So, I’m going to get personal. Quite personal. I don’t normally make a big thing of this but:
I remember spending so much time as a child struggling with the simple act of pouring a glass of pop from a two liter bottle. It wasn’t because I couldn’t lift it. It was because my brain couldn’t, wouldn’t tell me when I actually had the neck of the bottle above the glass. I remember tears of frustration and the determination to complete what is, for most people, a simple task.
I remember the hours I spent performing the simple task of throwing a ball against a wall, over and over and over until I could actually tell where it was in relation to my hands.
I remember despite that always being chosen last for PE. I couldn’t catch a ball unless it was in that predictable pattern. Much of the time, I still can’t. If you toss me something, chances are I will close my hands somewhere it isn’t and it will fall to the floor.
“Butterfingers.” That’s what they called me on the playground. “Butterfingers.” The teasing. The bullying, because to everyone else it was easy. The knowledge there was something wrong with me. We didn’t have a fancy term for it in 70s and 80s Britain.
But there was something wrong with me. Was and is. Most people don’t notice. I don’t ask for any kind of special treatment and I can pour you a bottle of wine as long as I concentrate on the task. I couldn’t keep bar, because I would never be fast enough, but I manage. I manage because I don’t want people to treat me differently. Because “butterfingers” is often better than “disabled.”
I just got finished watching the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who. And yes, perhaps the best line in it was “Does it suit me?”
But for me, the line that made me want to jump out of my seat and squee was “He has dyspraxia.”
Because I have dyspraxia. And it’s not fun. And there are kids even now growing up with that “butterfingers” epithet. “He can’t ride a bike.” (I can, but it took me a bit longer to learn).
I’m 45 years old, and for the first time, I hear the words on TV about a fictional character “He has dyspraxia.”
As I said, this is something I keep quiet. But I’m looking at the character of Ryan Sinclair and going. You know what?
And Chris Chibnall and Toisin Cole just gave all the kids out there who can’t pour into a glass, who’s brain just won’t make that coordination, who are frustrated to tears by video games…
He just gave us OUR Companion. He gave us our hero.
And yes, I just looked up. Somebody has put a list of Dyspraxic Characters.
Under Potential Dyspraxic Characters there is a list. It’s a short one.
Under Confirmed Dyspraxic Characters it says a very sad “None to report yet.” (which will be fixed, I believe, when the writer of that blog goes through the episode).
I don’t know if Ryan Sinclair is the first explicitly dyspraxic character on TV. But he could be.
And I’m willing to speak out to make sure that Chris Chibnall and Toisin Cole know just how much that means. How much it would have meant to me when struggling to learn to ride a bike to see a character with those issues climbing a crane. Being a hero.
THANK you Doctor Who team. From me and from all the “butterfingers” kids out there.
