Assembly given by Mr Witter - Monday, 16th March 2009
I often glance through the obituaries in the daily paper and I never cease to be amazed at the lives some people have led. In the face of all kinds of adversity, they struggle and strive to achieve the almost impossible.
About 4 or 5 weeks ago a writer called Christopher Nolan died. He was 43. He made a remarkable career as a novelist despite suffering from cerebral palsy as a result of being deprived of oxygen at birth. Unable to walk, talk or use his hands, he was confined to a wheelchair – but his intellect was unimpaired. He wrote by using a special keyboard and to help him type his mother often held his head in her cupped hands while he painstakingly picked out each word, letter by letter, with the aid of a rod attached to a headband which allowed him slowly to tap out words on a typewriter.
The courage and willpower he displayed in these circumstances was astonishing. In 1987, when he was 21, he published an autobiographical novel, Under the Eye of the Clock, which won the Whitbread Award.The book employed the character of Joseph Mehan to present Nolan’s own struggle with disability. When he won the Whitbread, Nolan’s acceptance speech was read by his mother. ‘I want to shout with joy. My heart is full of gratitude,’Nolan said. ‘Imagine if you will, what I would have missed if the doctors had not revived me. Can it be right for man to turn on his handicapped brother and silence him before he ever draw breath?’ He went on: ‘History is now in the making. Tonight crippled man is taking his place on the world’s literary stage.’
Christopher Nolan was born September 1965 at Mullingar in Ireland. When Christy was 6 his mother was told by a doctor that he had the brain of a baby but a subsequent test found that he was of exceptional intelligence. When he was 11 he was given access to a new drug which helped him gain some control over his head and neck, allowing him to use a typewriter with a head stick. For the first time in his life he was able to communicate with words.
In 1980, aged 14, he published his first book A Damburst of Dreams. About 5 years later he started to write Under the Eye of the Clock and once this was published the family ere able to move to a cottage in Dublin with views over the bay. He then embarked on his novel The Banyan Tree, 120,000 words which took him 11 years to write. He was never satisfied with anything which was not perfect and on one occasion he tore up 35 pages of text, a brave decision given that his pace of writing was such that he was lucky if he completed a couple of pages a day.
The process was so gruelling that when he was 6 years into the novel his mother suggested he give it up. He was horrified that his mother should think that, he gave her a look which told her everything she needed to know.
With the exception of e-mail, which allowed Christy to communicate more freely than before, the technological developments of recent years were of little help to him.
Let us close our eyes for a few moments as we pray for our own special intentions.
Stand to say The Lord’s Prayer
Lord, bless our work today. Give us the energy and interest we shall need. Give us the special grace to keep smiling and to mean it, whatever may go right or wrong. Don’t let us be harsh or impatient with people. And if we do run out of generosity, protect people from us and give them your own love. Amen.
