Listen to the experts

Helen

Helen is a member of Speakability, Dundee

 Video quote from Helen

Video quote from Helen in Windows Media format

'I'm Helen Gowland from Dundee. And ten years ago I had a brain haemorrhage.

'When you say stroke, or brain haemorrhage, everybody has a picture of the elderly. And they can walk. Or don't walk well. But you have to remember that the brain is an amazing thing and, although I look perfectly alright (but sometimes I don't look nice at all!) people think - "perfectly alright". But communication between me and other people is .. can be very very hard.

'The thing that .. I really enjoy using trains, but it's not easy. I think if people know that you have a wheelchair and you know.. that seems to be OK. But having communication problems is very hard.

'Now four or five years ago I also wanted my husband to tell me, but now I'm quite better to.. that he can do it himself. Or I can do it myself. But, if you've been in a train (you know, one of the big ones, whether you're going to Glasgow or here) it is really hard to know - Is it 14? Is 14 this, or is that 2 .. 2 .... not £2 ... it's 2 o'clock ... to do that ..Where it says o'clock, but it doesn't, it says 14 03.

'So that is really hard and I usually have a little bit of paper or something to do that. But I always need some help with that.'

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'Is this the one that's going from Edinburgh to London?'

'Yeh'

'OK. Just now? Yeh?'

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'About ten years ago when I had my haemorrhage, lots of people went for nice little cup of teas and coffee. Things are very different now. You've got the UK ...and the.. the..from the States.  They're all called Lop.. I'm saying the wrong thing. Ska.. Star..buck..Starbuck? Or there's Cof.. Or the other one's called.. It starts with C O.  Cof.. What's it ..? ['Costa?'] Costa. And the other one is Neros? Neros? So there's all those.

'And they're great  And have nice little seats and ... wonderful. But sometimes do not have any em .. pictures at all. It's really hard if you would like to say ... (or you don't want to have to speak) to say "I want a lakke" - not a lakke, a latte. So if there isn't a ..[gesture] you have to do all this [gesture of pointing] stuff.

'And people think "Oh! What is this problem? What's this all about?" And I do think some people are starting looking at .. [gesture] everybody would look at eh [gesture] what it is, so you don't have to speak to anybody in order to do that. So there are lots of people really looking at this. Because it's .. it's a big thing if you want a coffee.'

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Question: '..do you think there's things that other people (in the bigger society - big organisations)... What could they be doing to make things work more easily?'

'Well I think they should ask us to speak. Not themselves all the time. So it's little things like that. Ask us to speak for ourselves and help us to do it.'

Question: 'And are there specific ways you think they could help you to do it?'

'Well I think everybody else who has problems should be saying "We'll..". If you've got a committee, or if you go to a church or something ... Ask them "Do you know what aphasia is? We'll show you (for two minutes, or five minutes).. show you what it feels like". And maybe people would.. "Oh, I never thought about that."  There's lots of little things.'