#PartOfMePodcast – Episode 23: Roland – PC vs Excluding Language

Hello everyone, and welcome again to another episode of The part of me podcast. Thank you very much for joining us. I really hope you’ve had a really good month, as usual. If you haven’t listened to our previous podcast, please do give them a listen. There is so much very useful information on there that I think will really, really help you to listen to last month, we had some really, really nice feedback from a listener who said that since they’ve been listening to the podcast, they’ve been able to positively implement some of the learnings into their workplace, and they feel more confident as a disabled person in the workplace. So thank you very much for that comment, and that was from Robert Kenneth, so thank you very much for that, Robert Kenneth, please feel free to send in more feedback in the future. Well, today, we’re joined by a guest who has actually been on the podcast before. So I don’t know if you remember our infamous Roland Chesters, infamous Roland Chesters, and I mean that because when I was booking the room to interview you in the person that we booked it with. Oh, said, Oh yes, no, I recognise your name, so you are infamous in the area.

Yeah, but for what reasons, though, is what I want to ask.

Well, I think that’s for another discussion, another podcast, but I would like to say congratulations on your recent nomination, can you tell us a little bit about it?

I am super excited. I was nominated for one of the national diversity awards as a role model in disability. There are 10 awards, and each award has got eight people shortlisted out of 28,000 nominations. I’m one of the eight shortlisted for the disability Award. The award ceremony takes place on the evening of the 20th of September in Liverpool Anglican cathedral. And really excited by that.

That is absolutely amazing. So to be a role model in disability, what does that actually mean? 

I don;t Now you tell me!  just be out there. I think a part of this is because of the book that I wrote about my experiences of being diagnosed with HIV and AIDS, and other people contributed their stories to that book as well. And I think just being vocal, challenging, not being a shy, retiring wallflower. And I’m not saying that everybody has to do that. Some people are more able and more inclined to be able to do that than other people. There are many, many wonderful, inspirational, effective people who do not have that in connection, who are doing great jobs but don’t have potentially that high level of profile, because they don’t want to shut up on the rooftops, and that’s absolutely fine, and they should be celebrating just as much. 

Yeah but, I think it’s important that there are people that are as kind of outgoing as you are, because it helps to push forward those people that are slightly more retiring, and then they can go in and spread the message in their way as well.I think that’s brilliant, so congratulations on the award and i hope the award ceremony goes brilliant

I am looking forward to it, I will let you know

Yes do let me know and i am sure you will win

I don’t know, having looked at the seven other finalists who are have done incredible stuff, but one has to say this, that even if I don’t win, it’s just the fact that I’m there amongst these inspirational people is enough, and it is. I genuinely do mean that.

Have you seen that Friends episode? Do you watch Friends 

I do well, my partner watches it on constant repeat.

Yeah, brilliant. There’s a Friends episode where Jerry, the actor, takes his friend to an award ceremony, and his friend says, You have to practice your acceptance speech, but you also have to practice the look on your face if you don’t win. And he completely falls down on that

Watching reruns of the Oscars, just to practice that. Yeah, when

If I was an actress, I would practice at least once a week with my fake Oscar in front of the mirror for the day when I would win

Then you still can win

Absolutely best and most beautiful actress.

Of course goes without saying

Brilliant, excellent, so I ask you to come back on this podcast. Thank you very much. Another reason why you’re infamous is because you’re the first guest to come back to the podcast a second time. So thank you very much for giving up your time again.

It’s absolutely my pleasure

Because I know that you’re really busy. So we saw each other at a conference. I think it was in the beginning of June. Was it June or July? Sarah burrows, no, it was the unconference

Joanne Lockwood

Joanne Lockwood conference in London, which was really good, and I posed a question to you that was completely out of the blue about disabled, disabled people organisations and what we think of them. So I thought that would be a good thing to talk about on the podcast, but over lunch, when we were planning what we were going to talk about, non alcoholic, obviously we were talking about, you were telling me a little bit about a situation that you’ve been in recently on Facebook. Can you start by telling us a little bit about that?

Well, this was yesterday where I saw something posted on Facebook about the person who won the award for the best joke at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And the joke was and this is the joke I keep randomly shouting out broccoli and cauliflower. I think I might have been at tourettes.  This was picked up by the UK Tourette’s Association, and the Secretary of that association tweeted that she felt that this was inappropriate and that the comedian that won this award, I’m not going to name his name, because it’s not worthwhile, should apologise. Now then post on Facebook, and lots of other people commented on that post saying, it’s a joke. It’s funny. People are so boring, political correctness, dada, dada. So I went on and said, Actually, I think it’s appalling. There’s a difference between making a joke at somebody’s expense and making a joke with somebody as people with disabilities, we do make jokes about our disabled people and sweeping generalisation, but people with disabilities tend sometimes have fairly black sense of humour for pretty obvious Absolutely yeah, but that’s great. It’s a way of survival, and that’s absolutely fine, but when you’re making a joke at the expense of somebody who is vulnerable and so on, and that isn’t fine. 

Completely agree

I put that comment on Facebook, or was that effect and I was shredded, eviscerated, torn limb from limb, and that’s fine. I can deal with that. I can handle that. But it just emphasised, for me, the level of ignorance, if you like, that’s out there about what it is like to have a disability. People think it’s okay to mock because they see there was the guy, the deaf guy that won, or the mute guy that won. Britain’s Got Talent.

The lost voice guy

The lost voice guy who was brilliant, and it wasn’t necessarily a comedy routine, but he was very funny, but that’s because he was making fun of himself for his own disability. And for me, that’s acceptable.

But I think there’s absolutely a very big difference between laughing with somebody and laughing at somebody. And as we were discussing that’s laughing at somebody, but I think the very I’ve actually seen lost voice guy, if I was gonna say in concert, B wasn’t singing, but live I saw him, and although he made jokes surrounding his disability, none of them were making fun of his disability. They were situational comedy that were coming out of the impairments that caused his disability to stop him from doing the things the way he wanted to, but none of it was taking the Mickey of his disability or the fact that he couldn’t talk itself. And I think that’s a very big difference. I actually call it lazy comedy, you know, when it’s based around, you know, sexual Indu innuendos, it’s lazy, because it’s easy to come up with that stuff as it is easy to take the mickey out of somebody’s disability. It takes a lot more intelligence and a lot more thought process to come up with something clever. That’s funny, that’s commenting on a situation. 

I think absolutely, I totally agree with you, but I think the saddest part for me is that he then says on his Facebook, Facebook posting that the Secretary of the UK Tourette’s Association, who tweeted that the guy should apologise, was forced to remove her tweet because of the backlash that it got. 

That’s disgusting. I mean, if their argument is, if it’s freedom of speech, that’s her freedom of speech, 

Absolutely

And she’s representing a vast majority of people that agree with her. That’s discussing, I mean, as you know, and as our listeners would probably know, language and terminology is a big thing for me, and going into the future and thinking about it being one of the main things that I base my business on because I think language around disability around minority groups in general, but we’re talking disability, so language around disability is so important, and it’s the difference between it’s not about political correctness. It’s the difference between being included and excluded.

I absolutely agree with you, but also, when you talk to people without a disability who have no understanding of this, the reply to yours goes to political crimes. Now, what do a few words mean? What if it is purely semantics? How can words hurt? But words do hurt

They do hurt. I think we told you I was talking to a PA of mine about something completely different the other day, but it came up in conversation. You know, we taught at school that rhyme sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me. But actually names hurt a lot more because they leave a scar, bruises heal.

Yeah, absolutely you are completely correct, and I think getting that message across that actually, when you are in conversation with a person with a disability, if you don’t know what to say, then just be honest and say, I’m not sure what the correct expression to use is. Here, many people with disabilities are very used to having that conversation and going back and saying, Well, it’s fine. Use this word. Use that word. You really don’t care if the fact that you’re actually having a conversation with me is great. And if you say something I find offensive as a disabled person, then I’ll tell you

Exactly, absolutely. So play the devil’s advocate for the other point of view, what do you think if we were going to say, Oh well, no, it was just political. She should get over himself. I think the joke was really funny. What do you think that argument would be? Why is it okay to use that kind of humour? What do you think?

Because, as you say, it’s an easy target. Yeah, targeting the most, potentially, some of the most vulnerable people in society, is always an easy target, because you know that they’re not going to fight back, they’re not going to reply back, and as you said, it’s just lazy comedy.

It’s difficult as well. Because, I mean, when I was I’ve been through a whole journey in my life to get to where I am with the with believing that my disability isn’t something to be embarrassed about, and it’s not something I should be ashamed of, and I shouldn’t be apologising for myself all the time, because, believe it or not, I was that person or sorry for breathing. I’m really sorry. Am I in your way? Sorry, sorry. And now I’m not, and now get out my way coming through. But I think that’s a little bit where the humour comes from as well. It’s believing that disability is wrong and it’s something that you know you want to fight against, and it’s something that’s bad, and actually it’s a dark thing itself. I think sometimes people think, Oh, well, it’s dark anyway. Let’s just make a joke out of it, and actually, Let’s lighten a really dark subject that we never want to talk about. And I don’t think they think far enough to think, well, actually, these are people, and actually I’m offending a group of people.

But as a gay man, and you already referred to, you know, disabilities are not the only minority in the country that can be the target of humour. 

Absolutely

Homosexuality and other minority groups are all targets of humour. So I could be the double butt of humour, being a gay man with a disability, and sometimes, actually, I have been there on the receiving end of some very hurtful gay humour in inverted commas, where I, you know, I’m big enough and old enough and old enough to push back and say, Actually, that’s not funny. I don’t find that funny. And if you don’t understand why it’s not funny, then I’m more than happy to share with you the reasons why I’m happy to educate you and inform you. I’m not telling you to shut up. I’m telling you. I’m helping you to understand the impact of your vocabulary

Yeah, I also fit into others as well. So whilst being disabled, I am mixed race, and I am a woman as well, and I think sometimes I’m targeted with humour for those two things as well, and I am much and I think it does get back to my disability, but I’m much more likely to stand up for myself and not come across as a stereotypical anything, because I’m so, as you probably are, so used to fighting for our right to be treated as equal. But yeah, it’s hard. Sometimes.

I can’t remember if I shared this story with you before, but when a few years after I was diagnosed with HIV and AIDS, and I had to have an assessment at work that the results came by that I am dyspraxic, and the occupational health person wrote to my HIV consultant to ask if the dyspraxia was as a result of the brain disease, it was my defined illness, and the HIV consultant wrote back, copied me in and said, Yes, that is the case, and Roland will never be normal again. I loved it. Who wants to be who wants to be normal? Normal is a setting on a washing machine. Yeah. My aim in life is to never, ever be normal? Yeah. And if people don’t like that, then.

I mean, I took a breath when you said that, and I think you’re absolutely right, you know, who wants to be normal? But I think the connotation is that, oh, poor Roland, you know, we need to do it and I think that’s my intake of breath. It wasn’t. The word itself. It was the meaning behind the words.

And I am very well aware that my HIV consultant wrote that specifically in order to make sure I got workplace adjustments, yeah, so it was a loaded phrase, yeah. And understood where it was coming from. But I’m really pleased.

Yeah, absolutely. But, I mean you lead on to a good point. Actually, I used to work in a care organisation. So I began working in the care home, and then I worked in the main organisation in developing the inclusion for the organisation. And part of what I did was work with the department that went out to support disabled people to get the services that they needed to live their lives the way they wanted. So not necessarily benefits, but things like direct payments and support with recruiting personal assistants and everything like that. And we did a lot of work on terminology and language in the organisation at the time, and one of my colleagues who worked in that department said to me, but we have to use this loaded language, because that is the only way that we get what we need and we get the assessments put through. Because if we use myself as an example, Esi needs support to go to the toilet rather than Esi needs toileting three times a day, we don’t get the same amount of funding. And I think that, you know, that’s the scary thing that we identify too much with the language that excludes and limits people.

But it should be, I say, Should with a specific purpose of money. It should be a process of education. But having said that disabled people, or people with disabilities, and you and I  have had that conversation, 

We have

Have existed since time immemorial. How much longer do we have to continue to educate people until it becomes the norm.

I think that. That is the question, isn’t it? And that’s the one that I don’t think, do you think there’s an answer

No, I am posing it as a metaphorical question. I know I would like to be able to say, yeah, in 15 years time, everybody will get it, but that isn’t going to happen.

Yeah? I mean, from looking from the outside in, I suppose people might think that we’re already there. But, you know, I can, I can put the same on other characteristics that I myself don’t have. So for example, the other day I watched Rent, you know, the musical I love Rent. It’s one of my favourite musicals and Joseph, those are my two favourite opposite ends of the spectrum, I realised, but they’re really good. And I thought, you know, obviously there’s not a connotation, but there’s a theme of HIV and AIDS that runs through the music of in 

Rent, not Joseph

In rent. So we’re on the same page in rent, there’s a theme that runs through and, you know, I’m sitting there thinking, Oh, we’ve come such a long way. But then I do, you know HIV and AIDS for the majority of my life, obviously, I have you as my friend and colleague, but it doesn’t touch me. And I think sometimes if you don’t have it if it doesn’t touch you, of course, you don’t have the experience. You don’t realise that we are so far behind on it.

And can I just say, having said what you said, I actually conducted a survey for World Aids day 20 what year 2018 Yeah, it’s the last World Day. So first December every year, the one in 2018 was the 30th anniversary of World Aids Day. So I commissioned a UK wide survey. Over 2000 people answered a telephone survey with five questions. One of the questions was, if you had a friend who was diagnosed with Who told you that they were living with HIV and AIDS, how would you react? A choice of five answers from it wouldn’t make any difference to the relationship, though I would end that friendship. 21% of the respondents said they would end that friendship. So yes, things have moved on in terms of treatment of HIV and AIDS, but things haven’t moved on in terms of education.

Wow. See, that’s scary. It is very scary. But you I think, do you think? And again, I might be playing devil’s advocate here. Do you think that that is a little bit because it’s a hidden thing. I mean, we look at disability. We look at, you know, the sign for disability is still a wheelchair. So we see a wheelchair. And then, you know, the man said, we’re walking out the restaurant today, and the man said to you, be there a that bump, Can you let her know, or words to that effect, but if you know, if he didn’t see my disability, I might have needed support.

But it was interesting that he said it to me,and I was grateful to the gentleman. He came up to me, he said, and I kind of whispered, it’s none of my business, mate, but my daughter uses a wheelchair, and she was sitting there the other day, and she backed out and got caught in that dip in the pavement. And part of me thought, Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. But actually, Esi is perfectly good at hearing and very intelligent. Why can you not say it to her? I didn’t say that to him because it’s kind of a slap in the face. He was well intentioned. But it’s that thing about you know, I am not your PA. I am not your carer. Just because we were sitting together having lunch, it is strange. 

I completely agree. And I also had the change of his tone when he started talking to me. But, I mean, yeah, absolutely no, I think so. And I think I don’t know what his excuse in this case is, because if he had a disabled daughter, he shouldn’t be. But I think there’s a little bit of fear in it as well. And I don’t know if you think, but maybe the same with HIV and AIDS. There’s still that fear around that.

Well, I because I deliver lots of training sessions about disability awareness and conscious bias and so on and so forth. And if it’s appropriate, I tend to feed in a little bit of my story. Stories make training much more interesting. And so when I say to people, I have a number of hidden disabilities, and they kind of look at me think, oh, yeah, like, what? And then when I say HIV and AIDS and scan the room, yeah. And the reaction, the response you get, it varies. It does vary. And quite a few times people have come up to me after the training is finished, and I say, thank you for sharing that, because I know somebody, friend of member of my family, da, da, da, da, da, but didn’t want to share that in the room. And I’m not there to out anybody in any kind of way. And I’m really grateful that me sharing it has enabled them to feel, you know, that somebody cares kind of thing. But yes, the response and reaction on the whole is kind of inward drawing of breath, like you just did when I mentioned that comment that my HIV consultant had made. And there’s subtle little micro behaviours. Some people want to come up and give me a hug, which is lovely. I willingly accept hugs from most people. There’s more hugging the world. The world will be a much better place. 

No. though

I won’t, let’s not talk about personal issues here. Esi, but yeah, it’s you get a very different reaction and response. 

Yeah, people come up to me sometimes, sometimes in training, but also on the street, and they say, do you mind me asking you a few questions about your disability? And it’s a lot of the time. It’s because they have a young person, a child or a granddaughter, who have just been diagnosed with cerebral palsy or something to deal with that, and they see me managing to drink a coffee and not spilling it down me or whatever, and they want to know what my journey was in a very short period of time. And I think the physical side of my disability helps people to develop awareness that disability isn’t that, you know, isn’t as scary as people think. But I suppose when it’s hidden, that’s another asset.

But at the same time, so people can clearly see you have a disability, when I tell people about my disability, we then take on a responsibility to educate and inform. And part of me gets really tired with that. It’s like the information is out there. If you want to find out more about it, go on the internet. Yes, loads of stuff out there about HIV and Aids You know, it’s about cerebral palsy. Why do I have to be your educator?

I think sometimes because we chose that role, but I completely agree with you that, you know, I think, and I say quite often in my training sessions, just because you have another disabled person, your team does not mean that they’re your champion. It does not mean that they’re your Google. Google is your Google. And I think for me, there are some times where I go along town with a very grumpy face that definitely says, Don’t talk to me. And I deliberately look down because I’m in a hurry and I want to get to where I’m going without having a conversation about how hard it was to get off the curb. But other times I think, well, I’ve got five minutes to spare. Whatever. You know this is going to make a dramatic difference. And you’re right, it’s not fair, because the implication of not doing it is that they won’t ask again, and that’s a dangerous thing. And not every disabled person, first of all, wants to do that, and they shouldn’t have to do that, but second of all, is capable of doing that. So we both have a colleague, Ryan Compton. Who is also on the podcast, and he always says, very rightly so that lived experience is not enough. When delivering training, you need lived experience and professional experience, because it’s not good going into a building saying, Well, I’m Ryan, and this is what you need to do for me, because that’s fine if you’re going to hire Ryan, but the minute you want to hire Roland or Esi, you’re back to square one,

Absolutely, and you’re quite right. The danger is that So somebody may have come and asked you to give them some information about your disability, but that’s your experience of your disability. Everybody’s experience of their disability is different to other people with the same disability. So that person then goes away saying, Yeah, I know all about that disability now because I’ve spoken to somebody who lives with it.

Exactly. So what’s the message we’re leaving people with?

Very confused, give up now. No, never give up. I think the message in terms of communication is to not be afraid to communicate with somebody who has a disability or who tells you that they have a disability. Be open and upfront, and if you are concerned about the appropriate vocabulary to use and so on and so forth, just say to the person, this is great conversation. I’m feeling my way here. Can you help me? And 99% of the time, we will say, Absolutely, I’m really glad that you said that, because it shows how empathetic you are.

I agree. Going back to the comedian we were talking about at the beginning. I mean, it’s it sounds like you and the lady from the Tourette society were the only people with opposing views. And so it’s very narrow minded of anyone, no matter what the subject is, to just dismiss those views without second thought. So I suppose a message for that bet is, even if a view is opposing to yours, take time to think about it, consider that, and consider where that’s coming from, and then immediate, and my immediate, because I’m very spontaneous, and my immediate reaction is to think, No, you’re wrong. But then I stop and I think, because I know that that’s my immediate reaction, so I stop myself and I think, Okay, let me think about this. Why did that person say that? What’s their experience? Where’s that coming from, and then maybe meld it into your experience.

But social media has had a dramatic impact on the way that we communicate, and most people again, making vast stereotypical judgments here, most people put staff won’t comment on post on Facebook without giving it any thought, it’s just an instantaneous reaction, and that is dangerous.

Yeah, I agree. I agree, yeah. And I said, yeah, good intention or not, absolutely. You said something to me a minute ago, like, oh yes, you put that on LinkedIn the other day. And said, Did I because that’s what I do. I just put things on when they come to me and feel about them, and I am not, you know, I’m very responsible with what I put on LinkedIn, because, apart from anything else, it’s my brand. But I think that’s a really good point, and it’s a good example of we do just put things out there without worrying about the consequences or even thinking about what we’re doing at the time? Yeah.

Absolutely, it is dangerous times we live in.

It is a dangerous times, but also exciting. Yeah, it’s bad luck. You can’t talk for the rest of the podcast. So the other thing I thought that would be an interesting topic to maybe venture into a little bit is DPOs, which are disabled people’s organisations or user led organisations, and whether they’re still relevant. Now, shall I explain a little bit about where disabled persons organisation is?

You go ahead with that.

So in August,I interviewed Ian loynes, whose podcast is now released. He works, he’s the CEO of a disabled persons organisation called spectrum Centre for Independent Living, and he explains very well what a disabled persons organisation is. So it’s an organisation that’s run by disabled people for disabled people. Now that doesn’t mean that there can’t not be non disabled people working in the organisation, but all the strategic decisions, or the managerial and senior roles are run by are held by disabled people, because disabled people have disabled people’s in prison at hearts, and also that they have the experiences of disabled people as disabled people to be able to drive forward change. So when we were at this event, this true inclusion event, a few months ago, Roland, it came out of the blue team, but what I was thinking at the time was we’d had these conversations, really good conversations. Conversations about how important it is to be led by users of whatever users that might be, so whether it be disabled person, women, LGBTQ or whatever, it’s really important to be led by the experiences of those users, for those users, because I’ve also heard people saying in companies I’ve worked for in the past and supported as celebrating disability Oh, DPOs or disabled people’s other organisations are just another way of discriminating against non disabled people.

So also, having worked alongside, I worked in a number of DPOs, myself. My take on it is that, again, sweeping generalisation.

You may have a person with a disability who is desperate to improve the world for people with the same disability, they come with good intentions, honest, strong intentions, but sometimes they have not got the experience, the knowledge, the capacity or the capability to actually lead an organisation. And so the better organisations that I’ve worked with are ones like you just said, where there is a core element of people with a disability, but they bring in other people to provide the professional expertise and knowledge that an organisation needs to be able to sustain it and indeed to hopefully flourish. I’ve worked with a couple of organisations where it was entirely voluntary and everybody it was entirely peer led, so everybody in that organisation had this particular disability, and they were all volunteers, full of good intention, but no clear drive, no strategy, and without a strategy, any organisation stagnates, and an organisation that stagnates isn’t going to survive. So there needs to be that, that blend. I feel, if you have a disabled person that brings that professional expertise and knowledge and skills and capacity, great, brilliant, seize all of that person. Don’t let them go, because they are the kind of people that you need. But again, in my experience, they are relatively few and far between

Because of backgrounds and because of experiences.

Absolutely and also because there they have met barriers that have meant that they haven’t been able to gain that kind of so I became. I acquired, to use a disability specific vocabulary, I acquired my disability later in life. I became, I was diagnosed HIV positive 13 years ago. So up until that time, I’d had a fairly successful career management level and all that kind of stuff, which meant that I am now in the fortunate position of not only having a disability, but also having that kind of background which enables me to assist and support these kinds of organisations for people with a disability who haven’t had those opportunities for whatever reason it is much more difficult? 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, we haven’t actually gone into a podcast episode where we’ve talked about the barriers to opportunities and the barriers to education table that is the next podcast, because I think it’s a really important subject, because when, and I’m sure you do as well, when I go in to deliver consultancy or training around recruitment, people say to me, you know, the senior managers say to me, oh, but they just don’t have the experience and the background. But that’s for a reason, so it’s part of your processes, putting in a programme to support people to develop the opportunities that they need to get into that level.

Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes it’s like banging your head against brick

Wall, yeah,

But if you bang your head against a brick wall long enough, hopefully you end up making a dent in the brick wall without giving yourself a severe headache. But again, as we said before, it is that education process. How long do we have to carry on educating? Yeah, and it’s when you get people with disabilities in high profile positions. But then again, it’s very difficult, because, from my experience, quite. Often a person with a disability in a high profile position doesn’t want to be seen as being a person with a disability. I got there on the merits, my capabilities, what I’ve done, yeah, rather than the fact that I got there as a person with a disability.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that’s a difficult thing. I mean, it goes back to the social model of disability, and embracing and celebrating your disability, as you say, people that reach those positions, you know they reach, probably reach those positions because they have turned their back on their disability and thought thought through these barriers, not in a way that’s comfortable or helpful for them, therefore not setting the path for people to come in the future?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it would be great if we could say that as people with disabilities, we are carving the pathway for people with disabilities coming behind us. It’s part of our responsibility, in the same way the responsibility of educating and so on and so forth. Not everybody with a disability will want to take on that, that responsibility, which is fine and fair enough, but certainly for me with HIV and AIDS, part of a reason why I do this is that so people coming behind, hopefully will have a better experience.

Yeah, me too brilliant. Thank you very much. Roland, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation today. Is there anything else you’d like to say again? Can you tell us again about your book? Just in case there’s one or two stragglers out there that haven’t had one original podcast?

So the name of the book is Ripples from the edge of life. It’s available on Amazon, any good booksellers, or indeed, from my own website, which is luminate.uk.com, and I’m also pleased to say that disability rights UK have started selling it as well. So you could put that out there

Congratulations. I’m thrilled with that. That is brilliant. Thank you so much, Roland, and I really recommend people having a look at Roland’s book and downloading it. 

And hopefully, because you have asked me for this several times, getting an audible version, I have made some inquiries. 

Absolutely, that would be great, although I am I’ve heard so much about rRoland’s book, I haven’t been able to read it yet because, unfortunately, I can’t turn the pages of books. But as soon as it comes out audible, I will be the first to download it.

I look forward to that

Brilliant Have a good day, Roland. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for listening, everyone, and we will speak to you soon.