When I was born I had Spina Bifida, I spent the first 4 years of my life in and out of hospital while I was being medically normalised, by various surgical procedures.

I was raised mainly by my Irish Grandparents (my mothers side of the family), I had a normal education as my farther didn't believe in special schools, or accept my disability. Nowadays if a child received half the things that happened to me by my parents, Church and family, it would be classed as physical/mental abuse.

When I left school I trained as a Toolmaker, my nickname was hop along due to the funny gate I had when walking. (this was given to me by my mother). I worked as a toolmaker steadily climbing the ladder till I became the Boss. In the mean time my testicles dropped, and I discovered motorcycles and women in that order.

Well I enjoyed motorcycles, and women. My farther was so ashamed of me his crippled son that he could not even attend my wedding. Yeah you guessed it my father's side of the family were German, had I been born 1 year earlier in the Fatherland, my dad could have taken me into the woodshed when I was born and beat my brains out. With no questions asked.

Well one day in late August 1976 I had a blazing argument with my farther, over the way my wife and family were being treated by him. This is when I made the bad mistake, I stormed out of my father's cottage jumped on my gridiron and roared off. At that time I was what you would call a throttle jockey, so I was not hanging around when I banked into a bend at over 100 mph, the first I knew that some thing was wrong was the back end twitched, I was on a fresh oil slick in the road, the next I'm flying through the air looking for a soft place to land, I did not find one, just a metal post to wrap my spine round.

Well the medical people were non to chuffed, a Spina biff on a motorbike what's more he had multiple fractures to the pelvic, spine and sacrum, never mind the arms and legs. Well from 1976 to 1991 I went through one medical cock-up after another, with my pain ratio going higher each time. By 1988 they had me in all sorts of contraptions trying to keep me walking and on my feet, while my spine kept disintegrating more and more.

Then one day I was in so much pain I crawled to the rail line to bite the bullet. I lay on the line for hours before a passing work man told me I had picked the only unused line coming out of the terminal. My GP then realised that I needed expert help, so I was sent to see a surgeon at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital in Oxford.

Well what can one say, they had the technology to rebuild me, from my sacrum to my thorax as near as dam it, well 12 hours on the operating table, I had metal rods, bailing wire and artificial bone where my spinal column use to be, they even severed the nerves for me to cut down the amount of pain/spasms I was getting.

Now I am as happy as a pig in shit, half the pain more mobile because of it, less tablets, still problems at night with sleeping though, you cannot turnover in your sleep with the rods, you not flexible like before, but you only do it once, you wake up screaming in pain if you twist the rods. So I now sleep a while wake turn, then sleep again. Oh and the other thing yes John Thomas works just fine, it the one thing I ask the surgeon to make sure if all else fails that old JT works. Plus you have to learn how to have sex again with rods in your back, you just cannot swing on the light fittings, or dive off the wardrobe any more, also having it in a car is also out as you just cannot get into the right position. I still don't have the knack of doing it in a wheelchair though, it keeps flipping over backwards, oh well such is life.