Cruel bullies only made me stronger
Mum’s positive message onTV spot
A Perth mum who overcame disability and cruel taunts as a teenager was a special guest on a live internet TV show on Sunday.
Edna Lilley appeared on The Power Talk Show, at 5.30pm on January 26.
The programme, hosted by Marc Wynn, is filmed live in Motherwell and gets transmitted worldwide on Bestway TV.
Edna, a longstanding resident in North Muirton, was one of three remarkable guests in a programme that looked at going from being 99.9 per cent disabled to enjoying a fulfilling life and giving back to society.
Edna told how she was paralysed as a five-year old after an accident at home in a rural village of the Philippines.
For five years she could move nothing more than her eyes and her dad carried her about with him in a basket on his back.
She was part of a large family and she received no conventional medical treatment.
Slowly she regained some movement, but it was not until she was 10 that Edna first attended school. She could not move and was stuck in her seat all day till her brothers picked her up and carried her home. She began writing with a giant pencil jammed between her teeth.
Edna broke down in tears as she recalled on the live TV programme how other kids cruelly bullied her and taunted she would be best to kill herself.
She said: “They called me, ‘ugly’, ‘disabled’, they said ‘why don’t you just go and throw yourself in the river?’”
She dropped out of college after the first year, unable to bear jibes about her disability.
Life changed after coming to Scotland and getting married. She became a mother - something she had been told she would never be.
Host of the Power Talk Show Marc Wynn pointed to Edna as an example of positivity and courage, someone who never moans despite suffering pain in her spine from her original injury.
On Sunday’s show she was nicknamed “Super Edna”, after other guests heard how in Perth she has energetically devoted her life to her family and to others in the community, sharing her Christian faith and her sunny personality.
Edna revealed that as well as caring for her husband, daughter (16) and son (15), she goes shopping and cooks and cleans for three people out of the goodness of her heart.
Using a mobility scooter to get around, Edna is an energetic personality leading the Community Craft Group at Riverside Church in North Muirton.
Edna’s efforts to recycle bottles and carrier bags and turn them into colourful decorations have inspired droves of people to improve their street, plus she shares recipes from her former homeland.
She also organises an annual festival held in the Perth church, celebrating her Filipino culture, with cooking, singing and dancing every July, to mark Pista sa Nayon, a holiday carnival in the Philippines.
After being on the TV programme filmed in Motherwell at the weekend, Edna remained modest about her life journey.
She told the PA: “My attitude is what’s the point of moaning? Be happy. Those bullies made me stronger.”