#PartOfMePodcast – Episode 10: Gemma-Louise Talks Disability in the Media

Can I ask your name to begin with?

My name’s Gemma Louise Stevenson. I’m a journalist, predominantly do a lot of sports stuff, but also write about disability affairs and arts and entertainment. And yeah, I’m 32 years old, and I live in Cambridgeshire. 

Oh, that’s a really nice introduction. Thank you very much. So I was going to ask you if you could tell me a bit more about what you do. You’ve kind of given an overview, but could you explain to us a bit more about what that means?

Yeah, no. I mean, when I grew up, I grew up and I was a performer, 

Okay

The time I grew up on the stage, 

Brilliant. 

Grew up in the theatre. It was a great kind of childhood surrounded by amazing people who I learned loads of, had some amazing experiences. And then up until I was about 25 I was I was dancing, singing, acting. I was part of the opening ceremony at London 2012 I was one of the dancers there around about the age of 27 I was I’ve had problems all my life with my joints and stuff, but we never quite knew what it  . But I was diagnosed with dystonia No, okay, so I went back to uni and study for my MA. Crazy thing to do. I think it was like a crazy day in hospital. I said, Hey, why don’t I just go back to uni and I studied for my MA in sports journalism, like as well as the theatre sport. From like, a very early age, I’d always been encouraged by my parents to be very sporty as well, and very active. 

Yeah

And I was, I was kind of a hockey player when I was younger. I used to play tennis, play badminton.  I was, I played netball until I got too short, I was at primary school. I was the shooter in the netball team. Now, looking at me now at four foot 11, if you’d ever believe I’d be a shooter in an netball team, because I’m far too short, but I did. Used to be the tallest girl in my class, and then, unfortunately, everybody else grew 

Oh,I knew that feeling.

My dad did tell me once that I would I would grow to be taller than him, which would have been about five for eight. And so, yeah, I never quite made it. So and then so went back. I started my MA in sports journalism to one thing I know, like as somebody who’s into tennis, I’d always followed the tennis tour. I’d always followed the wheelchair tennis tour as well, is that I noticed that a lot of the headlines that were being written about the Para athletes were very, kind of very, very more about the disability than were about the sporting achievement.

Yeah

And for somebody who was who has a disability and who was into my sport, even after I got put in a wheelchair, it kind of, to me, was like, Okay, so my sporting achievement is only worth something if you’ve got a disability beforehand. Yeah. And so I went away and I trained at University for my MA in sports journalism, because I wanted to change that. I wanted to, I wanted to. I wanted to change the narrative a bit. I wanted people to start seeing these people as athletes, as athletes that train full time. It’s a full time job. They commit their lives to it and and completely give everything to it. And you know, they’re in the gym, they’re in the tennis court, or they’re on the athletics track, like five, six days a week of. Of more. I mean, practically every day of the week they’re thinking about their sport and everything. Yeah, so I decided, and I turned up to my interview, and I said, and they got asked the question, why do you want to be a journalist? And hang on a second. Why do you want to be a journalist by my by my then interviewer, but it was turned out to be my course director. And I said, because I want to change things, I don’t want to I don’t want to see this written anymore. I want people to see these people as sports people. And I went off, I did a year, I managed to get a distinction and finished top of my class, which was quite an achievement for me, because I’d actually come to a place to live. And one of the other reasons why I’d chosen to change career was because I’d been told a lot by some people in the dance community that I shouldn’t really be dancing in a wheelchair. It shouldn’t be something that should be done. 

My gosh.

So I come and this is more like I was a teacher as well, and this is more coming from parents decided that I all my qualifications that I had beforehand, that they were happy with, had me disappeared, and the wheelchair was the defining factor of me as a teacher. So I decided to go away and, you know, and I thought, just by changing people’s perceptions of disability, by taking away this kind of inspirational line, that you either have to be what, and I will say it, I’m in the media. The media has two very distinct lines of disability at the minute. It’s you’re either this superhero who competes at the Paralympics, or you’re a scrounger.

Absolutely, completely agree.

We’re not allowed in the media. Nobody with a disability really is a story, yeah, unless you’re one of those two things, yep. And I can say that from within the media and now, and I see it, and it’s like, but why should we care about this story? You know, I get asked this question all the time, but it’s kind of led on to a career that is, I literally wouldn’t take back for the world. You know, this year, I’m preparing just now to go out to the US Open. So by the end of this year, I will have done the reporters grand calendar Grand Slam. I’ve been to every single one of the Tennis Grand Slams. 

That’s amazing.

I’ve had chances to go to wheelchair rugby events and cover those, and like the IPC athletics last year, I was out down in London. So I’ve had a chance to be at and be there, like, kind of watching some of the best sporting events in the world, and that’s kind of what I do. Is my job. Yeah, my dad and my mom, my dad will say it’s not a real job. But when you’re sitting up at one o’clock after all of the players have gone home, and you’ve still got to get a piece in, it definitely sounds like a real job.

Absolutely. Yeah, but that’s such an incredible story. You know, throughout your story, I was kind of sounding surprised, but then I thought, I thought, Well, I’m not actually surprised at all. These types of discriminations and these types of assumptions happen all of the time, and I 100% agree with you when you say, you know disabled people in the media are either people to feel sorry for, or scroungers, or they’re amazing superheroes, and they could never just be normal people, or we could never just be normal people with normal life, with ambitions.

Yeah, no. I mean, I find that like people, people often say to me, a lot of my friends will know the minute somebody calls me inspirational grace on me, yeah, I do like a weird Twitch, and I say to you know, and they’ll often that, like, I’ll go tennis training. And a lot of the people I tennis train with, I go to my local club, and I actually train alongside standing able bodied players. I am the only wheelchair player at my at my club, and they’ve embraced me. They’ve been brilliant. They they just they play with me. They have a laugh with me. It’s absolutely brilliant. And there’s that, that whole sporting Coronavirus, but then somebody in new will come in and see me like wheeling around and hit me a tennis ball and then call me inspirational wins, because I just don’t see it as that. I think, as you know, I got this disability. I’ve technically had it since I was born. There’s nothing I can do about it. You know, it’s something I should use for a positive rather than sitting at home and moping and from the minute I got diagnosed, that was the thing I was like, I’m not going to sit at home, I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I’m going to get out there and I’m going to I’m going to try and change things and help other people, because there are other people in my. My boat, you know, I’ve come from, I came from having a pretty active career, yeah, and there are other people in my boat. There are other people in my boat. So I don’t see that as inspirational. I see that as adapting to a new way of living, or being a bit creative with my choices, you know, and still carving out a life for myself. You know, just because I’m now a full time wheelchair user doesn’t mean that my dreams end. Doesn’t mean that my ambitions end. 

Absolutely, 

I still have those, and I still, you know, for me as well, one of the big things that I’m always a big champion of is the fact that we don’t see enough disabled people presenting on TV and things because, and often when you see them, it’s kind of, I call it normalised disability. So it’s often the people that, with a camera shot, you can actually hide the fact that they are disabled. 

Yeah, yeah

I’m sure, sure you know what I mean. Like when you look at a camera shot and you go, okay, so that camera shot that that presenter is disabled and could be doing so much to encourage so many people into that industry that’s struggling to get disabled people into it

Absolutely. And it’s not something that should be hidden

With that camera shot. It’s just to hide that. So the people who need to watch it and see it and see themselves represented on screen. Now, can’t, and so, you know, I do present as well. I do, I do reports for some broadcasters, and I do, I present a podcast on the wheelchair tennis tour as well. 

And one of the things I’m always very adamant about is, I mean, you can see it with me. I’ve got a slightly wonky body, and I don’t sit and you can say, you can see it with me visibly, but I always like to, don’t cut this out, because people need to see it exactly. Yeah, people, people need to see it. Because there could be a 10 year old at home, and it’s not for me. I do it, you know, there could be a 10 year old at home sitting home who says, you know, I really want to do this, but I don’t see anybody like me. I don’t see anybody who, you know sits like me or looks like me and and then that actually could stop that dream for them at 10 years old. Yeah, I think it’s not reachable. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not gettable. It’s not, you know, not something they can ever aspire to. Yeah, I am very adamant, like when I go on a TV or anything, or do any interviews where you can visually see, I’m very adamant about, you know, showing myself warts and all. You know, if your fathoms happen when I’m on TV, so be it. But you know what, there might just be that kid there who sees that and goes, Hey, I can do this, no matter what anybody else tells me.

Okay

And one of the things I’m always very adamant about is, I mean, you can see it with me. I’ve got a slightly wonky body, and I don’t sit and you can say, you can see it with me visibly, but I always like to, don’t cut this out, because people need to see it 

Exactly. 

Yeah, people, people need to see it. Because there could be a 10 year old at home, and it’s not for me. I do it, you know, there could be a 10 year old at home sitting home who says, you know, I really want to do this, but I don’t see anybody like me. I don’t see anybody who, you know sits like me or looks like me and and then that actually could stop that dream for them at 10 years old. Yeah, I think it’s not reachable. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not gettable. It’s not, you know, not something they can ever aspire to. Yeah, I am very adamant, like when I go on a TV or anything, or do any interviews where you can visually see, I’m very adamant about, you know, showing myself warts and all. You know, if your fathoms happen when I’m on TV, so be it. But you know what, there might just be that kid there who sees that and goes, Hey, I can do this, no matter what anybody else tells me.

Yeah. I mean, my biggest thing is, as I say, if I’m if I say to people, I’m going to new place to pitch myself as a freelancer is I’m the journalist who can’t write, write Which sounds really weird, and it sounds like I’m kind of doing myself out of the job before I’ve even got it. What I mean is so as well as my Ehlers, danlos, as a result of a car accident, I also got a neurological condition, which basically means that I have no feeling in my legs or arms, and I can’t actually grip a pen to write. 

Okay

So I use assistive technology, adaptive technology, voice technology, has moved on so much in the last few years to help me. And I also have my mum travels the world with me as my carer, support worker, and she’ll sit there, and she’ll learn. She’ll, you know, she’ll sit there and she’ll press record on the on the recorder that I’ve got, or she’ll, um, make notes for me at the court size of the matches and anything. Yeah, she’s not cheering on the players, which is quite funny. Sometimes my notes are not the most impartial thing when my mum’s been. But. And, you know, it’s a way I had to find, you know, I I started my journalism training, and I unfortunately was involved in a car accident coming back from a PIP assessment.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

I come. I think the worst thing was that I was worried that I was being air ambulance to peaceful hospital, and I literally had my worst possible baggy jumper on because they put my typical decimal moment. It wasn’t like human I think that was what was going through my head, actually, while I was in the car, but, and that was kind of, that was a week before I took my final journalism exams that would let me go out there into the world, yeah, and kind of do things and, and it was also two days before I had an interview For the BBC, which was brilliant.

Yeah, great timing 

You know. And that kind of changed again, that that was another step where I changed completely, you know, because I was at the end of training for a new career, and then suddenly I was like, Oh my God, everything that I’ve learned and trained to do I’m going to have to relearn. But yeah, and, you know, I was, I was a full time user anyway. So the fact my legs, I couldn’t feel anything in were absolutely, you know, it was just, it was abnormal. But we just came to my arms, and I was like, I’m not sure how I’m going to do this. And I can remember going back to uni. I literally managed to get myself discharged from hospital that night, I went back to uni. I went and interviewed for the job at the BBC, which somehow I it was on their journalism training scheme, and somehow I managed to get it. I had no idea how I passed that. It was probably thanks to the painkillers The hospital had given me. And then I went back to uni after the interview, and my tutors had a really big sit down with me and said, and said, like, Gemma, we think you should postpone your your final journalism exam. They’re hard to pass anyway. We we think you should postpone them for every month. So, you know. And I was like, no, no, I will do it when everybody else does it, I will finish when everybody else finishes. And actually, the NCT day were great, as were my course. And that’s the thing, you know, find a great course to help you train for jobs. And you’ve kind of, you’ve got the support network there. And I can still remember it. I couldn’t sit up straight. So there was me lying on my bed. Is my uni room with an invigilator talking to my computer for the whole of my news and reporting exam.

Oh wow

It’s not an easy exam. To take, yeah, I, I got the results, and I was, I was half expecting, you know, you were going to fail. We got told half the class had failed. And I was like, right? I’m in that half, because there’s no way. I passed like that, you know, I couldn’t, you know, I’ve got the extra time, and I got everything that I needed, and I was allowed to break because of the pain and everything, there’s no way. And then I passed. Well, okay, but then I was really disappointed, because I’ve gone through the year getting a grades, and I am a perfect and I’ve gone through the year getting a grade, and goes, and it was a C, and I turned to my tutor, I went, I think I want to retake it. And they went, No, even then I passed it, but I was still pushing myself. Yeah, that probably comes from my performing roots, because you always want to as a performer, you always want to, and it never happens. Yeah, I can tell you now you go and watch your West End performance, even if somebody makes a mistake every night, because they hide it so well. Yeah, as a performer, you’re always in search for that perfect performance

And it never happens

Back to my performer days, and one day I learned that that actually won’t happen. And but, you know, it’s something, it’s something I have to adapt to. You know, not being able to use my hands properly. But I mean, you find the right workplace as well. I mean, I do bits and bobs for Sky Sports now as an organisation, and I will say, and I say to everybody, I don’t think they get the recognition they deserve. Plenty of media organisations talk the talk on disability, but they don’t, they don’t want to walk. And they put, they put these imaginary glass ceilings in front of you. And I’ve had a manager who did that, who, because of my disability, decided to invent a glass ceiling. For me, that would be the maximum I could ever choose. Wow, I would say to people, is that sometimes hard to combat in the workplace, as somebody with a disability, because you’re kind of like how you say to a manager, no, you’re wrong. 

Absolutely, absolutely.

But you know, for me, I knew. I went into journalism for, for me, it wasn’t a career where, you know, I’m, you know, I knew journalists don’t make millions. I was going in for it, for the reason to make representation better, to make things better. I and I firmly went, if you cap me at this glass ceiling, I will not be able to do that. Yeah, and then I will finish my career going. Well, what did I do it for? I did this to help others, you know, everyday disabled person on the street, you know, be seen in a different light, to stop those, those assumptions about disability that have caused people to be so cool to me, and, and so I just said, right, here’s your glass ceiling, and I’m going to smash through it, and I’m going to prove to you that there are no glass ceilings, just like there aren’t with women, just like there aren’t with fame people who work in the media, we are a piece. We are a diversity as well within the media, and if the minute you place a glass ceiling in diversity, that stops diversity ever happening, yep, but that’s, that’s the one thing. I mean, I did some work experience as a student with sky, and then I went back to them last year, and I’ve done some freelance work for them. I was caught by the windows and for them this year, doing like their online analysis and everything, and they, one employer, I found, to literally say there is no glass ceiling. We will let you be you tell us what we what you want to do, and we will do our best to let you do it. And sometimes, I don’t think they, as a medium organisation, get enough credit, you know, done for women’s sport. What they’re doing now, for LGBT, What? What? What they do for? I mean, there’s literally loads of employees with disabilities at Sky, and some of them have chosen to be in the production role, so you don’t see them. But if you go up to them and say, I want to report to you. I want to go halfway across the world and report from the Australian Open for you, they will try and find a way to make it happen. Yeah, don’t see the disability and in that workplace, I think that’s the one thing you’ve got to find that positive workplace. And it’s taken me a while to do it, and I’ve been through not so nice workplaces to find, to find the ones that I’m now working at. Now that I work freelance for, you know, the work for TENNIS Magazine as well, and you find that positive atmosphere, you find that one mentor as well who will encourage you and push you to your max to know what you’re capable of, even when you don’t know yourself. And anything can be overcome. 

I think that’s a really good advice. And I think you’ve answered my question, really, and maybe two in one, I think that’s really, really good advice. I mean, the stuff that you’re saying about glass ceilings and and disabled people not being able to achieve because of other people’s perceptions of them is so true format for managers who perhaps really want to do the right thing, but don’t know where to start. What advice do you think you would give them when supporting a disabled people, a person in a role?

Well, I’d say, from a journalism point of view, go to the NCTJ, which is a national council of training a journalist. 

Okay

They have something called the journalism diversity Fund, which is what helped me? Yeah, actually trained as a journalist. I couldn’t afford to go back to uni, and I got the journalism diversity fund included in that was something called the promise lead bursary. But if you are disabled and you want to be a journalist, or you are a manager of a disabled person, and you want, they want to get their MCT day, which is their official kind of journalism qualification, speak to the NCG day because the promise lead bursary as well set up in memory of a young journalist actually at Sky Sports, who sadly lost his life far too early. It was only two years ago, and it was set up in his memory. The family the family have set it up. And basically when you apply for the journalism diversity fund, you have you tick a box to say if you think you consider yourself to have a disability, and you’re automatically, kind of considered for this scholarship, yeah, and they pay all of your fees and all of your expenses the family and the family, you become part of the family as well. So I’m still in touch with the reef now. I’ve just been at one of their fundraising events the other week, and then, you know, they support, I think now the funding I was their first other, first Thomas Reid fund recipient, but since then, they’ve supported, I think, about five others as well through the fund, and it really does take that cost barrier out with, you know, getting the proper qualifications. Yeah, yeah. And you manage as a set of employee, and you want them to get the qualifications, but the finances really are the barrier to them doing that. Yeah, there are ways and the end. The NCTJ, do so much to encourage diversity. You know, they within the journalism world, they champion diversity of all sorts. They don’t leave one out. I mean, that’s one thing I’ll always find when people talk about diversity and media, disability is the forgotten one. Yeah, yeah. Nobody mentions it. And you kind of sat there going, hello, you do count in those numbers, you know. And I sometimes feel like disability gets lost in diversity number. But whenever they do a conference or anything and they’re talking about diversity, they make sure that one of the panellists always has a disability

Is it represented? Yeah, brilliant,

Represented. Because actually, as a student, I will say as well, like I was going to all these media panels on diversity, and I did not see one disabled person. 

That doesn’t surprise me.

Place I saw it was at the NCTJ, and I’ve since gone on, and I sometimes talk on the NCTJ panels about my experiences and everything, and why we need you know why it’s not scary to have a disabled journalist and everything. Yes, the first thing I would say is, speak to the NCTJ. They’re brilliant, okay, and often, if you, if you’ve employed a journalist with a disability, they, if they’ve got the NCTJ. They’ve encountered the they’ve encountered the NCTJ, and they’ll know that. Yeah, the other thing is, is one thing that I actually encountered, which, you know, is a misunderstanding, and it’s probably because of the way the Equality Act is written. 

It’s never assumed that there’s a one size fits all when it comes to accessibility. 

Okay, brilliant.

So one of the negative experiences that I’ve now learned from and I then speak about in order to kind of help educate managers, one of the negative experiences I had was that it was assumed that it was accessible for me because it had worked for another wheelchair user,

Right Yeah

I had to try and explain that just because doesn’t mean we all have the same problem,

Absolutely, absolutely

So, you know, and we don’t, we deal with being in a wheelchair in different ways. There are different barriers to landscape. And I talk a lot about the social model of disability being it’s the it’s often the landscape that makes me disabled, not actually my medical condition. Yeah, you know. And I say that, I talk to them about that, and I say, you know, you’ve got to be willing to listen. So each person is an individual. Each person has individual needs. So yes, there’s a kind of a blanket of what the equality access sets out that you need to do for disability, but you also need to listen to that person’s individual needs. Yeah, there’s no there’s no point resting on, there’s no point resting on kind of long or so it worked for somebody two years ago.

Yeah, so it must work for this person now.

What they’ve got to think about is the difference it can make by treating that defender person as an individual and by taking in their individual access needs. Yes, it’s more work, but the positive atmosphere and the atmosphere you create of making that person feel included, and part of the team is priceless. And to create that, you sometimes have to put in a little bit more work, yeah, but it’s never too much like people understand that nothing’s perfect,

Yeah, yeah

And we’re not going to sit there and demand until, until we want to, until it’s absolutely perfect, because, you know, there are things that have to be adapted. Yeah. You know, at the end of the day, if I’m working in a five story building and there’s a fire, I know that the lift is going to break down. So I know I’m either going to have to get on an evac chair or thumb shuffle it down. Yeah, if there’s a fire or a fire alarm, but there’s nothing you can do to counteract that, but it’s just giving that individual touch to accessibility that can make a difference. Because, and I will speak from experience here, I was working in one major organisation, and it kind of like May May I had one in one media organisation I’ve worked or worked in and I’ve actually now left, because it had such a bad effect on me. I kind of was being given the accessibility of what had worked for somebody three years ago who had a completely different disability, who had completely different limitations with their disability, and being told that we’re making it accessible because it works for the last person right now, the reality of that, and I can be honest about it now, because I’m out of it now, was that I ended up having severe mental health problems because I felt like I couldn’t speak up and I wasn’t and it made me feel like I wasn’t worth making adaptations for, and it kind of isolated me from the rest of the team, and I felt like every time I. Ask I was just being high maintenance, something I would say to disabled people, never feel like you’re being high maintenance. And that is something I’ve learned now, you know. And it ended up, actually it was, it was a rough time. And it ended up me being, when I was a dancer, I did have a period where I went through, I did have bulimia nervosa, and it ended up that all coming back and me being referred to an eating disorder clinic, 

Okay

Because I had lost control of how I controlled my environment. And no matter what I was saying it was I was being told it worked for somebody else. Yeah, it did work for you. We don’t have to do anything else, right? So, you know, there’s but now I choose to work in, like I said, positive environments, and now I couldn’t be happier, yeah, and it’s something you learn from, you know, you learn from it. You’re not. It’s not. And I will tell disabled people, and I will tell managers of disabled people, it’s not going to be perfect. And I keep saying this, but it never is going to be perfect. It’s going to require give and take on both sides. But as long as that give and take is a two sided thing, you are never doing anything wrong when that give and take kind of loses the kind of equilibrium and the balance that it can sometimes go a little bit Topsy. Target,

Yep, no, I completely agree. And any of all my listeners, the regular listeners will will be able to say it with me when I say this, to make an environment inclusive and accessible for disabled people, means it’s inclusive and accessible for everyone. So actually a little bit on the outside supports everybody in the long run.

Yeah, no, exactly. You know that little bit of extra work, that little five minutes work to make something accessible. Yeah, can mean a world of difference, 

Absolutely.

And actually, you know, they say it with consumerism as well, but it reflects how that person’s family thinks of that organisation. I know when I had that negative experience on with that organisation, it changed my whole family’s outlook on that organisation as an interesting organisation. And they went, Oh, hang on a minute. I’m not sure whether we like this. And, you know, and, and equally, like I say, I can work with Sky now, Sky Sports, and I do work with Sky Sports now, and they’re all like, Oh, my God, they’re amazing, because they see what they’ve positively done with me. Yeah. And you know, I do kind of dig up sky because, you know, amidst all the media organisations, they sometimes get a bad rap for things. Yeah, actually, they don’t deserve it. They are actually amazing. And the people who run sky here in the UK would not stand up and say that, so they need somebody to say that for them, I don’t think they quite realise what they do for disabled people, what they what they I hate using the word inspire, but they do the confidence they inspire in all of their disabled inquiries, the barriers they don’t put in place. And, you know, that’s not from them going, you know, days out of their way to change buildings and everything. That’s just from an attitude. Yeah, that’s just from an attitude. Sky Sports and Sky News, actually, to everybody who works for them as an individual, they’re all an important part of the team, and nothing is too much for them to do to help make their employees happy.

Well, I mean, that’s a really, really great example of equality and diversity and inclusion working, isn’t it?  

Yeah, no, definitely.

Okay, brilliant. So I’ve just got one more, well, a couple more questions to ask you, if you don’t mind just changing the you know, we’ve kind of, it’s really good. We’re kind of flowing in the way the questions are going anyway, but talking about you as a disabled consumer, what would you say was your biggest barrier or challenge to buying a product or service?

Okay, it’s probably, and I go on and on about this, the disabled changing room. Okay, yeah. How many people have mentioned this before?

Nobody talked about this yet. So this is a really good opening into it.

Yeah. I mean, they’re there for a reason, and unfortunately, with me, there’s only one changing room I can get into. Yeah, my wheelchair is not the magical bus from Harry Potter. Squeeze through spaces by just pressing a button and having having a weird head going, let’s squeeze it’s not the bus from Harry Potter and neither can I, yeah, and that’s the thing. Is a rigid frame. So often I’ll go in and for me, with the history of having an eating disorder as well, trying more clothes is still a very psychological thing. But if I’m in the mood and I’m out shopping and I’m like, right? I’m going to get some clothes, I will go into the changing room, and I will often find. And it’s not, I’m not going to complain about the thing that people think I might complain about, which is people going in there who shouldn’t be complaining about is when the staff look at you and say, Ah, we put boxes in the changing room, yep, because barely anybody uses them. And you like, so where do I go? And then you can see the staff like, frantically trying to remove enough boxes so that I’ve got space. And I’m like, Do you know what? I want to be treated like any other able bodied person when I go and try to trousers on or a dress on? I want to be able to sit in that changing room and look in the mirror and go, yeah, that suits me. Or, oh, god No, I never put that on again when you’re sat in a room stock boxes, nothing can make you feel like that special feeling. You know, because going out clothes shopping is a special feeling for young people. You know, you’re often going out for, I mean, there was one, I’ll give an example. I’ve just been out to get a dress for my cousin’s wedding. The place, I shall not name the shop, but the place, the first place I went into, I thought it’s amazing dress, right? I want to see what it looks like. I want to kind of move around and see what it looks like and everything, so that I know I’ll feel comfortable. Wedding, yeah, in there was full of stock boxes

Right

They moved out of the minimum so my wheelchair and my mother would fit in to help me. Yeah, and I just sat in front of the mirror and outside. No, I’m not going to pay the 50 quid for this, because this is quite a big investment. And, yeah, I can’t even, I can’t even use the facility that is meant to be there for me, yeah. And so it does actually kind of influence whether you buy things there as well, absolutely. And it’s not just, it doesn’t just happen in clothes shop. It happens in, like, if I go out to a bar or a club with my friends, the amount of toilets I’ve been in, where they literally just shoved everything that they haven’t got room in the stock, stock room or kitchen floor, yeah, and then go, Oh, nobody uses this toilet. Though. It doesn’t matter if nobody uses it for six months, if somebody needs it and there’s a load of boxes in there, you know exactly they’re using it. It’s not just a thing that happens going out and shopping on the high street is something that it’s something that you know happens in a lot of services, but only the disabled facility only gets used once in a blue moon, so why don’t we just store stuff in there until somebody needs it

My apologies.

Sometimes I’ll just go. There are certain places that I know don’t will not have a, have a clear, disabled changing room, and I’ll just go. I’m just gonna go home and try this on, and then if it doesn’t take me,

Yeah, absolutely.

And it is not the same. If you’re having a I do love my girly day. My mum isn’t my best friend. She’s not just my mom. She’s not just my parents and my best friend. Yeah, me and mum had some great girly days on the high street, going shopping, having a coffee, having a sneaky bit of cake and stuff like that. Well, this is a nice day

Absolutely, it’s an experience, isn’t it, and it ruins the experience when you can’t do things the way you want to and the way you should be able to.

Yeah, no. And I mean, and I will say it, you know, there’s not and there’s services that really should be accessible that aren’t. I mean, I talk about, we have a pharmacy that’s just opened in our village, which stops me now using the doctor’s dispensary, which is fully accessible the doctor’s dispensary because I live within one mile and you go on NHS England, and the doctor’s dispensary and the doctor’s surgery are accessible for all. This new pharmacy that’s opened has absolutely no wheelchair accessibility. Vi, no, no. Hearing loop, nothing. And you sit there and go, How did NHS England allow that to open? Yeah. And then when I’ve appealed to NHS England and said I can’t access that service, they said, Oh, they’ll deliver to you, so you can’t continue using the dispensary. And I sit there and go, hang on a minute. So you think I’m going to use the service, services delivery, that won’t let me actually, physically get into the shop, 

Yeah

Because you totally misunderstand the disabled community, right? Yeah? Because, as far as I’m concerned, if I can’t walk, you know, sometimes if I’m not feeling very well, into that shopping is a godsend, because I can go, Okay, I know what size I am in this shop, absolutely. Buy it off the internet, get it, yeah, and then I can always send it back, or take it back to the shop. And I’m feeling better, yeah, because I’ve done it within the time. But I will never shop at a shop that also won’t let me go or a service that also won’t let me go in. So. Yeah and be and be part of the actual lived experience, yeah as well. And the purple pound is worth so much. You know, I’ve done investigations on this with my journalism about how much the purple pound is worth and how much it influences disabled shoppers. And actually, I thought it was just me that was that stubborn. And one thing I discovered when I was doing pieces on it was actually, no, it’s not just me. There are a lot of people who are going, no, sorry, you don’t let me in, or you block me from using the changing rooms and you’re not getting my money,

Yeah, or the website’s not accessible, so I’ll go somewhere else. Thank you very much. Yeah, exactly, absolutely, okay. We’re nearly out of time today. Gemma, this has been really, really good. Thank you so much for this. Is there anything else you would like people to know before we finish today? Obviously, everything that you’ve told us about, the funds and the bursaries for disabled people getting into journalism, we’ll put the links on the website so people can click through. But is there anything else that you would like people to know before we leave?

I mean, yeah, I would say that just never think that being in a wheelchair or having a disability of any sort is a barrier to you, you know, achieving anything. You know, 10 year old me wouldn’t have imagined that I’d be travelling around the world, yeah, for a job, and could be a job, yeah, and, you know, and watching some of the best sporting events. But whatever your dream is, like, never flex. There will be, as I’ve said before, people who place a barrier and a glass ceiling on what you can achieve, but as long as you know that that glass ceiling doesn’t exist, and if people do try to put it in a way, to smash through it, and you will have the career of your dream. And there’s lots of things out there to help to be able to do that. There’s some designed to encourage disabled people into certain forms of employment and scholarship, so that if finance is the way your barrier, who’s got it, there’s access to work, which helps once you’re in work, helps you with the cost. It’s not the easiest system to manage. And I can tell you from this year, it’s not, it’s not the most stress free no to manage. Yeah. And they change the goalposts all the time, and I’ve been told numerous times that I don’t do a normal job that normal disabled people do. And I was like, Okay, what is that then? Yeah. And my mum’s even said it going through what we’ve been through with access to work this year, because I’m a freelancer. I’m not like a big media corporation where I have 1000s of pounds to spend and then I can wait six weeks for them to reimburse me exactly. Yeah. And they seem to think that I do yeah. And every time you bring it up with them, they’re like, yes, but you can’t do that. And my biggest advice people, to disabled people with students access to work, is, know that advisors handbook, yeah, yeah, you can get it online, and I can tell you what we’ve called out, some absolute errors in their payments team, their advisors team, by knowing that handbook and quoting that handbook, yep, literally, if you’re going to start going through that self work process, if you’re going to as an employee of a company so as a big company, you’ll have no problems. The big company will deal with it. You’ll never you’ll just have to sign a few forms every so often during the year, and then that will be done if you are a freelancer, if you are working on your own, it can be a minefield, and it can be pretty stressful. They don’t make it easy, something I’ve spoken to Sarah Newton about, who’s the Minister for disabled people, about the fact that she says it’s to encourage more people into work. But actually it works for the business, but it doesn’t work for the individual right now, and it’s something I want to try and change. But my biggest what I would say is my Bible, my Access to Work Bible, has been getting my hands on that Access to Work advisors booklet, because every time they try to change goal posts because they don’t want to do something, you’ve got that book and it says, it says, here on point. And so if you are going alone, and you are going freelance, which, which is something I would encourage, because you get to choose who you work for, and you get to do different things, yeah, and you get to learn from loads of different people. I mean, my predominant work is with Sky and with with tennis threads, which is a TENNIS Magazine and the podcast, but that’s my predominant work, but you get to meet different people and get to see how different people work, and you learn from them. And I find it, I find it brilliant and a brilliant experience being freelancer. But that one thing that I often see makes people give up is. Air is that Access to Work barrier of being an individual claimant, it’s brilliant when you get the support, but getting the support and also getting paid back for the support, just be prepared for a major battle, because it’s not perfect, and it doesn’t at the minute, work for the individual. So you have to find a way to make it work for you. But, like I say, Access to Work advisors, book, Online, revival,

I completely agree with that. I completely agree

That would be what I would say, you know, and also for me as well. Like, think about why you’re doing what you’re doing as well. You know, it doesn’t have to be to help others. Yeah, I just chose that because I can see I was I want to do this because I want to make things better. But you know, whatever you’re doing, it’s worth it. You know, you don’t have to be travelling the world and reporting on grand plans. You know your dream job could be in retail and working in the shop, and that is just as big an achievement. So never also let anybody tell you what is a good and a bad job to have. I completely agree. You know what you want with your life, and go out there and get it. And whatever you decide to do, it’s worth it, and you should be proud of it. Really great.

Oh my gosh, that’s great advice, Gemma. Thank you so much, and thank you for your time. This has been really, really good. Obviously, I’m not going to use the word inspirational, because, like you, I hate the word, but it’s been really good. And I think people, whether they’re disabled people or managers or people in business who just want to know a bit more about disability, you put some really good nuggets of information in there that’s going to be really, really helpful. So thank you so much for your time. You have been listening to part of me, the celebrating disability podcast. For further information on any of the topics raised, or to share your own experiences, please get in touch by emailing Esi.Hardy@celebrating disability.co.uk, or calling 01256 578016,you can also find more information at www.celebratingdisability.co.uk