The photo features former disability advocate and journalist the late John Robert Brown attempting to go by wheelchair from his rest home to Barrington Mall. Photo taken in 2019.
Clearly the city’s town planners never thought about such difficulties when introducing the wheelie bin rubbish system. It was especially difficult when the grass was damp.
John was an inspiration as when I met him in 1975, he was already severely disabled by MS. He was an old-fashioned journalist specialising in Education. He knew everything there was to know about education and everybody who was anybody. When I look back on his life and reflect on the parlous state of journalism today due to their finances being scoured by outfits like Facebook (who then don’t pay taxes) it makes me very sad. In those days journalists had specialisations and they were often the font of all knowledge on a topic and had a bullshit detector second to none.
It’s a testimony to John that he lived with MS so long.
Here’s the photo of him being unable to get along the footpath because the grass is on the wrong side. Or maybe we are too car-centric and would never think of placing the rubbish bins onto the (in this case super-wide) carriageway. And even if we do, we will then have to get the rubbish truck drivers to do the same.
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