Book review – Never Say Die by Melanie Davies and Lynne Barrett-Lee

“NHS wheelchairs were not designed with self-esteem in mind.  The armrests were so high that my arms, draped over them, looked like those of a gorilla, and the position of the footplates was even more bizarre: my long legs were hitched up unnaturally high, my knees pressed together almost at chest height, while my feet – miles apart – looked like they had had a bust up and broken off diplomatic relations.  I looked like a rag doll who’d been dumped in a corner.  This would not do.  I tried a different tack. But pushing my knees outwards meant they flopped out so far as if I was about to give birth.  I realised I had only two choices on how I faced the world: I could either look like a Pippi Long-stocking or a porn star.”

This is a very good summary of the book for me.  I was moved many times while reading the book, and then caught off-guard by many moments of Mel’s incorrigible humour.  One thing shines out most in the book though apart from the humour: hope.

Mel was a headstrong 15-year-old girl (is there any other kind?) who in spite of her parents concerns went out with her 19-year-old boyfriend Aldo on his motorbike on a trip to Porthcawl on the South Wales coast.  Mel’s life changed forever when in a moment of testosterone fueled madness at being overtaken by a smaller bike, lost control of the bike resulting in a horrendous accident.

Never Say Die is a well-written book, one that I wasn’t able to put down at all.  There were many moments of laughter and moments of sadness, but never pity.  Mel has a sense of self worth and pride that comes out on the pages of the book.  Being someone that knows Mel through our work for her second child (the first being her dogs), Treat Trust, I can say that the person in the book is the person in the flesh.

You’d recognise Mel if she approached you.  Not just through her humour, not just through her passion for life, but with the flashing lights on the front wheels of her wheelchair.  Never Say Die is a real rollercoaster through Mel’s life, starting through the fateful day in 1980 and continuing through her rehabilitation in units that have inspired her to find something better for people in her position.  It follows her life through many difficult times, including an accident when she was driving that left her with both her legs being broken, and facing breast cancer and all the challenges and choices that that has put her through (she is now fighting cancer for the second time and in Mel’s typical attitude she is currently being fried – having radiotherapy).

I learned a great many things about people with disabilities through reading the book.  Every day things that most people take for granted can be huge challenges for people that are paraplegic or quadriplegic.

Mel is one of the most inspirational people I have ever met.  The book represents this very well.  In the book you can see what the driving force behind Treat Trust is: it’s not about making life bearable for disabled people.  That is not enough.  It is about enabling people to have a full life and to stop the barriers that we put up between disabled people and ourselves because we feel a sense of pity and shame that we are ‘fit’ and they are supposedly not.

What is loud and clear in the book, is that there is no place for pity: there is no time for regrets in life.  Mel feels grateful to have met the people that are important in her life and without the accident, she would never have met Mike, her husband who was surgeon who operated on her as a 15 year old scared of what life was to throw at her.

I certainly don’t pity Mel (I wouldn’t dare!) There is a person there that I couldn’t hold a candle to.  In the book she shows a huge amount of gratefulness to her adoptive parents who never once admonished her for going against their misgivings about her boyfriend and her being on a motorbike.  No “I told you so’s” just love without question.  This is Mel’s inspiration for carers being helped as part of the Treat Trust aims.

Do buy the book – not just because it is a great read that will have you moved and crying with laughter many times. It also helps raise money for Treat Trust as Mel is giving her share of the royalties to Treat Trust.