Unique insight of new Norwich disability advisor
Engineer, website analyst and musician Thomas Harrison has a new role at the Bishop of Norwich’s advisor for disability and he brings a unique insight to the role.
Thomas, who is blind, lives on a boat at Brundall with his family, and is the first person appointed to the new voluntary role and hopes to use it to help disabled people play a full part in church life.
Thomas and wife Hilary have lived aboard their boat, the Golden Mean, for the past 22 years. They worship with the Garden Church and East Church in Norwich and Thomas works for a national charity, analysing websites and apps to ensure they are accessible to blind and partially-sighted people.
Bishop Graham Usher said: “I am looking forward to working with Thomas and feel sure that his guidance and advice will be a blessing to many. People with disabilities and additional needs are as much a part of the Church as anyone else and we need to be committed to ensuring their welcome, inclusion and participation.”
Thomas takes up the role after completing the Church of England’s Enabling Leaders Programme, which helps disabled and neurodivergent people take on leadership positions.
“I want to encourage people with disabilities to get involved,” said Thomas. “I would like to move away from thinking about disability as an ‘us and them’ mentality.”
Brought up a Catholic, he recalls volunteering to help on a trip to Lourdes as a teenager, when he still had full sight. “I was a 19-year-old volunteer pushing a 95-year-old man in a wheelchair but as we talked, who was being helped? He’d done a lot of living already, I was trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life.
“The relationship between helper and those that are being helped, can be good for the helper as well as the person receiving help.”
Thomas lost his sight due to a genetic condition while he was studying for an engineering degree.
“Asking ‘Why me?’ is a bit of a dead end,” he said. “I have a feeling that God tends not to put things on you that you really can’t cope with. Sometimes you might think you can’t cope but my experience of blindness is that it’s not a total disaster. To me, if you are in constant pain, that’s far worse.
“Life is a bit of a muddle a lot of the time and you can only do your best.”
He said he is looking forward to helping churches be hospitable to all, including disabled people. “I love the word ‘hospitality,’” he said. “Jesus was hospitable. He met people where they were.”
Thomas and Hilary met as volunteers for the Samaritans. She went on to train as a teacher and Thomas worked for London Underground.
Living in crowded city house-shares, they began to dream of setting up home in a boat. They found a sailing barge and lived first on the Thames and then the Waveney and Yare. Hilary has written a book, called Rock the Boat, about their life on the Golden Mean, featuring their voyage through London and up the coast to Norfolk, where Hilary grew up.
An engineer by inclination and education, Thomas is in charge of boat maintenance, feeling his way around the inner workings of the Golden Mean to diagnose and repair any problems. He looks after the engine, mends the boiler, organises sails and ropes and sort leaks – all by touch.
Thomas and Hilary brought up their children on board, including home-schooling them, and over the years the boat has also been home to a shifting roll-call of family pets and two Guide Dogs.
“It’s lovely. You are very close to nature. You can move your home, and you don’t have to go far to be completely away from everyone,” said Thomas. “And I’ve never fallen in. I actually find big houses more difficult to navigate. Here I know where everything is.”
Christian disability awareness charity Through the Roof held a recent Disability Inclusion and Belonging event in Norwich at Witard Road Baptist Church (pictured right) when local Christians were able to meet and share their passion for making the church in Norfolk (and East Anglia) more disability inclusive.
Read more about Through the Roof on Network Norfolk here.
Pictured above is Thomas Harrison with his Guide Dog Chester.
Article first appeared on dioceseofnorwich.org