Graham Findlay 2023 (30.5 x 40.6 cm) watercolour unframed

Graham’s story in his own words – I’m Graham, I’m 65 and live in Cardiff – I migrated to Wales in 1979 to do a degree. I’m from London originally and never looked back, I love living here. I’ve worked in the disability rights sector in Wales for most of my career, trying to get rid of the many barriers that stop us from being part of what I call civil society. I’ve mainly done policy work, campaigns and tried to influence how society treats us as a group. And I know Trevor Palmer quite well, the subject of one of Barbara’s other portraits – we’ve met up at many disability campaigning events. I’m also a drumming obsessive, hence the cymbal. I used to play years ago,but am now more of a vicarious drummer. I think I want to go back to playing after I recover. I’ve been a disabled person for most of my life – living with a movement disorder called dystonia. It’s genetic and two of my kids have it. It makes your muscles go into spasm in uncontrolled ways, in my case it affects my speech and posture. A bit like Cerebral Palsy, but different. In many ways I’ve been immersed in the medical system since childhood, seeing numerous neurology consultants over the decades (some nice, some not so nice), having tests and procedures and interventions. All that stuff. Being diagnosed with colon cancer just after my 65th birthday was of course still a shock. It’s early days – I’ve had surgery which seems to be successful. And I’m now having four cycles of chemotherapy and have finished the first one. My seven day stay in hospital, recovering from serious surgery, made me reflect about how people see you as an ageing (55 is defined as “older” in Wales!) disabled person and how NHS staff perceived and treated me. A someone with a speech impairment, I’ve had to develop tactics and strategies to speak for myself and to get people to listen to me. All of that went by the board in hospital. I had tremendous difficulty verbally communicating, and eventually resorted to using texts to talk to nurses. Not easy when both arms are connected to several drip lines, and set off alarms when you move a centimetre. This small but significant bit of lived experience made me ponder about the true meaning of independent living for disabled people, an idea that came out of what the disability movement calls the Social Model of Disability. Independent living is a fragile thing, it is a delicate social construction that needs constant vigilance and tendering. Under a Medical Model-driven NHS system, it withers away. Which is why social care must never be merged with our NHS. I suppose I also need to ponder about how we find solutions to all that, too.