get it. At the time, I was devastated. However, the rejection led me into social work, where I remained for over 20 years. More importantly, it’s where I met my wife of nearly fifty years ago. Then came another blow: redundancy. I felt desperate and uncertain — I had a family, a mortgage, and no idea what the future held. Yet what felt like a disaster turned into an opportunity. I set up my own business working on disability issues, work tha...

On 10 September,  The Times  ran a piece questioning the Motability scheme. It warned that “one in five new cars sold in Britain are now bought by Motability … given £2.8 billion in taxpayer cash each year.”  Read the article here It’s a dramatic claim. The picture painted is one of disabled people cruising around in luxury cars at public expense. It makes good copy. But it doesn’t match the reality. Here’s the first thing to understand. Motability doesn’t decide who qualifies. That’s the job of the Department for Work and Pensions. If the DWP awards you the mobility component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), you can choose how to use it. One option is to put it towards a Motability vehicle. So when critics say people with “tennis elbow” or “social phobia” are getting cars, that’s not about Motability. That’s about how DWP sets the rules. Blaming the scheme for that is like blaming a shopkeeper because you don’t like who was allowed into the store. Then there’s the...

  We've been married nearly 50 years. In all that time, we have never once run out of bleach. Meanwhile, I regularly forget we're having dinner with Fred on Saturday. Despite being told three times. I've missed booking our August holiday leave until the last minute. Last week, I double-booked myself because I had forgotten about something my wife had mentioned just days earlier. But bleach, it never runs out. How is this possible? You see, I get bored with solutions faster than a child with a new toy. I've tried every productivity system going. Colour-coded spreadsheets. Apps that remind you to remember things. I once spent hours setting up a system to track tasks that was so complicated I thought about writing a manual to use it. The manual would also need to be colour-coded. I've been through all the phases. Getting Things Done. Bullet journals. Digital minimalism. That weird fortnight where I tried to organise my life using sticky notes. My phone is basically a g...

In this post, I reflect on a thought-provoking article by Rachel Botsman and explore what her ideas mean for disabled people navigating work, isolation, and connection in a post-pandemic world. During COVID, the world stayed home. Work went online, meetings went virtual, and life became more accessible for many disabled people. What had previously been dismissed as “unworkable” – remote jobs, flexible hours, online events – became normal almost overnight. In her RSA article  Trust Fall , Rachel Botsman asks: “Technology has enabled our retreat into increasingly homebound lives of frictionless convenience – but at what cost?” She argues that we are social animals, wired for connection, yet increasingly buffered from one another by screens and algorithms. We avoid friction, but we also avoid each other. This resonates deeply with the experience of many disabled people. The shift to remote working was liberating—no commute, fewer access barriers, more autonomy—but it also brought...

If Peter Pan needed a wheelchair, he’d probably end up grounded too. Travelling as a powered wheelchair user is like playing a game of “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” Spoiler: The house always wins.  For many of us, flying is an anxiety-inducing circus. Will our wheelchairs arrive intact? Will they arrive at all? Will we be stranded without essential equipment? And heaven forbid nature calls mid-flight—aircraft toilets are about as accessible as the dark side of the moon, leaving us to dehydrate ourselves just to avoid the indignity. Airlines and airports should provide stellar service to ease these fears. Things go wrong—sometimes spectacularly—but how staff respond makes all the difference. They can’t always fix the problem but can listen, consult, and maybe even pretend to care. That human touch matters. My recent winter escapade to Malaga, Spain, with my wife was supposed to be a relaxing getaway. Instead, it was a masterclass in Murphy’s Law. Our journey started at Luton...