‘As I shuffle about with my stick, I am treated with understanding, never hostility’
taken all my medication. Every day, I am humbled by the power of her love.
I am also comforted by the benevolence of friends and family, especially my two brothers and my sister-in-law. This week I had another demonstration of this generous spirit when I wrote an article in the Spectator magazine about my condition. It led to an outpouring of sympathy which deeply moved me. “Courage, mon beau, courage,” wrote one fellow author. But what is equally striking is the kindness constantly shown to me by members of the public who do not know me at all.
We are constantly told by large sections of the media that modern Britain is a cruel, nasty place, riddled with divisions and bigotry.
According to fashionable propaganda, hate crimes are on the remorseless increase in our polarised society, with disabled people a prime target. But my experience has been the opposite. Since I developed my condition, I have encountered only generosity. As I shuffle about with my stick, I am treated with understanding, never hostility.
My vulnerability seems to bring out deep strain of humanity in other people.
In office buildings, doors are held open for me and lifts summoned. Retailers pick up goods I have clumsily dropped on the floor.
One evening at the cinema, a teenager came to my rescue when my bag of sweets had fallen to the ground.
In the same vein, taxi drivers leap from their cabs to guide me gently into the back seat of their vehicles.
OaN THE public transport network, seats are given up for me and my bags lifted onto the overhead racks. During a recent train journey home from London to Margate in East Kent, I was struggling through an overcrowded carriage when another commuter jumped up and offered me his place, even though his kindness meant that he had to stand for more than an hour.
Even in London, which has a reputation as a citadel of indifference to others, I have found the sight of my cane usually guarantees me a seat on the underground or a perch in a packed café. Parkinson’s may ultimately mean a slide towards “the shadowy side of the hill,” to use Billy Connolly’s poetic phrase.
But the move there certainly be eased by helpfulness of strangers. For all the downsides of this disease, it has opened my eyes to the true nature of our society. can the