Providing help and support for those with
Hereditary or Familial Spastic Paraplegia

My name is EM and I have suffered with H.S.P. from birth.   I have been a Newslink receiver for a number of years.

For years I've read about the meetings and region get togethers, but this year our Region 6 co-ordinator Peter B contacted me and I and my daughter Kathleen who also has H.S.P went to Porthcawl.

Oh was I nervous, fearful, of meeting someone who had the same condition as myself and my daughter.   I grew up in south coast Ireland out in the country in the valley of Slieve Nāmbōn.

What would you say if I said I wanted to work in India for a short time?   That was the question I asked my wife, Stella one evening as we sat down to dinner and the immediate reaction was to see her face drop and a tear appear.   I have hardly been apart from my wife in 34 years of marriage let alone work abroad.

I have always enjoyed flying, when flying on holidays I am like a little kid. I get excited for the take off as well as the landing. Back in 2005 after IB came back from his time at 43 Air School, South Africa (Flying Scholarship for the Disabled) he said that I should apply as I would really enjoy it. To think of how my life has changed since then.

Over the past four years, through the auspices of Rolls-Royce’s London donations committee, efforts have been made by the company to develop partnerships between its corporate headquarters in Buckingham Gate and various local community, education and environmental groups. In addition, one-off donations are often made via sponsorship of a specific sporting event and this is the tenth year Rolls-Royce has taken part in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge.

My name is MW and I have had HSP since birth.

I used to wear callipers when I was a young boy, which I absolutely hated with a passion. I just wanted to go and play with the rest of the local lads and have a game football, but this just wasn’t to be.

I went to a boarding school, which was very much against the wishes of my parents as, at the time, I was an only child of who they could not bear to be away from.