2025 has been a big year for our family. My wife, twin daughters and I all had ‘big’ birthdays and our eldest got married this year too, which has taken a significant amount of planning and preparation.
We all (me, my wife, 3 daughters and various animals) moved to the area in 2017 (having lived in Surrey since 1988) when my work took me from London to Bristol. We wanted to live somewhere with good access to the countryside so round here is perfect for us.
One of our twins has a learning disability and we had very good provision for my daughter’s care in Surrey, so we were trying to get similar support for her here. We started Lara at Go Explore which is for 18–25-year-olds, and she loved it. Now she has moved up to Club 25 which she also loves.
It gives her a chance to be with people of her own age rather than be with her boring parents. She likes the energy of young people. The volunteers are mostly young people too, which is important. They are all so committed and enthusiastic, and just a fun group of people. She enjoys all the activities they do too, especially the trips out like going doughnutting – when you sit on one of those big doughnuts and go down a ski slope. She’s quite a speed demon, my daughter. She loves dancing and singing too.
She absolutely loves the Mencap holidays – you can see the fun she’s having in the various photos of the activities that they do. They visited Bournemouth last year, and she did a zip wire off the pier. She loves the thrill of fast rides. It took her a while to summon up the courage to go, but as soon as she had finished, she wanted to go and do it again – she likes the adrenaline high from being scared.
We used to live around the corner from Thorpe Park. You can get a time stamped ticket that means you don’t have to wait in a queue, which she isn’t good at doing, but wait outside the ride for your turn, which is an excellent idea. There is one ride called the Nemesis Inferno, which is really fast and twisty. She loved it and did it 8 times in one visit – not something we repeated on future visits!
When we first got married, we lived in a flat, then moved to a wreck of a house in a nice part of Woking. Not much had been changed since the 1920’s when the previous owners bought it, so we had to take it back to a total shell. It had a roof and walls, but not much more. We did it all, which meant that we made it as we wanted.
Our house near Keynsham wasn’t so much of a project luckily as there are only so many years you can live in a building site! We are really lucky as we have no near neighbours and have a fantastic view towards Wales. Of course, when the children were young it’s nice having neighbours for play dates and sharing childcare, but now I like the space and peace.
After nearly 30 years with Lloyds Bank, in December 2019, I was given the option of early retirement and I jumped at the opportunity. I figured that I would take a few months off and then get another job but of course, the world closed down for lockdowns and I got used to being at home with the family.
I decided to take my pension and properly retire. Being at home rather than going to work has driven home to me how hard it is looking after an adult disabled child. It’s really opened my eyes to how much credit I owe my wife Catriona for doing that role all those years whilst I was working. I had a role that required working quite long hours, so wasn’t there as much as I should have been. She did the majority of the parenting for all of our girls as they were growing up and, although I worked hard, I realise that she had the harder role.
Since retiring I’ve taken up golf and play at Lansdown. I do a bit or woodworking too and have been on a bread making course, baking bread 3 or 4 times a week for us. During lockdown, I built a workshop from scratch – I’m pleasantly surprised that it hasn’t burnt down, since I did the electrical wiring as well!
I am aware of how much Lara gets out of Club 25. When I saw the ad for new trustees I thought my business experience may be of use so made contact and here we are, as I was accepted as a trustee about a couple of months ago. I have so much to learn about Mencap, and find out new things all the time. It is humbling to see how much the people involved in the organisation care.
Lara wouldn’t like me to be active at her clubs, as that’s her place outside of home. I hope that the skillset I can bring to the trustee team is in adding value to implementing the exciting plans they have.