Positive news story about the perception of beauty...

Sometimes I have little blog posts about accepting, embracing and being proud of who you are. Just caught the news and there was a great story on Granada Reports about a girl who received horrific burns when she was young and is now 21 and pursuing a career in modelling. The photos that are taking really capture true beauty.
It's important to not see pieces of you that are different as faults, but as a part of you that makes you who you are.
Enjoy. :)

A video of the story

Final 3 days of work experience: Wednesday!

I've been a naughty blogger...as I've been doing stuff and not had the time to sit, think and write.

The latter 3 days of my work experience were very different to the first two. I'd been thrown in straight in at the deep end with Matt, but on Wednesday he was due to go up and work on a documentary so I'd lost my shadowee...you can't really be a shadow without something to shadow, can you?

Wednesday

Matt introduced me to Elaine, saying we'd be a match made in heaven! Like all the other reporters she was great and listened to where I've been, what I'm doing and where I'm at for the moment. My week was during the "floods" so she was placed onto a story somewhere up near Fleetwood about Residents refusing to pay council tax. I'd have been more than happy to go up, but the producers decided I should stay back and work on my own story to do with disabled access with Mel, when she came in...

so Elaine rolled away and I waited.
...and waited.
Then after around half an hour it was realised that it was Mel's day off.
So I felt a bit lost.

Rob, the producer had grown into quite a good little mentor and he showed me how to find stories, scouring through local and national newspapers. A story might be really interesting, but is it the type of story that would be good visually?
Anna then spoke to me after dinner (or lunch as people seem to call it nowadays) and asked me to do some planning towards the story about disabled access.
Hungry for soemthing interesting to do, i logged onto ye olde Facebook and made a status...

No one noticed the slight spelling mistake at first...

Mini access rant/point
I got  a good response and some good discussions about different places from different people. Jan was particularly helpful in telling me about Farmageddon near Ormskirk that despite boasting national awards in tourism, it still remains inaccessible to wheelchair users like myself. When asked whether it could be adapted for chair users the excuse, as always is "health and safety"...pathetic. Just saying. Anyway, we didn't go ahead with this, but thought I'd mention it. Yes, the most important and news worthy places are those of essential use such as train stations, public buildings and shops. But in all honesty, as a younger teenager...places like Farmageddon and other "fun" attractions being inaccessible had a major impact upon my social life. Birthday parties are held in places like that, and a lot of the time people don't bother asking...so people don't get invited. It's only been as I've got older and "led" friendship groups, have I gained the courage to ask and organise and go places. It's frustrating to not be able to take advantage and have fun in local places where "normal" people go to have fun...but I cam ski, kayak, climb mountains and be "so inspirational" but not get scared in Ormskirk!

Anyway...back to main experience blogging!
I decided to correct my minor spelling mistake of the word "public" and within 3 seconds i received a phone call off what sounded like some kind of air compresser. It was Ste Unsworth.
In between laughs, and struggling to breath he managed the word "pubic."
But after his moment. (He has a lot of them) he told me about his nightmare of train/bus journey he used to have to take to get to get to College last year simply because Hindley train station is inaccessible.
In order to get to Bolton from Hindley, most people get the train:
HIndley -> Bolton.
In order to get from Hindley to Bolton University, Set had to...
Get the bus from Hindley to Wigan.
Then the train from Wigan to Bolton, doubling back on himself!
This allowed us to a bit more research into public transport with Ed mentioning that London Tonight had done a report on public transport and it'd be quite cool do a report that's similar...so things started to move with that...and things still are.
(I'll update you all on that in a later blog, we've done some filming, but still have more to come!)

So despite the early frustration, Wednesday was a productive and interesting day. I saw how stories are formed from ideas and a bit of inspiration, as well as looking for ones that are already there!

When Elaine returned, she also told me that she'd been greeted by not so much water and a bit of improvising with sandbags had to take place.

Sandbags, as Fred assured the gallery during the lunchtime bulletin, really do prevent flooding!
Really?
Yes!

Thursday's blog will follow as soon as I can tear myself away from rolling around everywhere...

Work experience: Day 2

You know how I said it rained on Monday?

It rained again on Tuesday.

...And I mean rain.

Torrential downpours, sideways, non-stop.

Waterproofed up and ready for the elements I set out a good deal earlier. I was just about on time and turning into Granada, when I got a text from Matt telling me he was already on the road to the Vigil for the murdered police women. This was due to begin at 10am and down at the Hattersley Estate. 

Tim the Tom-Tom (bless 'I'm!) got re-told where to go and we were off. It was a pretty straight forward journey that led me to going round a round-a-bout twice (what's new?) that then found me rolling past the street where the crime took place and into an abandoned pub car-park.

Police were everywhere. Vans, cars, walking officers...I had a scene from Billy Elliot in my head, only there was no picket line to be crossed and I was a little lost.

Rang up Matt, who was in the middle of scoffing a McDonald's breakfast, when I decided I best use the restaurants amenities and grab a toilet stop and drink as didn't want to run off, knocking on bungalow doors in the middle of a moment's silence!

I only wanted a Tropicana!

The world's press and policemen seemed to have gravitated towards that very McDonald's just as I was in the loo and I found myself stuck in a queue...when I'd finally got back in my car I also went round another round-a-bout, saw the procession, panicked and left at the wrong exit! Luckily I was saved by my Sat Nav but couldn't find anywhere to park in the torrential rain. There were just so many cars and I had kerbs and slippy wheels from never ending rain to think about...
Finally found a space what felt like miles away from it all, but at least I could get out.
It was all pretty much a race against time now. Rain still slamming it down. The procession making it's way closer. Matt pushed me to the sport where they'd set up and we were literally ready just in the nick of time...

The rain eased a little.
I had another one of those "seeing things from the other side" moments. The cameras must irritate people, especially at times like this. But the cameras are needed. If they weren't used, no one would know anything.
We hurried behind the procession and headed over to where the small stage was set up, There was an extremely steep hill that I'd be reluctant to tackle even in dry weather. A man attempted to help me down, but I slipped as my bag had fell in front of my wheels. He was trying way too hard to keep me in my chair and didn't hear me say "My bag, I'm slipping because of my bag that's tripping me up!" I managed to survive that moment of embarrassment and near tarmac mountaineering accident, to look to find that my lot had disappeared!

My confused face and position grabbed quite a bit of attention. Before I could get my bearings, two policemen were carrying me up some concrete steps and placing me in front of the police line, ready for the service.
The heavens opened, yet again!
I sat waiting for what felt like hours for something to begin. 
The picture of Fiona Bone fell over, the stage looked like it was about to give way and collapse any second...then as I turned to look at the line of police officers, I saw one of them faint.
The atmosphere, with a little help from the weather, was grim.
Elsie, a local resident said  a lovely piece to the crowd while the police officer said a few things that made me cringe and remember a fe whinges I'd learnt the day before, "contempt of court."
All the while, I was becoming increasingly conscious of the looming camera lens straight across from me that was panning the crowd. This then made me even more conscious of my bright blue rain coat and green wheelchair that most certainly contrasts with the smart black uniform of the police...
I was right to be conscious.

I was apparently on sky news and ITN...great! Of all the times and places to end up on national TV, this most certainly wasn't one that I was hoping for.

When people finally started moving, and I was quite contently acclimatised to the south pole, I managed to scramble through the crowd and follow Matt getting camera shots of the crowd and their reactions. Again, it can look and must feel intrusive, but it's the news.
I got mistaken for a member of the local community yet again, but by Key103 this time.

As the crowds began to thin and we'd had a few interviews, my lightness of body weight yet again played to my advantage and i managed to dry off and keep a little warm while Matt hair dried his shoes in the van.
It was pretty cool to see how pictures get fed through to the newsroom and to other channels and vise versa.

I paddled to my car and headed back to the newsroom.
We grabbed some food and i saw how lunch bulletin package was put together and then had to head back to the Hattersly estate for Matt to do his "as live" piece to camera. In hindsight, it does seem crazy, the amount of running around to different locations that is done in order to create the 6pm news package. But at the same time you can see how it is needed to be presentable and pull the story together.
I parked down a hill in a slightly awkward place. Simply because the police had pretty much taken up the whole main road. My amazing skills of holding the brolly over the camera were...almost needed!

After that ten minute job for a ten second moment of TV and re-fill of petrol, it was back to Granada to put together the tea-time package!
It was around 4pm by now so traffic in the city centre was getting to the stage where it was sending my dysreflexic...

We were back in the newsroom by 5, the package was put together by 6 and I watched Granada Reports in the newsroom. Had a giggle at some of the tweets that get sent in...some of them really do make me question humanity!

Another full, soggy and sweetly productive day of work experience!