Sep 132012
 

Voice’s Old Susannah looks at events over yet another vibrant and dynamic week in the ‘Deen. By Suzanne Kelly.

Congratulations to all those who took part in the Paralympics – whether as athlete, supportive family member, friend, carer or spectator.

This was by all accounts the biggest, most successful, most visible (and probably most vibrant and dynamic) Paralympics to date.

And yes, congratulations to Team GB for their impressive haul of metals – but nationalism should not be the most important focal point of this great event.

This might be a good point to mention that sporting achievement and medals are not the only area where people with special abilities excel. 

Want proof?  Please visit VSA’s Easter Anguston farm before 23rd September and walk the art and sculpture trail, part of the North East Open Studios programme.  Not only is this a well laid out, environmentally sensitive show with wonderful artwork on view.

It’s also a collaboration between people from different age groups, skill levels and abilities – local professional artists’ work is shown alongside the work of children, people with autism, and people from other countries.  This show treats them all the same, and you’ll be hard pressed to tell what kind of person has created the works that greet you:  they are all, without exception beautiful and amazingly creative.

Things are improving for people with special requirements and special sets of skills, but unfortunately, there are signs all around that we’re just not doing as well as we should in terms of help, inclusion and respect.  Let’s do better.

Hopefully here in the Deen emergency services have now stopped parking their vehicles in ‘Handicapped’ parking spaces.  You might remember a certain instance when a fire truck parked at a local supermarket in the handicapped spaces so the firemen/women could go shopping.

Perhaps some relevant definitions won’t go amiss.  And furthermore, as we’re all suffering from UTG fatigue, this will be a web-free column this week (well, I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it).

Uncomfortable: (adjective) state of being at ease or mildly distressed.

Pity the poor staff and customers who were at Costa Coffee in our own Bon Accord shopping mall yesterday:  they were made ‘uncomfortable’.  The Walker family were feeding their young, ill child Brayden  via a feeding tube.  How rude of them!

Naturally, they were asked to leave.  We can’t have that sort of thing in public, and Mrs Walker should just stay home with her child.  According to the Scottish Sun, Brayden’s parents were asked to leave and never return to the Bon Accord Centre café in Aberdeen.  Somehow, Old Susannah doesn’t think they will want to.

I also mystically predict that Costa Coffee will continue to feel ‘uncomfortable’ for some time to come as sales slump.

  Well done to the staff of Costa.  No nonsense approach there

This must be the first time that such an offensive sight was seen in our town.  Let’s hope we can stick to our traditional public behaviour standards of assaults and good old-fashioned drunken exploits.

I would like to commend the bravery of the person who made the complaint against the Walker family; it’s important to stand up for your right of not having to look at ill people.  Well done to the staff of Costa.  No nonsense approach there.  Rather than explaining to the complainant that not everyone is well and healthy, or that everyone has the right to peacefully pursue a normal life.  Nope, just a get out and don’t come back.

Well played!  Wonder what they’d have said to Christopher Reeve or Stephen Hawking?

Brayden suffers from the kidney condition posterior urethral valves and needs 24-hour care.  Therefore, like anyone else suffering with a medical problem, he should just stay out of sight, at least until ATOS hit him with a benefits assessment appointment at some future point.

ATOS: (proper noun) a multinational company, services include IT services – and work fitness assessments.

Old Susannah has an acquaintance (who i would like to consider to be a friend, too) who was in a serious accident over a year ago.  In that year there have been operations (they are on a first name basis with doctors and nurses at the local hospital treating them), setbacks, challenges and so on.

This person is currently in hospital (again), and has not been able to move without discomfort (if at all) for much of this time.  As well as the physical devastation, there must also be a heck of a lot of stress and residual trauma.

Naturally, a benefits assessor has visited, and told this layabout to get back to work and that their benefits are to be cut.

In the spirit of the age, ATOS, the benefits assessment firm, comes to mind.  They are proud sponsors of the Paralympics.  Hooray!

They were also implicated in scandalous treatment of the long-term disabled.  The Guardian newspaper had this report in July:-

“Dr Steve Bick, a GP with 20 years’ experience, applied for a job as an assessor with Atos to carry out the work capability assessment (WCA), and secretly filmed his training for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, which will be broadcast on Monday 30 July at 8pm. Undercover filming shows Bick being told by his trainer that he will be watched carefully over the number of applicants he found eligible for the highest rate of disability payments.

“The trainer tells trainee assessors: “If it’s more than I think 12% or 13%, you will be fed back ‘your rate is too high.'” When Bick questioned how the company could know in advance the precise proportion of people who needed to be put in this category, the trainer replied: “How do we know? I don’t know who set the criteria but that’s what we are being told.”

“Bick asked: “So if we put 20% in, we would get picked up on?”. He was told by the trainer that, in that scenario, his cases would be reviewed.

“The DWP said it was unable to respond in detail to the programme’s  findings because it had not been shown a full transcript, but a spokeswoman said it was “nonsense” to suggest there were targets or expected results of any sort. She said assessors’ results were monitored to make sure they adhered to an average, adding: “If individual Atos healthcare professionals record results considerably outside the average, their work may be audited to ensure quality. If no issues are found with the quality of work, no action is taken.”

“In the footage, one of the trainers admits during a session that the auditing process makes her feel uncomfortable.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/27/disability-benefit-assessors-film

There’s that word again – uncomfortable.

So here’s this person I know, trying to get their life back together, going through operations, experiencing pain, and this is the criteria – apparently – that assessors are using to ‘keep targets low’.

No doubt my friend will be forced back to work, ready or not, if they want to keep a roof over their head and keep eating.  No doubt the young Walker child will be expected to get some kind of low-paid demeaning job as soon as he’s old enough to talk.  And this is, of course, a good thing.

We’ll have 6,500 brand new jobs of all kinds once we build the web, and we’ll need all the low-paid cleaners, street-sweepers, graffiti-removers and tree-fellers we can get.

Damn – and I wasn’t going to mention the web.

Next week:  More definitions, and hopefully a review of all the articles the P&J and Evening Express will publish about the new granite web scandals over the secrecy of the TIF application and the radio blitzkrieg that should have never been.

PS – a true reason to be cheerful:  the Led Zeppelin 02 Concert Film ‘Celebration Day’ will finally be released.  Once it’s out, look for me in whatever cinema it’s showing in for the first few weeks at least.

  •  Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.
Sep 072012
 

Ben Hukins gives Voice’s Suzanne Kelly the run-down on his background, races, interests and opinions on Aberdeen’s hot topics.

I meet Ben at Café 52.  I’ve been running (it was a Thursday and getting around town on Thursday evenings at rush hour is always problematic) and am somewhat out of breath.

Ben is a local runner with a number of local races and victories under his belt.

He has a girlfriend who is now into running, several cats, a rabbit which has chewed through his mobile phone charger, a father who used to be a professor at Aberdeen University and opinions on the day’s issues.

Unsurprisingly the Olympic Games is our first subject for discussion:

“As a sporting event it was fantastic.  I was actually quite surprised we did so well… my girlfriend and I saw several events including some of the women’s running events.  I felt like getting on the track and running. 

“There was negative press and commercialism…when you have companies like Dow Chemicals involved…  but all the negatives such as transport and security – all of that was forgotten.  As a sporting event it was fabulous.  You couldn’t leave an event without wanting to go run round the track.  We watched the women’s marathon on the street.  Everyone just got a huge buzz out there.

“The running track is going to stay.  There was a huge debate over the stadium with Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham – the West Ham solution was the best. Luckily in the end international bodies intervened.”  

But are kids today being active?

“People in my generation all kind of grew up outdoors playing, playing football.  Even when computer games were starting up, most people still went out to play as well.” 

We get into some early background history.  Ben is a Liverpool fan, although he grew up in Manchester before his family moved to Aberdeen.  His dad got a position in Aberdeen University and he and his mother moved to Aberdeen once Ben finished his A levels (one week after his 18th birthday).

Ben studied electrical engineering, stayed to work in the energy sector and is now the only member of his family still in Aberdeen.  His girlfriend recently took up running.

We then get to Scottish football and the future of Rangers:

“I actually read quite a lot; the actual administration process was interesting; there was so much written about it.” 

We talk about running – Ben is about to be put in the ‘veteran’ age group for running purposes.  He recently ran the Baker Hughes 10K, which is a big charity event.

“It’s great because you get a whole spread of people.  There is a guy from Greenock who goes to every single race in a clown’s costume.  He must have raised quite a lot of money for charity.” 

And if Ben is running competitively?

“I normally take it easy, but I like to get up 4 hours before a race starts.  I just have breakfast and get ready.” 

Ben enjoyed the Stonehaven half marathon in particular and he discusses some other races:

“It’s a great atmosphere and it’s very well organised.  I’m doing the Loch Ness Marathon at the end of September.  In April I went to Rotterdam and I’ve been to France.  I enjoyed the Champagne region.  There are marathons in so many places in the world… I really want to go to America.”

We get around to some of the environmental issues of the region:

“One of the reasons I like Aberdeen is the green space.  In no time at all you can get out of Aberdeen into some great countryside.  You see the current plans and proposals and it’s like greenbelt means nothing. 

“They were going to destroy Loirston.  The leadership of the recent council has given me great cause for concern towards the destruction of the greenspace.  There was just no joined up thinking. “

I can’t offer any argument against these sentiments.  We discuss Tullos Hill:

“There is so much propaganda and misinformation.  Tuesday night, for the first time in a long, long, time, I saw deer.  The council said there were 28 living in the area. They killed 34.  It was clearly a migratory population.”

[note: at the time of publishing, the total looks closer to 44.]

Ben and I note the change in the council and the lack of LibDem representatives in Torry/Ferryhill and Altens post -election. We discuss UTG:

“The ‘For’ (pro granite web) campaign had more money, more press.  P&J is clearly pro development of Union Terrace Gardens, shown in the way they aimed their headlines and articles.” 

Again, no argument from me.

Ben does as much working out in the out of doors as possible:

“I am a member of a gym which I use sporadically – I’m involved in the STV appeal.  They’re trying to cover 10,000 miles on the treadmill.  I’ve been doing running; for a fiver I’ll go and do your section of running for you – I’m up to 14 so far. 

“You don’t have to join a gym.  If you don’t like the gym, don’t do it.  These days there so many sports you can do in Aberdeen at RGU and the sports village and other venues.”   

STV’s charity event hopes to raise £5,000 by having people donate money for miles run on the treadmill at The Warehouse Health Club on Mearns Street which has organised a treadmill relay where they aim to cover 10,000km – the length of the Scottish coastline.  They have already started the run and expect to take around a month to complete the distance.

For full details and to help, visit http://campaigns.stv.tv/stv-appeal/about-us/latest-news/312977-aberdeen-gym-hits-the-treadmill-in-aid-of-the-stv-appeal/

We are in touch after the interview as we didn’t get a chance to discuss the amazing, moving Paralympics.  But two recent Scottish running events have had serious issues.  A man collapsed and died in the recent Glasgow run and several people had to be airlifted from Ben Nevis.

Ben had this to say:

I ran the Glasgow event on a number of occasions and it is a very well organised, excellent event. I don’t know the circumstances surrounding the death and it is obviously a great shame, however, from my experience of the event I believe that the organisers will have done everything they could to have prevented this unfortunate incident.

“With regards the Ben Nevis event, I really don’t know much.  Unfortunately fell running is a sport with its inherent risks and all competitors are aware of these.  Race organisers do their best to manage all the risks as far as reasonably practical.  Running isn’t a dangerous sport.”

No, running isn’t a dangerous sport.  It is a means of keeping fit that everyone can afford to do, all ages and sexes can enjoy running to their individual abilities and, as the Paralympics have shown, running can change peoples’ lives for the better.  ‘What’s not to like?’ as the saying goes.

All the best to Ben in his upcoming races.  We will be following his progress and will try and catch up with him figuratively, as catching up literally might take some doing.

  •  Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.