A Mountain to Climb

She had "A Mountain To Climb" and she reached the summit. This is her story in her own words of that climb and a tribute to her undaunted spirit. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Kingston Jamaica in 1953, Audrey Smalling came to England at the age of five and a half. She grew into a competitive athlete, a keen dancer and acrobat, being earmarked as potential for the Royal Ballet School of Dancing. In January 1973, just after her 19th birthday, she was in a serious car crash which left her paralysed from a C5/6 spinal cord injury to her neck. When she was finally discharged from the Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry and over the following years, she regained her feisty personality and became an advocate for disability and people who needed help. Her fight continued over many years to provoke action from authority for those affected by disabilities. This was pursued under extremely difficult and challenging conditions.