Wheelchair Fencing at Royal Greenwich
In 1998, one of the fencers at Royal Greenwich who was a Scout Leader, Nigel Soar, asked about the possibility of having one of his Venture Scouts, who was in a wheelchair, taught to fence at the Club. So, we went online and got some basic information on wheelchair fencing and started to teach him.
Demonstration put on at Charlton Park Special Needs School June 2000
Our first wheelchair fencer, Laurence, is in a wheelchair because he suffers from cerebral palsy, which affects movement and posture, and includes poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. To begin with, we would teach and then fence him sitting in a chair opposite him, then when he got a new wheelchair, we sat in his old one, it was not ideal but it worked to a degree. After doing wheelchair fencing for a while Laurence introduced a couple of his friends to it, and Sally Ann and Elizabeth who also had cerebral palsy joined the group, and we fenced foil, epee (using large sabre lames as wheelchair aprons) and sabre.
Sally Ann, Elizabeth & Laurence
We had been successfully teaching, and fencing the wheelchair fencers for some time, when we were reliably informed by some people who knew better than us, that you couldn’t teach people with cerebral palsy to fence, as they couldn’t do it. Despite these negative know it all’s we carried on. After a couple of years, in 2002, we put an application in for a grant from the National Lottery Awards for All. We were successful, and in 2003 purchased an English made wheelchair fencing floor frame to use.
Laurence & Nigel fencing using the wheelchair fencing floor frame
However, in 2013 we were forced to move out of the ground floor annexe at Shrewsbury House, the venue where we had fenced since the group started, by the then manager on orders from one of the board members. We were moved up to the first floor in the main house, and now being on the first floor, with no lift available we were unable to get any wheelchair users up to the new venue, and so were no longer able to provide wheelchair users with the opportunity to fence at the club, and so we had to close the section down.
Laurence on guard