Tony's 'other life'

Since retiring (for the 5th time), I became immersed in the world of the handicapped and the profound way that mis-management of our social resources impacts society in general, and crime in particular. I am using every opportunity I can to draw attention to this issue, so it is very much part of 'my story'. The theme is "The Cost of Intellectual Disability - A Devil's Pact" and there is a ppt, a 12-page paper and a podcast. (With acknowledgements to JP who helped synthesise these thoughts into a more coherent narrative, and whose son, Jo,  helped produce the astonishing and moving podcast. It moved me, and others who have listened to it, to tears.)

The origins of this 'other story' was our third child, our laat, laat lammetjie Ralph, born 18 years after his brother. Being an older mother, my wife Jenny had all the normal tests.  All was fine and Ralph was born fine. A delight to all, but at age two he contracted tick-bite fever from visiting a friend's farm. Although diagnosed and treated, it went into a cerebral oedema which led to irreversible brain damage.  Thirty years of struggle followed but despite all the resources we could muster (including visits to Prof. Mick Leary - a long-ago Probus member - and Prof. Graham in London, one of the world's top paediatric neurologists, we could do nothing but watch him descend and eventually die. In the course of this long struggle, I became very involved in trying to provide care for many others in similar situations, and acutely aware of the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of others, in this country alone, who receive no care at all but a jail sentence - hence "The Devil's Pact". The row of thumbnail pics below shows a glimpse of Ralph's life, from cherubic baby to confident mountaineer. He loved Table Mountain and the Drakensberg, and could climb for many hours, and rock climb and kayak with fearless confidence.