It's all relative...

Next Wednesday, Lady Bracknell will be travelling to one of the local tertiary education institutions in order to deliver what she believes is called "a workshop" on disability and employment. To which end she has been dusting off her collection of illustrative magic-lantern slides and updating them to reflect the legislative changes which have taken place since they were last used.

One of the issues which has to be covered first in any such presentation is, of course, the legal definition of being disabled. Many students who have impairments such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or Asperger's syndrome have fallen into the trap so deftly constructed for them by the media of equating disability only with wheelchairs (and possibly guide dogs). They do not consider themselves to be disabled, which means they are unlikely to avail themselves of the protection which the Disability Discrimination Act affords them once they have graduated and found gainful employment. (Naturally, this state of affairs is somewhat akin to a red rag to a bull to Lady Bracknell, with the result that she makes it her business to overcome any such misconceptions.)

If one is explaining the DDA definition of disability to a rapt audience, one will occasionally have cause to stray into those conditions which are specifically and explicitly excluded from that definition.

Lady Bracknell has been given to understand by a lawyer, whose word she has no reason to doubt, that "a tendency to set fires" was specifically excluded from the DDA definition of disability not because it wasn't considered to be a serious impairment, but rather because the legislators felt they really couldn't impose a duty on employers to take on pyromaniacal persons.

One can imagine the scenario:

Employer: "Right! That's it! You have burned down the factory my father spent fifty years building up from scratch, and you're fired!"

Employee: "Have you forgotten I'm disabled? Setting fire to a large building every six months or so is a reasonable adjustment for me. I'll see you at the Employment Tribunal!"


But Lady Bracknell digresses. She remembers an occasion when she and a certain Mr W had been invited to speak at a conference. Those present were divided into small groups after the initial presentations so that they could discuss the issues in more depth. The worthy woman leading the group which Lady Bracknell had the good fortune to be observing read the list of excluded conditions to her small flock. When she reached "seasonal allergies", one young man was appalled.

"But there's nothing more disabling than hay fever!", he cried.


Now, Lady Bracknell was a martyr to hay fever in her youth. She never sat an important examination without being drugged to the eyeballs on anti-histamines. Exam questions swam before her streaming eyes. The pockets of her school uniform overflowed with sodden handkerchieves. Her nasal passages were so congested that sleep was but a distant memory. Indeed, the sneezing was so bad one year that she damaged her throat, and has spoken in a lower register ever since.

Nevertheless, she could still walk, see and hear. She could communicate easily with other persons. She experienced no muscle tremors or spasms, and no physical pain. Her balance, co-ordination and continence were unaffected. Her nervous system remained intact. She retained control over all her major bodily functions. She experienced no dramatic mood swings beyond those associated with broken sleep.

The innocent belief (expressed, of course, by a non-disabled young man who gave every indication of being at the peak of physical fitness) that nothing could be more disabling than hay fever makes Lady Bracknell feel like hitting her head repeatedly against a brick wall.

On the other hand, she is tempted to some degree to use it as an ironic mantra when things are particularly bad.

Perhaps, after an especially difficult day, when he has been tucked up in bed by one of his team of personal assistants, Professor Steven Hawking smiles to himself, and says, "Oh, well. Mustn't grumble. It could be worse. I could have hay fever".