Hi

Thanks for calling by, so far so good! Managed to get this far on my own website, wonders of wonders, never get much time to work on it so it is a marvel I got this far. It has only taken me 2 years!!!!

Well I am Steve on Wheels AKA Steve D Blake. I was born in the mid 1950's and have seen life at its worst and best!

Why Steve on Wheels!

Well in 2000 I was involved in an accident which left me with severe injuries and having to use a wheelchair to get around. I suffer extreme pain and have pain patches which help with that. I spend a great deal of time in bed because that is the one place I can be and am able to change position easily to help relieve the pain.

From there on!

At the time of the accident I was running my own business having just been given the all clear from cancer. I lost my business, and my home, because of that day, and yes I was bitter about it. So were some of the few friends that remained friends. Others deciding I was no longer worth being friends with (or worth giving time to because I could not advance them in some way, a cynic might say).

One day I got fed up with hearing one friend denouncing the driver of the other car and I realised that was how I was, and it was not nice. I said that day ‘Can’t blame the lady for what happened, she did not know what she was doing, she was drunk at the time.’

That one sentence was a signal of a change from self-pity, which is not a nice thing, to a person with a determination not to let what happened stop me from being the person I wanted to be; a person who could help others even from his bed.

Since then I have studied with the Open University, and helped lead the Students Association. Have been a trustee of several organisations that work for and with disabled people and led by disabled people. Now I am helping to run a Community Interest Company called Disability Works, to help others who need to work from home to be able to do so and have the support of others to help them.

I am still on benefits with permission to be able to work as a volunteer with Disability Works, of which I am one of the founders. As part of my voluntary work with Disability Works I have devised and teach basic computer courses. This course has classes of between 14 and 18 depending on the location we teach them in. I have some helpers who are there on the day to help set the venue up. My Friend Bryan Darnell being the key one and Terry Dowed having just joined us helping out with one class. Gewndoline a former student also wants to help out and we are looking forward to working with her in the near future.

My Past - well sort of anyway – with my own musing on life in general.

I have married twice, my first wife, Elizabeth, left after about a year just after the birth of our Daughter, Ruth.

I have never seen my Ruth since, to some measure my doing; I did not want her to suffer as I had seen others suffer by having the pull of two parents and families with differing views of how things are. My family view of Elizabeth was not very complementary and Elizabeth’s family view of me was likewise. The child would have been pulled in all directions and that would have been bad for Ruth. Some say I was wrong, others say I was right. At the time it seemed a good decision to make and although it has meant I have never known Ruth, which saddens me greatly, I still think it was the right thing to do.

Sue and I have been together almost 30 years now, and had our ups and downs but we still battle on and despite all that life has thrown at us we have kept going.

I have served in the British Army, worked for multi-national, national, and small business. There are good and bad in all these organisations and the one common factor I have found is that good or bad starts with the people at the top. If they are bad then the only real difference is the number of people’s lives they can blight. If they are crooks, the difference is the size or value they get away with (they all get caught out in the end though). If they are good then the only difference is the number of lives they can improve for the better.

I have run my own business, and have always hoped I have been able to help people along the way. When people work for you they are either good workers or bad workers (despite some people saying they are average I have never found such a thing as an average worker). Some might ask the difference between the two and I think the key differences is not how much they get done in a day (we can all have off days) but more that they want to be there and do what they are doing, and they feel that making the business successful will be good for them and not just an owner or shareholder.

I have met nice people and horrible people, and people who just think of themselves and only themselves and people who never think of themselves. I have seen and spoken with people from all walks of life from royalty to beggars, rich and poor and there are nice and horrible people in all these groups.

There are people with money and wealth who use it well. There are others who are only interested in gaining more for themselves, and do not care how many others they have to put down, or use, to do it. There are people who have nothing or almost nothing who would give you the last crumb from their plate to help you, and others who would kill you for the same crumb.

That, as they say, is life!