30 years ago Richard’s life took a surprising turn. As a 22 year old in the Royal Navy he thought his services career was mapped out for him. Working on Royal Navy submarines up in Scotland, Richard suffered a freak accident which left him paralysed from the neck down.
Everything changed rapidly and following months of rehabilitation, Richard was faced with two options – stay in Scotland where he had been stationed or move back home to Sheffield and start to live his life outside of the Royal Navy. Richard explains:
“I had months and months and months of rehabilitation and to be honest with you I didn’t at this point really think about where I was going to be living or even what that would look like. I saw a number adapted properties, mainly on paper from various providers but nothing really catered fully for what I needed at that time”.
“After a few months of looking, I was offered the opportunity to look at an Arches Housing property which amazingly was back in Sheffield where I was born and bred. I immediately decided I needed to see the property and was offered a visit fairly quickly. A lovely lady was currently living in the property following the sad passing of her husband who she had been caring for, but she had made the decision to move out and the property would soon be vacant”.
Richard continues:
“The property was perfect and had already been adapted to allow wheelchair access – the rooms were big and spacious and gave me the feeling of independence I needed. I would require an amount of further adaptations to be carried out on the property, but these were paid for through a small grant that Arches were able to provide and before you knew it, I was living in my very own specially adapted home – fast forward 30 years and I’m still here”.
When Richard was asked about those 30 years and his experience of working alongside the team at Arches, he was nothing but supportive and thankful for their help. He added:
“I’m pleased I made the choice to move back home to Sheffield all those years ago, the local area I live in is lovely and so are the local people. Arches has been really supportive over the years too and I’ve also formed some great relationships with the workmen who’ve been to carry out additional works during the time – I know one or two of them on first name terms – they are all really helpful. All in all it’s been a really good experience being an Arches resident”.
01/05/2025 12:00
