Wheelies at the Proms

'Carbonblack' wheelchair. Photo from carbonblack.

No, not really. For one thing I'm banned by my friends from doing wheelies in my wheelchair. That was after some great black youngsters stopped my loaner from running rampant and mowing down a bunch of Japanese tourists at the bottom of the Turbine Hall ramp at Tate Modern.

I was new to using wheels then, and younger, and I hadn't yet realised the importance of wearing gloves: I burnt the palm of my hands trying to stop it as it dawned on me too late that the ramp was steeper than it looked and I was going a bit fast . . .

They asked 'Can you do wheelies in that thing?" 'Course," I said. And demonstrated, Then spotted twenty Japanese tourists scattering in fright out of the corner of my eye. That was Lesson Two in wheelchair management. If you're going to do wheelies on a ramp, don't.

At the Albert Hall in the Proms Season, I don't do wheelies. I do a nifty pirouette or two every now and then waiting for the lift though to ease the boredom of waiting for it to empty of the people whose only disability is either laziness or an appetite for junk food.

Well, it makes me happy, though my friends tend to get embarrassed. But as I point out, often, I can''t see why being disabled means you can't play every now and then.

Waiting for the lift is in fact about the only disadvantage for a wheelchair user at the Proms. The last few seasons, as I've come to use my wheelchair more and more often, I've found the stewards unfailingly helpful. They even buy my gallery tickets for me when they spot me in the gallery queue.

It has to be the gallery, though, if I haven't got other tickets. Unlike the Colosseum (in Rome, I mean, not the London one) which offered even the lions a free lift up to the Arena, as far as I know the Albert Hall doesn't. Not even if the Lions are music critics. And while I'm thinking of that, did any of them dare take up the offer of 'free seats for critics' at Covent Garden's Mahagonny?

This is by way of being a little 'thankyou note'. It is so nice to be treated with a smile and a real offer of help without feeling patronised or only part human, Which, despite the success of the London Paralympics, which really did change the way many people looked at people with a disability, does still happen. It means I really look forward to the Proms.

Apart from people who don't really need to using the lifts, of course. I'm not that bothered having to wait at the end of a Prom, though it does tend to annoy my friends who in turn have to wait for me, but the intervals are different.

I need my interval cigarette. Some concerts I may need more than one, and a stiff drink to go with it to dare go back for the second half. Or at the very least I might need to eat my sandwiches if I haven't been able to eat before I leave home. With the lifts full of the 'non-disabled' (I like that phrase: turns the tables neatly, I think) managing either or both in time can really get tricky.

So, if this season you are one of the non-disabled, please think before you dash for the lift. You may be leaving a prommer sandwich-and-nicotine starved.

[The wheelchair in the picture above, by the way, isn't mine. I just wish it was, but unless I win the lottery I'll just have to lust after it. I've heard of 'Kickstarter'. Wonder if there's such a thing as 'Prommercarbonfibrwheelchairstarter'?]