SORRY, SOPHIE – BUT YOU ARE INSPIRING
Driving Forwards: A Journey Of Resilience And Empowerment After Life-Changing Injury Sophie L. Morgan Sphere £16.99
Sophie Morgan (right) says she has two birthdays. The first is the date she was born 37 years ago. The second is her A-level results day when, aged 18, she was paralysed from the waist down in a car crash and her new life began.
An ‘incorrigible wild child’, Morgan found herself living out her ‘most feared’ experience, with no hope of a cure. Her mother secretly vowed if the injuries didn’t kill her daughter, she’d put her out of her misery with a pillow over her face. But the pair’s mindset changed from despairing to determined.
Within months of her discharge, she was driving, skimobiling in Canada and winning a place at art school. She has since covered three Paralympics for Channel 4 and, most recently, achieved her ambition of presenting shows with no relevance to her disability.
Yet this memoir is very far from the ‘triumph over tragedy’ tale you might expect – and a lot better for that. Morgan’s wrenchingly honest narrative is full of (literally) agonising setbacks. An abscess from an allergic reaction to a plaster means that to this day, she must lie – sometimes for months – on her front to prevent it worsening. A televised trek across South America with other disabled people ended with her hospitalised with amoebic dysentery. She realises that despite her bloody-mindedness, some barriers are simply ‘too high… to overcome’.
Desperate to fit in, she settles in relationships – unable to get beyond the notion that she should be grateful to any man who pays her attention. She silently endures discomfort and inadequate disabled facilities in case she loses friends or work.
She’s constantly ‘dehumanised’, accused by strangers of being a benefits scrounger, while also patronised as ‘inspirational’ – as she dryly puts it – for ‘crossing a restaurant to go to the toilet’. She finds the adjective insulting, but there’s no doubt this book is inspirational, eye-opening and deeply moving.