MS was not going to user Barry dancing
‘Bar’and partner Emma, who also has the illness, faced a real wedding challenge
in Glasgow at an MS Rebels Christmas meet in 2017.
Emma continued: “I flew up. Bar got to the airport two hours early. We stayed an extra night in Glasgow after the meet. We went for a walk and there was a man playing bagpipes. We had some lovely conversations. It was quite an emotional weekend and I didn’t want to leave.”
A couple of months later, Bar travelled from his home in the Highlands to stay with Emma in Portsmouth – the first of many visits back and forth, staying with each other for several weeks at a time.
A turning point in the relationship could have been an extract from the script of American sitcom, Friends.
Emma, mum to 11-year-old Corbhan, explained: “Corbs and I stayed with Bar for the whole of August 2018. Lots of things were going on in both our lives and I needed to go back home. I was sitting on the plane, crying on the phone to my best friend because I didn’t want to leave Bar, when the pilot announced there was going to be over an hour’s delay. I thought, this feels like fate to me, I think I need to get off the plane.
“One of the cabin crew came over and asked if I was alright. I told her and she said: ‘I can get you off this plane, and I can get your bags off this plane, and you can go back.’ She got on the radio straight away and that was me. I arrived back on Bar’s doorstep and it was like a proper film moment.”
By the end of September Emma and Corbhan had moved to be with Bar in Kinmylies, Inverness – and it was another ‘film moment’ three years later that led to his proposal.
He explained: “I was at home on my own when Emma was in England visiting one of her relatives. I’d never watched the film Notting Hill from start to finish and I watched it then. It was the first time I’d cried in years.
“I phoned Emma, who was on the train home. I said: ‘Emma, what would you do if I got down on one knee?’ She said: ‘I would phone for an ambulance!’ When she got home, she asked if I was serious and I said I was.”
As wedding plans got underway, there was one thing Bar wanted to do more than anything else on their big day. He wanted to stand up and dance with his bride. And he wanted to do it for Emma.
The couple enlisted the help of Dave Powney and Jude Simms of Move4ward, an organisation that specialises in neurophysiotherapy and rehabilitation.
Dave explained: “We first met Barry and Emma around 12 months ago, when they attended our clinic in Elgin. We firmly believe that everyone can improve on their current condition. Barry had a goal to stand and open the dancing with Emma at their wedding reception. At this point, he had been in a power chair for four years. We were only too pleased to help them achieve this.
“Initially we practised with Barry successfully standing in our Alter-G Anti-Gravity treadmill, which reduces the user’s weight and pressure on the joints.