1. family and parenting
2. children

NEWS REVIEW
4 /
Politicians should represent all
of us, not just the able-bodied
W
hen your legs don’t work
like they used to before.
And I can’t sweep you off
of your feet.” Ed Sheeran’s
Thinking Out Loud must be a rare
choice for the first dance at a wedding.
Yet for my partner and I, it struck a
chord. The lyrics are about two people
growing old together, something we
know sadly we will never do.
“Why bother with a first dance?
Save yourself the indignity,” was the
advice. But at the last minute, we did
it. Crutch in one hand, I clung to my
husband with the other. It was more of
an awkward shuffle than dancing, but
we did it. It was our first dance.
Disability now affects every aspect
of my life. That is what motor neurone
disease (MND) does. The progressive
nature of the condition means
challenges keep on coming, but I take
comfort in knowing that today is my
best day, my healthiest day. It is that
mindset that gets me out of bed in the
morning. As my body gets weaker, I
have to develop workarounds. Instead
THE MOTOR NEURONE
DIARIES
GORDON AIKMAN
of standing to recite our wedding
vows, we sat on stools. Hidden under
my black woolly kilt socks were my
Forrest Gump leg splints to keep me
vertical. Disability inspires innovation.
Life with a disability means I have to
plan and think about the inane. Where
is the nearest dropped kerb? Are there
stairs? Will I be able to open the door?
Is the toilet accessible? Life is harder,
physically and psychologically, but it
is rarely impossible. Faced with a
choice between stares as I am wheeled
into a pub with friends or not having a
drink at all, make mine a double.
Until last year, disability was other
people. Call me naive but I assumed it
was something people were born with,
or the result of a terrible accident. It
was nothing I had ever properly
considered. How times change.
I am living proof that disability can
affect any one of us, in any number of
ways, at any time. Last year I would
run to the gym with ease. Last week I
hobbled down the aisle with a walking
stick. One in five working-age people
in Scotland is disabled. My disability is
now obvious, but many are invisible.
Yet disability doesn’t mean inability
— quite the contrary. As someone with
an ever-evolving physical disability, I
have an insight into the challenges
faced by disabled people. It is the
barriers, attitudes and exclusion —
whether deliberate or inadvertent —
that disable people like me. It is the
taxi ramp that fails to work; the stairs
to the restaurant door; the glare of the
pedestrian trying to get past; and the
sigh of the shop worker.
As we look to the general election, I
feel a healthy democracy means a
parliament that reflects all those it
seeks to serve. And yet there is
evidence that disabled people face
significant barriers to selection as
parliamentary candidates and are
generally less likely to say that they
can influence local decisions.
I asked the Scottish and UK
parliaments historically how many
disabled elected members we have
had. The answer: “Sorry, we don’t
collect this information.” I don’t know
about you, but as election candidates
troop in front of the TV cameras, I see
the same old male, stale and pale faces.
It is time our parliament and politics
Aikman, left,
defied his
degenerative
disease to
share a first
dance with
his husband
Joe Pike at
their wedding
reception
truly reflected our people: one in five
elected representatives should be
disabled people.
How do we get there? A good first
step would be for political parties to
ensure meetings and materials are
accessible. A beefed-up Democracy
Diversity Fund to support disabled
parliamentary candidates would also
help. And I ask, is there even a case for
all-disabled candidate shortlists?
More disabled people in politics
means more who understand our
challenges. That in turn means policies
that work for everyone. Surely that is
something all parties can agree on.
Gordon Aikman is an MND patient
and political campaigner. For more on
the One in Five campaign, visit
oneinfive.scot. To donate to Gordon’s
Fightback text “MNDS85 £10” to 70070
or visit gordonsfightback.com
MARILYN KINGWILL
Ask any mum, Kate
— a tiny twosome
can be gruesome
Angela Lansbury says she does
not burn the candle at both ends
— ‘except for fun’
Kathy Brewis
M
It takes excruciating effort
to last like this, my dear
After making millions on American TV, Angela
Lansbury has made a triumphant return to
the London stage in Blithe Spirit. She tells
Oliver Thring how to win an Olivier at 89
‘D
on’t kid yourself,
my dear,” Angela Lansbury scolds
me down the phone from her suite at
the Rosewood hotel. (This is a beautiful Edwardian building in central
London, only 11 years older than the
dame herself, gutted to a bland
internationalism by its Texan
owners. She has aged better.) “Let
me tell you something. Everybody
has plastic surgery. I haven’t done it
foranumberofyears,butintheearly
days — good heavens, yes.”
I mention another famous British
actress of Lansbury’s generation,
who has always rejected the allegation that she has any familiarity
with scalpel or needle.
“Ha! Her? Please! I know her and
she’s no fool.” She denies it, I say.
“Well, if she denies it and looks
as good as she does, then God
bless her.”
I loved Dame Angela instantly,
not least from Bedknobs and
Broomsticks, the video of which was
worn to tissue when we were children; then I remembered she was
astonishing in The Manchurian
Candidate too. And, of course, she
seems to be perpetually on television
as Jessica Fletcher in repeats of
Murder, She Wrote. Lansbury made
millions from that programme,
which ran for 12 long and exhausting
series. By the end she owned the
company that produced it.
Last week she became one of the
oldest recipients of an Olivier, the
most prestigious award in British
theatre, when she won best supporting actress for her performance
as Madame Arcati, the loopy,
heavily laced “clairvoyant” in Noël
Coward’s Blithe Spirit.
That had been her first appearance on a London stage in about 40
years and she almost broke down
when she accepted what she tells me
is a “jewel”: the statuette of “Sir
Laurence, whom I had known and
worked with”.
Of course she did. She is 89 and
says that she has never considered
retiring: “As a character actor you
need energy. To take on another
person’s physical attributes and play
them fully needs huge amounts of
energy. And I thank God I have that:
if I’m not acting, I’m washing the
dishes or polishing the floor.”
Where does this longevity come
from, I ask.
“I take excruciatingly good care
of my body,” she says. “And I don’t
burn the candle at both ends” —
briefest pause — “except for fun.”
She really is a character actor, too.
With most of her older female acting
contemporaries, people pay to see
the woman: a popular celebrity who
plays more or less the same part
every time. A scan through Lansbury clips on YouTube shows how
different dramatically — which is to
say in the application of talent — she
is in every role. (The clever, diligent,
mischievous Jessica Fletcher, she
tells me, was “the only part I ever
played myself in”.)
One paradox of this talent is that
Lansbury is probably less recognisable than, say, Judi Dench or Maggie
Smith. Plus, as someone who
knows her says: “She is modest. She
said to me once: ‘I don’t think I really
mean anything in London any
more.’ Well, she came over to do a
benefit concert for Aids, walked on
stage at the Palladium and 2,200
people leapt to their feet. It showed
her that she really did matter.”
In a long and conscientious
career, Lansbury doesn’t seem to
have taken anything for granted.
Her first husband, a thespy Lord
Alfred Douglas lookalike named
Richard Cromwell, married her
when she was 19 and he was 35. He
had hoped to distract or convert
himself from his homosexuality, but
one morning less than a year into
theirmarriage, she came downstairs
to find a note: “I’m sorry darling, I
can’t go on.” She filed for divorce,
but they remained good friends until
he died in 1960.
The great union of her life, of
course, was with Peter Shaw. Their
marriage lasted 53 years. He had
been a vastly successful Hollywood
agent and producer who abandoned
everything to support her. When he
died in 2003, Lansbury said it was
like a “rift in time” — depression
almost broke her. Then Emma
Thompson rang and offered her a
part as the villain Aunt Adelaide in
the children’s film Nanny McPhee,
and that, she later said, “pulled me
out of the abyss”.
“Unquestionably, the hardest
time in my life was the early 1970s,”
As a character actor
you need energy.
And I thank God I
have that: if I’m not
acting, I’m washing
the dishes or
polishing the floor
she tells me. “So many disastrous
things occurred. Two of our children
were heavily involved with drugs.”
Anthony and Deirdre, who were
in their teens, were using heroin
with a prototypical Rich Kids of
Instagram set gadding about the
Malibu hills. Deirdre even became
involved with the Manson family,
the hypnotised harem led by the
serial killer, racist and psychopath
Charles Manson (now 80 years old
and still in jail).
“We just had nothing to keep us
in America,” Lansbury says. “So we
upped sticks, as they say.”
They moved the family to a house
near Cork in southern Ireland,
where she and Peter rescued the
children from their chaotic lives.
“They
learnt
things
that
they never would have had the
opportunity to get into back in
California,” she says.
“[They learnt] how to cook and
garden. They got jobs as waiters and
learnt what it’s like to earn a bit of a
living — not that they had to.”
It worked: the children, now in
their sixties, work respectively in
the cinema and as a restaurateur.
Lansbury, who says that her
“homestead” is Los Angeles, seems
genuinely thrilled to tell me the
precise date of her granddaughter’s
wedding in New York later this year.
Our time is up. “Sorry we had to
do this under such hurried circumstances but you’ve dealt with it all
terribly well,” she says.
“I’ll try and do my part now
too for the rest of the day. That’s
all I can hope to do, really — just
keep up my end.”
@oliverthring
y friend Rebecca
had just thrown a
birthday party for
her one-year-old
when she dropped the
bombshell: “We’re expecting
another child.” She gave a
small, scared smile.
Obviously there was nothing
to do but reassure her.
Brilliant news! Two tiny
children, twice as much fun!
Each would have the gift of
the other — to love and be
loved by. Or something.
“It’s mostly a fog,” recalls
a friend. “But I distinctly
remember sitting in the
kitchen with a girlfriend,
crying and saying, ‘Never
have a second baby!’ It just
felt totally impossible.”
Toddler plus newborn is a
fiendish combination, as
Prince William and Kate are
about to find out. Just as the
older one is learning to
throw epic tantrums, into
the mix comes an anarchic
howling infant.
A year into fatherhood,
William confessed: “Since
George arrived on the scene,
my one burning ambition is
to get a good night’s sleep.”
Mini Prince George was
reportedly always hungry
and reluctant to sleep
through the night — a
typical baby. With luck the
second mini royal might
settle quickly into a civilised
sleeping pattern. More likely
she/he (pink paint has been
delivered to Anmer Hall in
Norfolk) will not.
Some people will tell you
it’s wonderful when siblings
are close in age. That there’s
less competition, the
children have a constant
playmate and you’ll be “out
of the chaos” sooner. They
are lying. Or else they have
blanked out the memory.
The facts of the matter are:
Sleep. You won’t get any.
For a brief few weeks you
will power through on
adrenaline. Then you will
turn into a frazzled harridan,
barking orders and/or
weeping freely. A sinister
diminutive tag team will
wake you up at random
intervals between dusk and
dawn, just because they can.
It will take years to recover
from this sleep deficit. Years.
Sex. You won’t get any.
The baby will probably be in
your bedroom at first and
even if not they will strike up
a piercing scream the
moment they supernaturally
sense your attention leaving
them. Your sexy new look
will consist of flat sandals
and supermarket jeans
covered in baby sick. Any
fitness you managed to claw
back will have gone and
mummy-and-baby yoga
classes are not an option
since mummy is engaged in
activities such as stopping
the kamikaze toddler
stepping into the road.
The jealous older
sibling will discover the
fun new game of
showing up in your
bed every night.
Having ignored your
efforts to brainwash
them into believing they
are simply acquiring a
fantastic new friend, they
Prince George is said to
have given his parents
many interrupted nights
will be unimpressed by the
wriggling newcomer and
will do anything to get your
attention, by fair means or
(mostly) foul. One father
laughed as he told me how
his little boy had dropped a
heavy toy lorry on his
newborn brother’s head.
From a height.
Social life. You’ll have one,
of sorts, but it will consist of
hanging out with other
women with whom you may
have little in common other
than having produced two
sprogs. Gatherings that
involve wine will offer brief
windows of time in which
everything seems hilarious
and manageable. Brief, brief
windows.
The endless list of small
yet essential tasks will
clutter your brain, making it
impossible to think freely or
coherently as you once did.
Catching up with fancy-free
friends will take second
place to catching up with the
laundry. Feed-me time will
be the new me-time. Kindly
meant platitudes will rub salt
in the wounds. “Sleep when
the baby sleeps”? Ho-ho!
You will console yourself
with the thought that it’s
only 18 years until they
(hopefully) leave home.
What else to look forward
to? Further unsolicited
parenting advice, all
confusing. You spoonfed
mush to your first infant?
Tut tut. Now it’s “baby-led
weaning”. Child-rearing
gurus have become even
more polarising, as you will
discover through the terrible
daytime TV show you briefly
flirt with in an attempt to
reconnect with the world.
Which brings us to leaving
the house. You have to do it.
You want to do it. And you
will do it. You will. With
your double buggy and your
nappies in two sizes and
your pretending-to-bethick-skinned attitude that’s
necessary because not only
do you look a sight but
complete strangers will
again criticise you openly
when your baby cries. Only
this time they will also ask
why you can’t control your
toddler, who is lying
face-down on the pavement
refusing to move.
None of this is avoidable,
unless you are extremely
wealthy, do not have to
work and have the most
amazing support network —
not just grandparents but
paid professionals. Unless,
say, you won the lottery or
married into royalty.
Oh, you did? Nice one.
It’ll be a doddle.