Splash*

SPLASH was a group run for rehabilitation of accident injured folks, or permanently disabled folk to help them with exercises and getting back use of damaged muscles and so on. As well as this, it was a social group.  I became involved in the group, for a short time, after I met the woman I was to later marry.

SPLASH's purpose was to assist folks with coping  either following strokes or other accidents and so on. Their main function was to help folks with hydrotherapy in a local Rehabilitation Institution..  Participants included former patients of the rehabilitation facility as well as folks from outside with various physical limitatations and permanent disability.

Some were hemiplegic* being paralysed on one side of their bodies. Others were more severely handicapped either through Cerebral Palsy or some other disease or birth deformity.

The group would be divided and meet in either of two separate sessions, once a week.

They would do exercises in the Hydrotherapy pool.  This occurred under the supervision of a qualified physiotherapist, and with the assistance of able bodied volunteers.  The volunteers were also on hand to assist with undressing and dressing after the swimming sessions.

I did some volunteering, on occasion to assist some of the men in dressing and so on. One of these was also blind. M. was in his 20's and enjoyed the sessions with the swimming group. He was also hemiplegic.

It was good for me to meet these friends of the girl I would marry later on. I came to learn some of the funny ways of parents of the handicapped members of the group. Geoff's father, John, was quite hard on Geoff with his hemiplegic condition resulting from a car accident. John always seemed to be putting more pressure on Geoff to achieve  more and more in his training.

I know Louise (the one I was to marry much later) was always under a lot of pressure, even before I came along, to achieve more and more. At home they had a small exercise bike that was modified for Louise to ride on. Her father would assist her on and off the bike.  I think as she got older she hated it more and more. Louise has Cerebral Palsy.

I often wondered if the parents' aim in driving their children to achieve more and more was for the sufferer's benefit or for their own satisfaction in ultimately (perhaps??) overriding the person's, realistically, permanent disability. Maybe they thought they could get them over it completely?

On the other side of all this, SPLASH was a social group. A night out and even at times some fun, a dinner and the annual General Meeting and concert night.

Once a year they had the Christmas Party, where particularly now late Joyce Jacobs would be in her element. Joyce liked to dress up in her old Scout uniform. Or there was  also recently passed on Kath Evans, almost as much of a character as Joyce Jacobs.  These two with a gentleman Andy Murray(not his real name). were the three top characters. All volunteers, and helpers - loved dearly by all the swimmers. They were often heard to be (jokingly) asserting themselves to be "in charge" on a particular night.

One year we had a Fancy Dress Christmas party, held in some one's back yard.  Louise had the idea of us dressing up as Laurel and Hardy.

Sadly, we moved on especially after we were married, and we later learned that the SPLASH Group had ceased to exist. We will always have some fond memories of years gone by, things achieved, and fun had in our time with SPLASH.