So clear in my mind / Alan Counsell.

"Alan Counsell was born in 1937 with brain damage. Unable to walk until he was eight or speak until his teens, his childhood contained a mixture of kindness, ridicule and dramas ranging from his own temper tantrums which were his only way of gaining attention, to struggles against education authorities who wanted him classified as 'mental' or to amputate his limbs. But although a spastic with cerebral palsy which affected the motor mechanism of his brain, there was never anything wrong with Alan Counsell's intellect. So Clear in My Mind is his own story of a long fight to prove this. After the almost Kafkaesque childhood in the Blackburn bakehouse, when despite a keen intelligence he was unable to make himself understood and was thus never expected to lead a normal life, he slowly and virtually by act of will, forced himself to walk, read, write and speak. Leaving school he worked as a mill boy, but the stress here led him, aged 19 to become alcoholic. Conquering this he was forced to leave the mill when the introduction of man-made fibres brought on asthma. Eventually he landed work as a courier; then came various jobs for the health service and the slow climb up the education ladder culminating in an advanced diploma in Special Education. Fighting continuously for acceptance and to be treated as an ordinary man, Alan Counsell had to overcome difficulties posed by acquiring the crucial skills of mobility and speech (and thus thought) at a late stage, as well as coping with intense shyness and prejudice. His is a life of extraordinary determination and courage, an amazing and inspirational success story."--From publisher.