Tuesday, February 08, 2005
The baroness who almost never was
"When I was born, the medical people said I would be blind, I would be deaf, I would be unable to communicate and I would have no noticeable mental function. Forget it. My life was worth nothing," she said. She cast a look around her red-carpeted office, at the leather chairs emblazoned with the House of Lords portcullis, the piles of embossed stationery and her personal assistant organising her schedule, and added: "That is a little bit different from what I have managed to achieve and where I am today."
Nicky Chapman became the first person with a congenital disability to be appointed to the House of Lords under the People's Peers initiative when she took up her seat in October last year. Her maiden speech was unforgettable, causing a storm in the Upper House as she condemned the Government's Mental Capacity Bill because "if this Bill had been passed 43 years ago, I would not be here".
Nicky Chapman became the first person with a congenital disability to be appointed to the House of Lords under the People's Peers initiative when she took up her seat in October last year. Her maiden speech was unforgettable, causing a storm in the Upper House as she condemned the Government's Mental Capacity Bill because "if this Bill had been passed 43 years ago, I would not be here".
