Steve 'Hurdini' Hurd

Hi there web surfers. Hope the waves are good today. My name is Steve Hurd I am a lawyer, singer songwriter, tv dood and man about town. I spent my early childhood living in an institution for children who are blind, and full of bossy nurses, sisters and other controlling types of personalities. The Matron was good though. If you asked most of them what I was like they would probably say "disruptive, an exhibitionist who rejected authority".

A modern person may say "advocate for reform who put the dignity of people with disabilities before the feeling of gratitude blind people were supposed to be feeling all the bloody time for those wonderful nurses who "are so caring". I was then sent to a local high school and was one of the very first people to go through the state high school system. They also would say I had an unhealthy attitude to authority, but Authority decreed I would never get past year 10 and that a sheltered workshop was going to be my contribution to the community. I got the 3rd highest HSC Mark in the school and went on to do law at Monash.

At university having started as a no body I ended up as the first ever student leader who has a disability having won student elections by a landslide. No one is patronised in politics, but it gave me the chance to develop skills and the hardness many people with disabilities have not yet had the chance to develop. Because of that I feel as a movement we are not as politically ruthless and often lack the mongrel to achieve our desired outcomes. I have worked as a lawyer, public servant and in many other positions.

Some time ago an ABC dood named me Hurdini when I jumped out of a plane into a sports oval where media were waiting, we did that to launch disability awareness week. On "no LImits" we have taken that further. I would love to see films and TV shows in which people with disabilities are involved on all levels of production and their disability is far less emphasised than the story they tell and their part in the story of humanity. In the UK a Secretary of State who is blind managed to do that on a national scale.

My greatest success is the fact that those people I went to school and uni with do not remember the first blind dood to go through the state system. They remember that guy they drank and played cards with, who did very funny things in class and who gave the teachers a good argument. Many of them keep asking me when I will run for Parliament. Who knows but for now, I just want to share the adventure of life with all people thereby demonstrating that there are no Limits to life experience and human imagination if you have that bit of mongrel I spoke about. If that happens people will invariably find that there are far fewer barriers that need to be over come for those who truly ask "Why not?".

Steve may be contacted at nolimits@gritmedia.org.au

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