Dusty Wentworth

  Clacton Deserves an Election, Not a Political Boycott Nigel Farage resigning as MP for Clacton and forcing a by-election looks, to many, like political theatre. It is difficult to see it any other way. He is under serious scrutiny over a reported £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne, with questions raised about whether it should have been declared and what the money was for. Farage denies wrongdoing and insists there is no case to answer. That matters. Allegations are not convictions, and scrutiny is not guilt. But the timing is politically obvious. A damaging story is circling, pressure is building, and suddenly the people of Clacton are being asked to act as a jury in a by-election Farage himself has engineered. So yes, criticism of Farage is fair. Calling it a stunt is fair. Calling it a hissy fit, as Kemi Badenoch reportedly has, may be politically blunt, but it is not difficult to understand the sentiment. But that is not the real issue. The real issue is this:...

  Why Disability Pride Month Isn't for Me July marks Disability Pride Month. For many disabled people, it is a time to celebrate identity, community and acceptance. I genuinely respect that. Everyone has the right to decide what disability means to them. Personally, however, it is not something I identify with. If I could wake up tomorrow free from Functional Neurological Disorder, Fibromyalgia, PTSD, the lasting effects of a ruptured brain aneurysm, and the limitations that made me a full-time wheelchair user, I would do so without hesitation. I do not feel pride in becoming disabled. I feel pride in adapting to it. There is an important difference. My disability has changed how I live my life, but it has never changed who I am. I am a husband, a father, a writer, a veteran and a friend. I happen to be disabled. It is part of my life, not the definition of my identity. That is why Disability Pride Month has never resonated with me. None of this is a criticism of those who find mea...

  The Silence of Assumption We are taught that a man's strength is measured by the space he commands and the weight he can lift. But what happens when the body stops cooperating? There is a particular kind of silence that follows disability. It is not the silence of sympathy, but the silence of assumption: the immediate belief that because a man can no longer run, fight, climb, or carry, he has somehow become less of a man. This idea is deeply rooted in our culture. Historically, strength has been measured in purely physical terms: broad shoulders, hard manual labour, endurance, and fierce self-reliance. From childhood, many boys are taught that their worth is directly tethered to what their bodies can achieve. Then one day, for some of us, the body changes. Whether through a spinal injury, a neurological condition, chronic illness, an accident, a stroke, or an aneurysm, the measures we once used suddenly no longer apply. The world notices. People speak more slowly. They offer pity...

  11th June 2026 is a date I suspect I will remember for a very long time. It was the day my new Scoozy S800 arrived. Now, that might not sound particularly remarkable to most people. After all, it is only a mobility scooter. But for me, it represented something much bigger than a piece of equipment. It represented freedom, independence, possibility and, perhaps most importantly, adventure. The strange thing is, I never wanted a mobility scooter. Becoming Disabled Disability has a way of changing your relationship with the world. Before my brain aneurysm, acquired brain injury, Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), Fibromyalgia and the collection of other health conditions I now live with, I never gave a second thought to walking across a field, exploring a nature reserve or heading off somewhere on a whim. Those simple freedoms vanished gradually. I became a full-time wheelchair user in October 2023. Like many people, I initially viewed wheelchairs and mobility scooters very d...

  Why Disabled People Are Either Pitied or Pedestalised If you spend enough time as a disabled person, you begin to notice a pattern. People rarely see you as simply another human being. Instead, they tend to place you into one of two categories. You are either a tragedy to be pitied or an inspiration to be admired. There seems to be very little room in between. I have experienced both. I've seen people look at me with genuine sadness, as though my life ended the day I became disabled. I've also had complete strangers tell me how "inspirational" I am for doing things that most people wouldn't think twice about. Going to the shops. Taking photographs. Going for a ride on my mobility scooter. Getting out of the house. Apparently, existing while disabled is enough to qualify for hero status. The reality is rather different. I am not a tragedy. I am not a hero. I am simply a man living his life. Yet society often struggles with that idea. The Comfort of Simple Stories...

“They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Personally, I think whoever coined that phrase never had to navigate a shag-pile carpet in a wheelchair while trying to remember whether they actually liked olives, or if that was just a pre-aneurysm personality trait.” If my life were a car, it would be a vintage Land Rover dropped from a Hercules transport plane and then declared “probably stress” by the mechanic. Welcome to my world: a whirlwind of military-grade PTSD, Fibromyalgia, Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), and the aftermath of a ruptured brain aneurysm that decided to delete fourteen years of my life like a bored teenager clearing browser history. The Great Identity Heist Living with a Aquired Brain Injury (ABI) is like waking up halfway through a film. You are the lead actor, but you have forgotten all your lines and the script is written in Cantonese. Fourteen years are gone. Vanished. Weddings, birthdays, friendships, arguments, entire chapters of life that every...

  April 3rd does not arrive quietly. It sits there in the calendar like a marker you cannot ignore. Not a date you move past, but one you circle back to whether you want to or not. Two years ago, on April 3rd 2024, my brain aneurysm ruptured. At the time, I was already an inpatient in a neurological rehabilitation centre, trying to get a handle on Functional Neurological Disorder. I was already in the system. Already under observation. Already someone needing help. And still, everything changed in a moment. That matters. Because there is a quiet assumption people make about medical events. That if you are in the right place, under the right care, things will be contained, managed, resolved. That assumption does not survive contact with reality. What followed has not been a clean narrative of recovery. It has been two years of disruption, loss, adaptation, and, at times, a kind of forced recalibration of who I am. This is not a story about overcoming. It is a record of what re...

  Redefining the Man in the Mirror I spent most of my adult life in environments most people would cross the street to avoid. The Army first, then private military contracting, then close protection. War zones. High risk operations. Situations where the wrong decision carried permanent consequences. I was fit, strong and trained to operate under pressure. My confidence was not bravado. It was earned, tested repeatedly in places that stripped away pretence very quickly. What I discovered after being medically discharged with PTSD was that civilian life was harder for me than any operational theatre. The ordinary rhythms of day to day existence unsettled me in ways combat never had. High risk environments made sense. Instinct had value there. The version of myself I understood was still useful. Then my body began to fail. Fibromyalgia came first. Doctors linked it to PTSD. I carried on as trained, pushing through, minimising symptoms, treating pain as background noise. Until Oc...