Re: Reach for the Sky

On Oct 13, 8:26 pm, Mike Swift <mike.sw...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Just watched this from start to finish for the first time since my dad
took me to see it not long after I lost a leg in a road accident when I
was seven.

I'm sure this film set me on my way to being sheer bloody minded about
my disability, don't let it win, don't succumb to self pity, don't let
the pain win, old fashioned ideas but never say die.

OK it was only 10 years after a very nasty war, lots of jingoism but the
underlying theme holds true today, don't let the buggers grind you down.

And for the time a very well done representation of air warfare, no CGI
just models and old film.

Mike

--
Michael Swift We do not regard Englishmen as foreigners.
Kirkheaton We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians.
Yorkshire Halvard Lange

I've a vague recollection of seeing an old WW2 movie of the same name.
can't remember it though. Mind you, I can see how a movie based on a
true story about a pilot who lost both his legs in an accident in 1931
might have had an effect on a youngster who had recently lost a leg
also, but it might not have been that movie that set you on your way
to being sheer bloody minded about your disability.

My own experience was more by way of a very close shave.

It was back in July 1994. A heavy, square cornered lump of wood
chopped down across my stooped back. I lay there, face up in
condierable pain, but at least that although I realised I was no
longer able to move, I concluded that feeling the pain must be a good
thing.
Then I noticed the clouds and just lay there transfixed by them. I
remembered looking up at the sky to determine the weather a few days
earlier. Then I remembered similar conditions from an earlier period
in my life. Within seconds I was back to my earliest experiences with
the weather, i.e. within seconds I had gone from work related thoughts
regarding the weather and then school times when I had noticed cloud
formations and then right back to very early childhood to the very
first day I could remember a frosty morning.

I've never experienced such a wondrous sense of peace as I lay there
gazing up at the swirls of a summer's afternoon clouds.
Even to have experienced it, I find I cannot re-create it.

But there I would lay for 3 weeks before being found if I didn't do
something so I just had to find some way to snap out of it and given
that my body was going into an all out head to toe cramp, I'd have to
act soon.

Gradually, I could move my hands, I could use my arms.

Grabbing tufts of grass I pushed myself away from the immediate area
and continued, pausing now and then to try to see where I was going by
arching my neck to see behind me.

Eventually after some 25 metres or so, I got to the garden's side
door. It wasn't closed fully, but the high step was a problem.
Grabbing the frame and hoping the heavy door wouldn't close on my
fingers, I lurch my upper body over the step to be able to be seen
from the road.

Workmen were busy at a junction up the road from me. I could hear them
chatting to each other like as if they were much closer. I called to
them, but though I could hear them, they couldn't hear me at first.
And when they did, I could hear every detail about how they discussed
amongst themselves as to what to do about me. At first they had
decided to ignore me, thinking I was shouting something to my
workmates. Obviously, they couldn't hear the details I was conveying
to them.
Eventually they came over. After some delay due to nervous neighbours
not wanting to open the door to strangers, (London, Higate/Hampstead
Garden) they finally found someone to phone for an ambulance.

By the time it turned up (short time) I had given my van keys to one
of the guys to get my jacket for me.
I was scooped up of the pavement on a split-stretcher sort of thing.
Somehow, whilst the ambulance crew were assessing me the jacket must
have been put to one side and when I was scooped up, it slid under one
half. Whilst travelling to the hospital I kept having a sensation of
falling off. I'm sure it was the jacket, but I'm equally sure they
read my fears of feeling I was falling as meaning something else.

At the hospital a very chatty and jovial nurse who took me to Xray
clammed up and seems scared to speak to me when I (post Xray) asked
what was the damage like. A woman doctor who had trouble finding a
vein in my arm to attach the drip started crying when I told her not
to worry about it because it was not like I could really feel the
attempts in any case.
Actually, not only was I somewhat deprived of physical sensations, but
I was devoid of feelings in general.

Later that evening, they thought I was dying for real. I had a bit of
a turn and they went straight into the routine I had noticed they
followed when ever they were about to loose someone. I wanted to tell
them; "I'm not dead yet" but couldn't manage it at the time.

Next day I was promoted to being allowed some movement. Trouble was, I
had to be helped into and out of the wheel chair. Been wheelchair
dependent was bad enough, but I was troubled that I needed assistance
to get in or out.
I was brought to the bathroom so I could wash etc and though I
couldn't get out of the chair my myself, I would let anyone help me
bath. *** knows why. It's not like I've ever had any hang-up about my
body, nor nudity (mine or anyone else's) and yet suddenly I was
intensely bloody minded about it.

I escaped being wheelchair bound for the rest of my life, but it
wasn't until many years later I realised I had a serious problem
trying to deal with disabled people, specifically wheel-chaired. The
problem was first something akin to a sense of anger towards then and
developed in to avoiding them at any cost. I couldn't cope and that
was it in a nutshell.
I'm glad I eventually realised and fixed it. But that was another
example of bloody mindedness but with no movie to inspire it.



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