Another voice

Invalid Power rules

Auberon Waugh

A few days after the end of the 1967 war in the Middle East I remember waking up in the Tel Aviv Hilton without the faintest idea where I was. It was after rather a late night spent at Mandy's Discotheque, kept by the immortal Mandy Rice-Davies, in the Company of the Daily Mirror's Donald Wise, doyen of all foreign correspondents Past and present, Mandy herself and a handful of other people whose names I have forgotten, if I ever knew them. My bedroom gave no clue and after I had studied my Passport carefully, I decided that I was Probably in Portugal, although I could not think for the life of me what I was doing there. It was only half an hour later, after a hot bath and while I was struggling through the horrors of a kosher breakfast that it all came back to me, as they say.

But if Hilton Hotels are pretty well indistinguishable the world over, airports might be specially calculated to inspire dissociative amnesia. Most people at an airport look slightly mad, and one has no confidence that they would be able to reply accurately if one asked what country one was in, even if they knew themselves. After several hours Spent at various airports last week, I noticed that they even have the same sYmbols to distinguish gentlemen's from ladies' lavatories. It has often seemed a Shame to me that all the grandeur of the human male, the mystery and delight of the human female, can be reduced to such fOotling symbols, but I suppose that is what air travel does to us all. It would be a kind thought to supply a third set of lavatories, Possibly distinguished by a question mark, to cater for amnesiacs who have temporarily forgotten which sex they belong to. London Airport, however, is different. Arriving at No 2 Building, I spotted the difference immediately. The first sight to greet the traveller is a battery of notices, advertising sanitary arrangements not only for the usual sexes but also for a Third Sex, described as 'Invalids'. Their sign is a Wheelchair, symbol of so much that is nicest and best about modern Britain. No visitor could hope for a plainer statement identifying the country he has landed in : You are entering a compassionate state, it says. Seat pelts must be worn at all times lest you take more than your share of the delicious health .services available free of charge; safety helmets and surgical trusses should be adjusted before leaving the lounge; all sharp Objects which might be harmful to children Visitors must be left at Welfare Control. Visitors are warned not to feed the old age Pensioners, as some of them bite.

think it is very nice of the British to supply these amenities for the not-so-well

and it is comforting for the able-bodied majority to reflect that if ever we are taken poorly at one of our airports, special facilities are there. As a matter of fact I am a disabled person myself, with disabilities permanently fixed at 100 per cent eighteen years after my army service in Cyprus, despite swindling attempts by various governments to reduce them. It occurs to me that I may have the right to demand entrance to these special, unisex arrangements. Certainly I have the right to sit among the »wiles de guerre and pregnant women on Paris buses, despite Mrs Castle's unpleasant attempts to deny foreign welfare to any Englishman who is self-employed. Those of us who are dedicated to the survival of privilege in any form should lose no opportunity to jump on every available bandwagon. I only wish 1 could represent myself as a battered single mother.

Which is why I have always felt especially tender towards Quentin Crewe, the wheelchair good food warrior and champion of Invalid Power. As a matter of fact, Mr Crewe gave me my first job in journalism, as a £.12 a week researcher for Queen magazine, and our paths have crossed several times. Once he helped me in a venture for the Sunday Mirror called the 'ABC of Beauty'. It involved writing captions for photographs of pretty women in bathing dress—by no means as easy as people might suppose—and one doesn't forget these acts of kindness from a fellow journalist. He once pluckily changed his name from Dodds to Crewe in commemoration of his maternal grandfather, the first and last Marquess of Crewe. How odd of Dodds to choose the Crewes, they cried, as the marquessate obstinately remained extinct. But I think I see his point. His struggle is my struggle and the struggle of most of us. What is our task ? To make Britain a fit country for ourselves to live in.

Those who arrive at London Airport might receive the impression that our Quentin isn't doing too badly. Amnesiacs are less well catered for, as I say, and so, in fact, are the unattended blind, the mentally sub-normal and those unable to relieve themselves without a brass-band accompaniment (as soon as this disability is recognised by the Health Service, I intend to register), but our wheel charioteers, at least, have won recognition for themselves. So it was with real indignation, dismay, sorrow, pain and a keen sense of outrage that I read last Sunday how inadequate are the arrangements in the new National Theatre.

Quentin Crewe was sent on his tour of inspection by a Sunday newspaper which I have vowed not to mention for a year, so I shall identify it only by pointing out that its book and arts pages aren't much good. And it isn't the Observer either. He was accompanied on his tour by the National Theatre's Mr Lasdun, plainly a conciliatory sort of fellow but, as we shall see, not quite conciliatory enough.

It is true that a few token gestures have been made. There is an underground car park where a disabled person can drive straight in, park, and then wheel his chair to a lift which will take him to the foyers of the two main theatres, called Lyttelton and Olivier, where there are special seats and places available for the disabled, as well as special lavatories, or 'loos' as Mr Crewe calls them in his homely way. However, his eagle eye has spotted a flaw : anyone accompanying wheelchair users into the theatre will have to sit in front of them, rather than behind. Disgraceful. Mr Lasdun promises to see if this can be re-arranged.

But wait for the next shock horror sensation. Although the two bars are readily accessible to people in wheelchairs, and it may be that food will be supplied in them, access to the restaurant and both buffets is by a service lift. My God ! Just like secondclass citizens. It makes you wonder what century we all think we are living in, does it not ?

But far, far worse is in store when Quentin reaches the third theatre, called Cottesloe—an experimental, small theatre which is still unfinished. There are only four spaces available for wheelchairs; the special ramp is too steep for comfort. As if this isn't bad enough, and although the theatre was designed as late as 1972—wait for it— there are no special loos! No wonder Quentin goes off the deep end : 'Oho. Was this not after the change of public opinion we all found so moving and proper? How did it happen that there was no loo? Why did they not plan for one when they planned the ordinary loos?

'They hoped . . . It was a question of money. Now they had applied for money for a loo: £3,200. Yes, that is what they said. They showed me the space of it. "It will mean taking down a brick wall, there." Gosh.

'Suddenly, they lost my sympathy.'

Oh dear, oh dear, what can we do? Put knives on your wheels, Quentin, and run us down like Boadicea. Relieve yourself on us from a great height, using machinery which we will be only too happy to provide. But please, please, please never let us lose your sympathy.

Since finishing that excellent article, I have discovered plans for a new West End theatre specifically designed for the disabled. The Little Theatre Club of St Martin's Lane has formed a company known as the Living Theatre for the Disabled. I hope to God they don't forget anything this time.