16 April (Part 2) - The disabled are buggied in Bexley
While
councillors spend their time plotting against residents the disabled among us have to
get on with their lives as best they can and suffer the cuts the council so readily
inflicted. I have been in the habit of reporting the experiences of my disabled friend
Carole on Saturdays especially her problem in getting a four year old to and from school
on a crowded bus with an eight month old baby in a buggy too. With schools on their Easter break
this week there have not been any new problems but correspondence with TfL continues and will be
reported here if it ever reaches a conclusion. Councillor Fuller (Lesnes Abbey, £9,543)
has not completely lost interest and is still lurking on the sidelines and may yet prove helpful.
What concerns me most is the effect the buses and school have on an impressionable
four year old mind. The young lad has always been well behaved in my presence
but it is clear that he regards bus drivers as some sort of enemy of his mum. I
don’t expect bus drivers to be well versed in child psychology but you would
expect school staff and governors to be better informed. When the buses let
mother and child down both get sent to the head teacher’s office and made to
sign a form with “disabled mum could not get to school on time because of bus
trouble”. Then the four year old is made to be a spectacle before his class mates
by being taken into class via “the back door”. Goodness knows what a four year
old makes of all this humiliation but it could scar him for life. Carole says
the Educational Welfare Officer has refused to speak to her. You’d think the
head teacher, Ms. Brooks, would know better wouldn’t you?
Finally, for those awaiting the appearance of NoToMob on the streets of Bexley
today, they are dividing their time between ‘us’ and Westminster. They will be along shortly.