Section:GDN 1N PaGe:31 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 19/8/2019 18:06 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Wednesday 21 Au g u st 2019 The Guardian •31Opinion
James CokeAs a disabled person,
escaping to the country
gave me a new sense
of space and freedom
W
hen Julie, my wife, was made
redundant from her executive
assistant job a couple of years ago,
we decided to up sticks and leave
London for our own rural idyll in
Devon. We knew it would require
a lot of planning and expenditure – I’m disabled and
rely on a wheelchair to get around because of multiple
sclerosis – and we were aware we’d be leaving our
support network, but, nine months on, we don’t regret
going west one bit.
I’ve always loved London – its diversity and vibrancy
is unlike any other city I’ve visited. It was where I was
born and where I have lived for the past 30 years. And
it’s where I met Julie. I had a rewarding job at a local
disabled charity helping people get welfare benefi ts ,
but rising rents and globalisation altered the community
ethos. People moved out and local businesses closed,
and the charity cut back. I left my job to become
a writer working from home : a small, one-bed housing
association fl at, which had been
adapted for a wheelchair. However,
it was becoming like a prison cell as
I was not able to get out so much.
In turn, my MS worsened as I lost
strength in my arms and battled
daily fatigue. Julie continued to
work full-time but was also fast
becoming my full-time carer , and
it wasn’t long before it dawned on
us that we needed a better lifestyle.
We’d often watch TV shows like
Escape to the Country, and dream
of sea walks and starlit skies, but
we knew the grass wasn’t always greener on the other
side. Although our fl at had its drawbacks, we were lucky
to have it, and didn’t have enough money to move.
However, that changed when Julie was made redundant
from the company she had worked at for 15 years. For
many disabled people , moving home is a pipe dream.
Suitable accommodation in social housing for people in
wheelchairs is rarely available and the costs of moving
can be astronomical. However, we knew we would be
mortgage-free if we could fi nd the right place in the right
area. We were drawn to the Exeter region. My parents
had moved there in the early 1980s – it was Mum’s
birth town, and always close to my heart.
Exeter has been transformed since then, becoming
a new “ Silicon Valley” , so job prospects for Julie were
good and I was hopeful of helping out with local charities.
Devon isn’t exactly fl at, but Exeter has pedestrianised
many areas, so it’s wheelchair-friendly. There are also
new cycleways that off er me a sense of freedom whil e
exercising on my hand-cycle. We only visited one
property : a bungalow in Exminster that sits close to the
banks of the estuary with a view to die for. We bought
it after the fi rst viewing.
The move wasn’t cheap as we had to make the
property fully accessible. However, transfer of my
medical records was seamless and adult social care has
provided a hoist to make things easier for both of us.
It’s a diff erent way of life , and we both feel its benefi ts.
Sleep comes easily, we’ve got room to move, and we look
forward to those summer sunsets. Julie’s got a part-time
job 10 minutes away, and I’m producing a video for
an MS charity. I’ll miss my friends and family, but not
London. When the chance to break out and return to
the motherland came , it was an easy decision to make.James Coke is a writer. He blogs at thedisabledchef.com‘My MS worsened,
and Julie was fast
becoming my full-time
carer. It soon dawned
on us that we needed
a better lifestyle’Knife crime
Using the
power of
drill music
to tackle
gang culture
Irena BarkerL
ike the rap duo Krept
and Konan , Jinx Prowse,
who runs the Music
Fusion youth project
in Hampshire, believes
a police clamp down on
drill music is not the answer to knife
crime. “Gangs and their culture exist
fi rst. This then informs the music.
Banning drill would be a naive and
impotent response to addressing the
real issues behind gang culture.”
“We give young people somewhere
to belong, respect, a platform to
express themselves and a safe place
to hang out. Their music can be the
fi rst step in moving away from crime.”
The idea of using music to help
young people improve their lives is
central to the work of Music Fusion,
which serves areas of extreme social
deprivation in Portsmouth, Havant,
Southampton, Gosport and Fareham.
Nestled next to Havant’s tiny local
museum, its studios rub up uneasily
with the area’s seaside tourism.
London’s black communities
may have been in the spotlight
during the recent surge in knife
crime, but predominantly white
populations in provincial towns can
also be badly aff ected. A Guardian
analysis of offi cial statistics this year
show ed a 4 6% average increase in
knife-related off ences in 34 Englishand Welsh counties since 2010,
compared with an 11% rise in the
capital. In 2010 -11, there were 451
crimes involving knives or sharp
implements in Hampshire. That had
risen to 868 by 2017-18.
Music Fusion aims to channel
troubled youngsters’ energy away
from crime, violence and anger by
off ering courses in rapping, singing
and music production. But it is rap
with a diff erence.
“They have sometimes [already]
been rapping in an American accent
about violence and having loads of
women and money, but that is not
their reality ,” says Prowse. “We keep
the same beats but I tell them what
we are looking for is to emulate
conscientious rappers who rap about
things that are important to them.”
The project is working against the
backdrop of a national debate over
how to solve the problem of serious
youth violence. A recent home
aff airs select committee l abell ed the
situation a “social emergency”, and
MPs called for greater investment in
early intervention and youth services.
In and around Portsmouth ,
mounting tensions and violent
incidents between feuding young
people in diff erent postcodes led to
Music Fusion launching its Words
Not Weapons scheme.
Matt Stevens, 25, now a music
leader at the charity, was one of the
youngsters who agreed to take part
when it began in 2011. As a teenager
he says he was often in trouble with
the police, and was thrown out of
school and a pupil referral unit (PRU).
“I was feuding with some guy
from Gosport, he was sending
people to fi nd me and I was sending
people to fi nd him. It was a couple▼ Young people recording a track
at Music Fusion in Hampshire
PHOTOGRAPH: JORDAN PETTITT/SOLENT NEWS
& PHOTO AGENCYA seaside music project
channels troubled
youngsters’ energy into
‘conscientious rapping’Clare in the community Harry Venning
of days away from us stabbing one
another ... It was over nothing, over
a postcode.”
The scheme brought them
together. “At the time I was a hungry
artist and I just wanted to be in
the studio ... So I agreed to shake
hands with my mortal enemy,” says
Stevens. “The studio session was
set up, in he walked and we stared
at each other for a couple of minutes,
then we shook hands and we
cracked on with the fi rst Words Not
Weapons album. We’re still friends .”
Th e scheme ended in May , but
Music Fusion hopes to get funding to
run it again. Almost half the charity’s
funding is lottery money and the rest
comes from public donations and
a grant from the Home Offi ce and
Hampshire county council. But cuts
mean it is no longer open access.
The charity engages around
1,400 young people a year, including
teenagers who have been aff ected
by bullying, depression and self-
harm, or who are unable to attend
mainstream school. It has changed
lives: Courtney, 13, who was excluded
from two schools and put in a PRU,
credits rapping at Music Fusion with
getting back into a mainstream
school after six months.
In an independent assessment ,
more than two-thirds of Music
Fusion participants said the charity
“believed in me when many others
didn’t”. And the vast majority said
it had given them advice that had
stopped them going to prison.
Kane, 13, a former young off ender
who is still reeling from his girlfriend’s
fatal stabb ing a year ago, says of the
opportunity to rap and perform:
“It raises me up a little bit, makes
me feel good about myself.”RELEASED BY "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws