Another door opens/ by Margaret and Jack Wymer

Many changes and new developments affecting the lives of people with handicaps were taking place in Norwich in the late 1960s. When Jack and Marg Wymer moved into their new flat in 1969 they seemed to symbolise locally the culmina tion of a period of changing attitudes and new opportunities. Even so, many caring, involved and knowledgeable people found it difficult to believe that they would be able to achieve the degree of independence they were aiming for and have now accomplished.

Knowing what to regard as "normal" is always difficult, but for most of us the ability to exercise control over as much of our own lives as possible, especially our private life, is an essential ingredient of our normality. To be able to exercise choice is vital for life if we are to develop our own potential, but making choices means taking risks. It means risking failure, Society too often wishes, unrealistically, to impose a risk-free environment on people with physical, mental or social handi caps, restricting their lives and limiting their potential develop ment. People in society have difficulty in coping with their feelings whenever risk taking results in hurt or tragedy. But society would be much healthier, in my view, if we could all accept more openly and readily that risk and the independence essential for human dignity are inter-related.

In writing this book and allowing us to share in their ex periences, Jack and Margaret Wymer give us all the chance to see that risk, choice and independence are essential elements in the growth of their relationship and their life together. Apart from the significance of this to themselves they have taught the able-bodied something about living. Their greatest achievement, however, is in demonstrating that the apparently impossible can be done, thereby making it harder for society to deny the same opportunity for independence to other people with handicaps.