I went to a school for disabled children. Now that I'm older I've found it hard to mainstream myself into normal society. It's a rough world and being with people who are supposedly normal is frightening, especially when there was no education about how to cope once you are on the outside.

It would be a lot easier if I'd had a mainstream education. I would have learnt how to be with all kind of people. How they feel about you and you about them. It was a culture shock when I left school. It was like moving from a non English speaking country to an English speaking country.

It was 1978 when I left school. The attitude then was that they taught the children to give them something to do. The majority of them were either dying or were going to work in a sheltered workshop situation. So, why bother? Very few of us back then were even given the chance of a proper education. About a year after I left, everything started changing and integration became the 'in' thing to do and now it's normal.