But I’ve kept my disability quiet for so long that even writing this feels as if I’m coming out of the closet - until now I’ve always been worried about what people might think.

I was born with bilateral talipes - my mum, a nurse, insisted as a child I use the full medical terminology. To the average person in the street that meant nothing, so I’d have to say clubfeet and then show them the scars. Nowadays I never really notice the difference until I see new-born babies with their unblemished little feet which bear no resemblance to my own.

I’ve learnt to accept the constant aches in my legs and ankles which, I guess, people call “pain management”. Thankfully I live in a hot country because my arthritis - an unfortunate side effect of a series of operations to straighten my feet – isn’t so bad in the Caribbean sun.

The thing about an unseen disability is that it allows you to hear and experience certain things that people would stifle had the disability been more obvious.

For many here in Jamaica, being born disabled is still a mark of shame - not just for the individual but for the entire family.

I grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist home where I was taught to not only thank God for my daily blessings, but also to thank him for being born in the UK. As a teenager I didn’t thank God for that at all, but my parents were certainly deeply thankful.

My dad used to say: “If you were born in Jamaica, you’d have to drag yourself around on a piece of car tyre.” To my teenage brain this sounded like punishment from God and I didn’t understand what he meant until I moved there.

【Come out?】相关文章：

★ 【最新版】2014届高考英语一轮单元复习精品阅读理解提升文章精选一百篇 (47)

★ 【复习方略】2017版高考英语一轮外研版课时提升作业：选修7 Modules 3、4（含解析）

★ 2017届高考英语二轮热点复习专题训练：语法单选题系列12

★ 2017届高考英语一轮语法专题复习课件：13 特殊句式（牛津译林版）

★ （豫皖京闽粤通用）2017届高考英语北师大版一轮自主复习学案：book6 Unit 16《stories》

★ 2017届高考英语大一轮复习课件：选修7 unit4 Sharing（新人教版）

★ 2017届高考英语一轮复习同步训练：7-4《Sharing》

★ 2017届高考英语二轮复习课件：《动词与动词短语》

★ 2017年高一英语课件 Unit2《English around the world》（新人教版必修1）

★ 2014届最新高考英语一轮单元复习 精品阅读理解提升文章精选一百篇（47）