WAVES OF DELIGHT
AS soon as Ben Clifford got his first student loan, he bought a surfboard.
After growing up in inner-city Bristol, he longed to go to university by the sea, and Swansea seemed like the perfect choice.
He taught himself to surf, and after graduating qualified as a coach and lifeguard. But his life changed when he was invited to volunteer at a surfing event in Devon, running a session for autistic kids.
“I had no idea how much it was going to impact me,” Ben says. “It was incredible to see how much the young people were getting from surfing.
“They started off very anxious and had trouble communicating.
But when you saw them catching waves, they began to smile and were interacting more.
“I came away thinking, ‘This is no good as a one-off and needs to be happening every week’.”
So in 2013, he set up Surfability UK, Britain’s first fully adaptive and inclusive surf school, which is now transforming the lives of people with disabilities from all over Britain.
Millions of ITV viewers last night saw Ben honoured at the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards, in partnership with TSB. He received a TSB Community Partner Award for his work with Surfability surf school, which has become a world leader in adaptive surfing. Based at Caswell Bay, a popular beach on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, it teaches people who have disabilities and learning difficulties to surf. Every time a disabled person asks Ben if they can go surfing, his answer is the same: “Of course you can.”
If someone has a disability he has not seen before, he researches their condition, invents new kit – such as the UK’s first seated tandem surfboard for people who cannot sit up – and develops techniques for them to take part safely. It means nobody misses out, and Ben says: “Our youngest surfer at the moment is six and our oldest 73. Everyone is an individual and I try to find a way to make it work for them all.”
Ben, 34, is now a world leader in new teaching and safety techniques. He works with the Surfing Association to develop international standards for adaptive surfing, helping people with disabilities in surfing hotspots such as California, South Africa and Australia. WHEN Army veteran Tom Oates is submerged under water, the real world is shut out and he feels completely at peace.
The former Scots Guard is one of dozens of veterans helped by charity Deptherapy, which uses scuba diving to support ex-servicemen and women who have suffered physical or mental injuries. Tom developed PTSD after his vehicle was blown up in Afghanistan in 2013. Then a few months after he returned home to Batley, West Yorkshire, his fiancee Sarah was killed when a car hit them.
The tragedy left Tom at breaking point and he tried to take his own life. “I was diagnosed with complex PTSD,” he says. “I just couldn’t process what had happened.”
When people help people it’s a good thing for all of us
He has also opened up his centre to the wider community, so elderly and people with disabilities can take advantage of accessible changing facilities and beach wheelchairs to spend time on the sands.
“For people to beFor excluded from things because of a disability, it seems really wrong in this day and age,” he says. “It shouldn’t happen. It’s nice to show people how amazing they are, if they have the opportunity. Things can be inclusive, it’s just the desire to make it so. There’s no reason why all sports shouldn’t be.”
■ For more information, please visit surfabilityukcic.org. It was only at Deptherapy that his head began to clear.
The charity takes veterans to the Red Sea in Egypt for a week where they undergo an intensive diving programme.
Earlier this year, Tom and another veteran completed a 24-hour fundraising dive, raising nearly £5,000 for the charity. He is also now training as a scuba diving instructor.