Waiting at Waterloo Station

Sitting in a cafe on Waterloo Station watching the people and pondering on each of their final destinations is like a miracle for me but probably not for the rush hour crowd.  I still marvel that I am a part of this daily scene, made somewhat busier because of a tube strike. 
I owe it to disabled people, some known to me, others strangers and yet united as one by those things that all disabled people have experienced. Discrimination, oppression and unequal treatment all of which continue and persist brings to the fore an emotional thankfulness and gratitude towards those who fought for disabled peoples' freedom to move around on public transport.   Legislation that disabled people worked on, together with policies which we helped to create and the resulting access, were achieved and have improved the lives of all people.  Public transport is not perfect but it is a far cry from little or no access to buses, limited access to mini-cabs and taxis, and wheelchair users travelling in guards vans with chickens, fish and various unsavoury objects.  Airlines, too, have improved access for disabled people.

To experience lying in NHS beds and receiving their 'hospitality' for almost a quarter of a century can leave one 'flattened' and feeling worthless, but to be sitting here on a freezing cold February morning is a far cry from those days.. 
As I wait for the half-mile queue for taxis to subside and before I venture out again to assess if the queue has receded or lengthened, I know that when I reach the front of the queue I will have access and be able to get to my work destination like hundreds of other taxi-users today.  I would not have come to London on a tube strike day for a 'jolly.'  But still I am glad to be here because all those years ago as I lay waiting for the next surgical procedure It never occurred to me that I would be part of the ordinariness of life.  

What a gift!

Ann Macfarlane
February 2014