Andy is truly inspirational

Disabled actor Andy Walker talks to students at Grange Arts Centre.

MARTYN MEETS... Andy Walker, not dismayed by disability
SPENDING time with Andy Walker is so utterly rewarding that, despite having led a rather full life, I feel totally inadequate.

Here is a guy who has every right to complain about fate’s brutal intervention in his life.

Yet he remains so implacably pragmatic, so balanced, so demonstrably sanguine as to make some of us, myself included, feel not so much ashamed as well, embarrassed.

Andy can move his neck muscles and that’s it. Full stop. Yet when I arrived for our meeting at the bungalow he shares with his partner Nicola Smith, Andy was in the garden, talking with a builder about the construction of a new barbecue.

“Sorry,” he apologised as he whizzed down the ramps and into the dining area where Nicola — who teaches disabled children to swim — had made us coffee. Quite what this remarkable young man had to apologise to me about I could not fathom.

Here he was, in the wheelchair in which he will probably spend the rest of his life, full of beans and bonhomie and talking about his love of barbecues. And his new business.

That’s right, despite being confined to a wheelchair, able to move only by pressing his chin on to an adapted controller that allows him to whizz around like an Olympic champion, he has started a new business.

Living Your Dream Consultancy will allow Andy to organise his life better in the sense that he will channel his energies into what he calls his “lust for life”.

For four years he has been in demand to give motivational speeches to a whole host of people and organisations.

He focuses on the process of change — and having gone from an active 28-year-old to wheelchair-bound he is able to speak with consuming authority on the subject.

“Identify what you can do, don’t concentrate on what you can’t do,” he says.

The business — which goes live this month — will allow Andy to be far more organised in the sense that the fees and donations he receives for his time can be formally recorded into mainstream organisational structure.

He receives a pension, which is adequate for his needs, but he recognises that the pension will not grow in terms of his income but his outgoings and living expenses almost certainly will.

Inflation will make sure of that.

So he needs to supplement his earnings, but such is the selfless nature of this remarkable individual, he is already earmarking much of the expected cash flow from his new venture for the benefit of others.

Much of the money he generates from fees will be targeted to help people “reach and find their potential” to use his words.

And he knows all about beating the odds, despite being confined to a wheelchair since the tragedy in Goa in 2006, when his head struck a rock as he dived into the sea.

“I immediately knew something was wrong,” he recalls with amazing clarity.

“I was conscious but I couldn’t move, I was paralysed, but luckily two lads saw me floating and got me out of the water.

“I was determined to live even though my neck was swollen and I as having trouble breathing. The fact is I shouldn’t have made it, not from the rescue or from being in hospital or being transferred to Delhi.

“The local surgeons on Goa didn’t want me to transfer to Delhi, they could see a new hospital wing from the monies my treatment would bring in and I don’t blame them for that. But I knew I needed the best possible treatment.

“I was put into an ambulance, it looked more one of those vehicles from the Ghostbusters movie, and then we were stuck in a traffic jam for four hours.

“The surgeon in the ambulance kept shouting ‘Don’t give up on me!’ I had this tube shoved down my throat so I couldn’t respond and then he would shout ‘You’re not giving up me!’ And I didn’t.

“I was stubborn, I wouldn’t give up. I was given a 1 per cent chance of survival, my neck was such a mess. I shouldn’t have come through it but I did.”

Eventually he was flown back to England and he opted for rehabilitation at a specialist unit in Sheffield.

Andy cannot speak highly enough of the expert attention he enjoyed in Sheffield and he returns regularly to visit the staff and chat with people in similar situations to himself, offering hope and a positive attitude. He told me: “It really wasn’t a case of physical recovery, it never was about that because my neck and spine were damaged.

“It was more a case of a mental recovery, although after lying on a bed for eight months I did go from being a big active lad to something more resembling corpse.”

Andy is totally aware of the huge debt he owes to family and friends who helped him through those eight months in Sheffield.

“My mates would come all the time and we had the craic. They would come dressed in the clothes I liked to wear and that cheered me no end.

“I had a party in my head each time they came — people maximised their love for me.”

During those long dark days in recovery he discovered the values that drive his life today.

Having come through the trauma of survival, Andy had to integrate himself back into the real world.

He enrolled on a counselling course at the Oldham College — “not because I wanted to become a counsellor, that was never my intention” but so he could have a better understanding on how to mentor others and help them realise their potential.

He sets an example — he has been to the top of Snowdon, he has sailed and he has other challenges on his schedule.

In between time he will continue to develop Living Your Dream Consultancy Ltd delivering key messages through his lectures, seminars and workshops.

He looks on life as a privilege and he intends to make the most of what life has to offer.

Starting with his new barbecue and then his new business.

And in between he will continue to be an inspiration to a generation of people — myself included — who value the liberties that health allows to enjoy.


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