"What happens to disabled people in the rain?"

A blog for the BrokenOfBritain blogstorm "One Month before Heartbreak"

I qualify for the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) upper rate mobility component because both of the specialists who have treated my disc disease have recommended avoidance of some physical movements. They have also said that I should avoid public transport because the motion of buses and trains and the fact that I cannot guarantee getting a seat when I board either of these, puts me at great risk of becoming paralysed from the waist down. Because I qualify for the DLA mobility component I also qualify for a (used to be orange) Blue Badge which permits me to park in the designated Blue Badge parking spaces in any car park.

Until about 2005 I rarely took up a blue badge space because these were fairly limited, for instance, in the Tesco I used to shop in at that time (you know the kind, one of those great big hypermarkets where they sell everything and anything) there were comparatively few designated blue badge spaces in the entire car park even though it was designed to hold over 1000 cars. The few blue badge spaces there were dotted around the car park, and I felt that I should leave these for users, of wheelchairs and other mobility aids, who need the extra space around the parking bay to get in and out of the car. Getting in and out of the car is a problem for me too because if I do not have enough room to fully open my door the twisting etc that is required to get in or out of the car is as potentially dangerous for me as standing in a swaying bus or train. One thing I could do, that would not be as easy for users of mobility aids to do, was to park on the end of a row ensuring that my door faced away from the car parked alongside that bay, that way I could ensure that even if the occupants of the next bay changed while I was in the store my access on returning would still be clear.

And then, one day in 2005 or 2006, something strange happened. I can't remember the date but it was a fairly phenomenal week for those of us in my area with mobility problems because under pressure to implement the changes required by the Disability Discrimination Act, Tesco increased the number of designated blue badge parking bays in their car parks. From there being no more than six bays scattered around a vast car park there were now four rows of eight bays, right opposite the entrance to the store and each facing an identical row of bays dedicated to mothers with babies. What's strange about that? Nothing really, what was strange was that on that day, for the first time in that car park, I parked in a designated blue badge bay and, as I walked to the entrance of the store I was aware of several hostile glances in my direction. As someone who lives with depression it is important I retain an awareness of my propensity to paranoia so, I sort of shrugged those looks off, put it down to it being one of my bad days, and because of that I tried to take no notice of the similar hostile looks I sort of believed I was getting when I returned to my car.

I usually shopped at that Tesco on weekdays when, because weekend shoppers tended to travel to it from miles around, the car park was much quieter. In fact, the 32 designated blue badge bays were rarely if ever all taken. This didn't mean they weren't utilised, many was the time when, on just arriving or just returning to my car, I would see some solo woman with a "baby on board" sign in the back of her car slowly cruise along the lines of mother and baby spaces (which were invariably all taken) and then, assuming a "you can't see me because I've drawn my head back into my shoulders" pose, drive around the end of the row and in one motion swing into one of the vacant blue badge spaces. This didn't really surprise me, sisterhood in the area I live is clearly not very well developed and I knew that many of the mother and baby car bays had been occupied by women alone who, seemingly without remorse, parked in one of those bays before rushing into the shop as if her backside was on fire. Those women would, if I was in my car when they returned and they realised I was watching them, adopt an aggressive stance which said "what are you going to do about it" before lowering themselves into the vehicle. The women (and sometimes, but not often, men) who stole the designated blue badge parking bays reacted differently. If they saw me looking, realising that imitating Quasimodo did not make them invisible, most, on disembarking from their vehicle would give me one of those "what's a person supposed to do" looks and shrug their shoulders before sheepishly walking into the supermarket. As I am 6'3" (when I am able to stand up straight), and that that time I weighed about 15 stone, I did not feel it would be appropriate to challenge these bay stealers directly, there have been times in the past when me being assertive had been interpreted as me being aggressive.

Where is the rain? I hear you ask, don't worry it will be along soon, there's always rain out there somewhere.

And so it went on for many months. Whenever I parked in that car park it seemed to me, judging from some of the looks cast in my direction, that I had done something wrong which had upset the local residents. This was especially confusing on days when some visibly able-bodied woman, who might or might not have given birth any time during the previous 10 years, would get out of her car which she had parked in one of the designated blue bays yet she did not seem to attract the same hostile attention that I, the one with the blue badge, did.

Things seemed to get worse when, for practical reasons, I began doing my shopping at a different branch of Tesco. I was still working when, to improve my rush-hour route to work, I moved to the opposite side of town. At that time, with further degeneration of my spine as yet not diagnosed, I could not sit in the car for more than about 30 minutes and my new location meant I could be at work in 20. My new branch of Tesco was even closer. It is much smaller than the first, not one of those really diddy ones where they sell everything at an extortionate price to justify the "special offers" in the larger stores, but somewhere in between those and the type of hypermarket I had shopped at in the past. This Tesco was also 24-hour service, a real bonus for someone who cannot "mix it" on equal terms with hordes of weekend shoppers. It is right on the edge of Heathrow Airport and much of its trade comes from the thousands who work there or on one of the several industrial estates that surround it, and, surprisingly, in a car park a quarter of the size of the one at the hypermarket, there are an inordinate number of designated blue badge parking bays. In fact there are more than at the hypermarket and here, with the mother and baby bays located in a different area, it is men who sometimes aggressively drive into the protected bays, I assume in a hurry because they rarely park in straight-line, and rush into the store, (without displaying a blue badge), also as if their backsides are on fire, but without a backward glance because they arrogantly assume they have a perfect right to do whatever they want.

I also noticed that the hostile glances in my direction increased when I began shopping at this store. Here though I noticed that the "able-bodied" shoppers who stole the bays also received hostile looks from others in the car park.

Now I became a humanist in the 1970s. You may remember it, Unconditional Positive Regard, Congruence, which meant always being true to yourself, and, Concreteness, which meant always being true to others. And so it was that I forgave those who fired invisible daggers into my back every time I walked into the supermarket, telling myself they must be having a bad day or something of that ilk. It was several weeks before I realised what the problem was.

The universal symbol for blue badge parking spaces is a diagram of a person in a wheelchair. Now, many people, our current, temporary, unelected prime minister included, believe that if they cannot see evidence of your disability, then you are not disabled. Implicit in the disability discrimination act, and the Social Inclusion policies that followed it, was a message to the disabled that they need not feel invisible any more. We should, in fact we were encouraged to, become more visible and claim our rightful place in the world. Problem was that until we became more visible no-one realised how many of us there are. The other problem was, just like other beneficiaries of Anti-Discriminatory legislation, we stopped being individuals to be pitied by some: no, to many: and we became one of the “Politically Correct” groups. Those individuals loathe and despise us, because in their view we receive favours that they do not. They don’t see us achieving equality, they see us taking something (in this case a parking space 10 yards from the one they now have to use), from them.

My penny dropped, because these people saw me walk from my car into the supermarket, even though my blue badge was clearly visible in my windscreen, and they do not believe I am disabled. This despite the facts that when I pull up anywhere I have to sit for several minutes, (I admit that they cannot see me wiggling my feet until the circulation returns and my feet belong to me again), and when I walk, depending where the pain is most extreme, I alternately waddle like Donald Duck, resemble John Wayne just after he has got off of his horse, or, to be crude about it, I walk as if I have shit myself.

And so, I have resolved the problem of the hostile looks, I still don't use my walking stick, no point when I am about to have the ideal walking frame in the form of a shopping trolley, and I wait for the day that someone confronts me so that I can embarrass them with the truth.

There is still one thing that puzzles me however. There are so many designated blue badge parking bays at this Tesco that they are rarely all full. Because much of the custom at the store is from those previously mentioned industrial estates this is also the case at the weekend when trade, at times, appears to be even less than during the week. But there are times when for some unaccountable reason, with plenty of vacant spaces all over the car park the designated blue badge parking bays, conveniently placed near to and opposite the entrance to the store, are full. So full that I often have to revert to my old practice and find a space on the end of a row, not that this is difficult because apart from those designated blue badge parking bays the car park is sometimes almost empty. This strange phenomenon only seems to occur when it is raining.

I am relatively new to disability culture so that puzzle remains to be solved. Can anyone tell me? Why is it only at those times that the designated blue badge parking bays are full up? Whatever happens to disabled people in the rain?

brokenbrian January 2011.