Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
IPC President and former world champion wheelchair basketball player who transformed the Paralympic movement.
On the island
Eight records
I heard this song and I thought, who's playing that? One day like this, but I always think of it as beautiful day, actually. And then I found out they were from Manchester, so that had to be good. And then this was played at the Olympics, not at the Paralympics. Still, it's this anthem, it's what is a beautiful day and what makes a beautiful day. And it's far more than just the weather. You know, it's people primarily, in my view. And so this fits perfectly.
This takes me back really to my brother, my brother listening to Buddy Holly particularly. And of course, this is a Buddy Holly song, it's not a stones song. And I remember we used to listen to Radio Luxembourg until our radiogram blew up. I started buying singles when I was about 12, I think, and you got three for a pound. They were six and eight each. And this wasn't my first one, it was about my third.
Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan
When I went to university, I started to buy a lot of LPs and I thought I'd better sort of dabble in classical music and then I sort of fell in love with this area of Central Europe. This piece of music is all about life starting, this river starting as you'll hear it, and then it comes down the mountainside and then expands into a bigger piece of water. And it's all about life developing.
It's the Beatles, it's across the universe, but it's really John Lennon, who's one of my heroes. You know, it's one of the few songs that talks about the universe, and I don't think most people on this planet realise that we're part of the solar system and part of the universe, and that guy did. He was on another planet most of the time, but I'd have loved to have been with him from time to time on that planet.
Oh, I think so. I do love romance and I believe in it and uh you know, when I fell for this girl in France, I mean, uh when you know when you've fallen in love, my God, doesn't it hit you? Amazing.
This was exactly what was going to happen if we hadn't come back together, Jocelyn and me, in Bruges, in, I think it was late April or early May, 73. I was leaving on a jet plane, and that was the pivotal moment in my life as I now look back. It wasn't the accident, it was if I hadn't gone with this girl, then. So much of what's happened wouldn't have happened.
Alain Stivelle was one of the first Breton singers, songwriters that I got to know when I arrived in Brittany at the end of 72. And his dad used to make Celtic harps. And so this man brought rock into Celtic folk music. And I just got steeped in this mystique of Brittany. And I'm still there.
Going Home (Theme from Local Hero)Favourite
This is Dire Straits and this is theme from Local Hero. Now, whether the film was much good or not, but I view this as an anthem and really I know you can't play all five minutes, but um but I think you should because it's got everything. You know, Mark Knopfler's guitar, it's got saxophone, it's got the Scottish intro which really sets it where it's at. ... I just love guitar and I love Mark Knopfler's guitar and I love diastrates and our kids love diastrates, that's why it's in here.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:25How have you seen people's attitude to you as a wheelchair user change in the last half century?
Well, maybe I've had to get, uh, in the last ten, fifteen years, a little bit less angry with people. Uh, you know, this does he take sugar attitude and that uh radio … I don't think of those things until they presented in front of me. You know, I'm just a person living a life and that's it.
Presenter asks
2:34You don't see the Paralympics as just a sporting movement, but as something much bigger. Would that be fair?
One of the things that happens if you have an accident or if you're born with an impairment, then people do look at you, that you're different, and so you have to prove that you're not and that you're capable. And you need something where you can stick your chest out and say, This is me, I'm here. And I think that that's what sport can do. I grew up from 16 with the Paralympic movement and how I thought it should be, and I couldn't stand the fact when I kept hearing the D word because I don't have a disability, I'm me.
Presenter asks
13:49Can you tell me what you remember of what happened at the time of your accident?
Yeah, I was with some friends and we went up Wilton Quarries. We were going to go and climb. And it had been raining and there was a bit of a stream coming down this severe climb and they said, We're not leading that. I said, Well, I'll lead it, don't you worry about that. But I really wasn't trained as I should have been. And I put some big brass nuts in the cracks as I went up this, about 30 feet it was. And I got right to the top, and there was a chalkstone, in other words, a boulder wedged at the top. And I put about three-quarters of my weight on it, I suppose. Didn't budge, and when I put my whole weight on it, out it came, out came the nuts, and I ended up 10 meters down on my hands and feet as it turned out. But because the slope was sloping at the bottom, I did a backward somersault. I blacked out by then and landed on my back, and that's what broke my back. And I stood up again, partially. And then, of course, that's probably what severed the spinal cord. I don't know. And I felt I was dying because I was windy because I'd never experienced being windy before. I spent the night at the Bolton Infirmary, and then I went to the spinal unit in Southport, and I saw wheelchair basketball being played outside within two days of having my accident.
The keepsakes
The book
Bettane & Desseauve
it'll soon be out of date, but that'll do for me.
The luxury
Recordings of Test Match Special
What I would like to take with me are the back recordings, I don't know how far we can go back, of Testmatch Special.
Presenter asks
21:32How did you first meet your wife Jocelyn?
Well, I went to play wheelchair basketball in France and that happened because we didn't play the French at the Paralympics in 1972 in Heidelberg and we ended up fourth and they ended up fifth and they said they were stronger than we were so we had a rematch in San Malo in September 1972. They beat us by one point. But then I was presented with a contract by the Club Hollande Pique de Kerpap, which was from Brittany in France. I agreed to play for them. I signed the contract and then I couldn't get a work visa because we weren't in the EU. And so that went on until the end of November and I said I'm coming anyway as a tourist and spent the morning in the Commissariat de Police and came out with a grubby card that said I was fit for work. And on the second day I went on a tour of the centre, the rehabilitation center, where I was going to work as well as play. And I was a sports trainer, and I saw these two French girls, physios, one very tall called Martine, and this wonderful, slightly shorter girl called Jocelyn, fell in love immediately.
Presenter asks
25:38What is your view on the disparity between honours awarded to Olympians compared with Paralympians?
I agree with them. When you think David Weir, um he's just one example, by the way, of what he achieved in London was amazing. I know that he's four years on in Rio. But in a way, he did nothing. So he peaked unbelievably. That wasn't because there was no opposition. You know, the Marcel Hoog now, who is really from Switzerland, who's swept the board this year to a great degree. He couldn't do a thing against David Weir in twenty twelve. They probably say, Oh, it's easier to win medals at the Par it's not easier to win medals at the Paralympics than it is at the Olympics. So I think I think they're right.
Presenter asks
28:22How much do you feel you have played a crucial part in changing perceptions about disability?
I think it's been happening uh maybe in the last fifteen, twenty years that uh you know, I've been my strapline is drop the D word, don't replace it,'cause most people say, Well, what do you use then? Well, you don't use it. You talk about individuals. You know, it's a very political word. We're doing it for the disabled, vote for us, you know. Well, people with an impairment can do it for themselves. Drop the D-word, that's my strapline.
“I don't have a disability, I'm me.”
“I use wheels instead of legs and get on with my life, and that's it.”
“I saw wheelchair basketball being played outside within two days of having my accident. And something just clicked. That's what became my life, really.”
“I got a first class honours in wheelchair basketball and scraped through with geography.”
“Drop the D-word, that's my strapline.”