Wheelchairs Scooters and Sticks

Book excerpt: Wheelchairs, scooters, and sticks all things to do with mobility and access. My involvement in working with disability was purely by accident, and profit was my motive which you will read about in the book. However, it went much further as I could see that the more access, the better it was for everyone not just the wheelchair user. The mother with a pram or pushchair, the blind or restricted vision, and of course, the biggest emerging market of older people. So if you could show businesses they could make more money by providing access, they would get more customers and everyone would benefit. I have spent over forty-three years providing accessible transport and holidays; and to this day, find it difficult to understand some peoples attitude toward disabled people, especially in business. I was the first to provide accessible coaches commercially in the UK; I remember being asked by another coach operator if we could supply a coach to accompany his on an outing to the coast, which we did. The next day, he contacted me and said that his client had rang him, and said not to send any of those disabled coaches again. I told him, it was not disabled it was accessible. Even if I had not been in this business, I would not have thought about my coach as they had. Although things are a lot better now, integration is still a long way off, as you will read throughout the book. It is up to us all to look at a much wider aspect of access, as disability or a reduced mobility all need access. You will also read that tourism is the largest business in many countries; and the more access you have in transport and accommodation, the more people you will attract, and of course the money will follow. My aim is for more integration, and I am hoping to run some British history tours later where inclusion from overseas will achieve this and be the first for the UK. People now working in the tourist industry are starting to get more aware of what is needed in transport and hotels, as well as excursion venues. All these things will in the end add up to more inclusion in all things, not just holidays.