Stuart McKears

'Stuart McKears' (qv) fell on a rake when he was 4 and contracted septic arthritis in his right leg. Lengthy hospital treatment meant that he did not start school until he was 8 by which time the infection and complications had left him with an un-united spontaneous arthroddesis of the right knee. In other words a virtually stiff right knee. Unfortunately, the important words are un-united and virtually as the very very slight degree of movement remaining causes ever present pain. Over the years, he have had to become adept at balancing a reasonable mobility against the debilitating effects of excessive activity. It is only in the early nineties that he was able to quantify his subjective acceptance of normal discomfort when he fell over and jarred the stiff leg. A week later, he finally noticed that it was still aching a bit more than usual. An X-ray showed that he had broken the fibula in the stiff leg. While the pain can be a sod, the stiff leg and the fact that he's over 6 ft tall causes a far more inhibiting problem which is loos, especially on long haul flights. The details are left to your imagination! This is now no longer a problem as it's virtually impossible, due to all the new "safety" regulations, for anybody with a stiff leg to fly anything other that first or business class - which he can't afford!However, returning to Stuart's early years. Fortunately, even though he was late in starting school, he was able to catch up by staying incarcerated on the Isle of Wight until he was nearly 20. No, not Parkhurst gaol , just a close relation, Bembridge School, a public school on the Isle of Wight - a fairly difficult experience being disabled at a boys public school in the 50s. Somehow, even after being expelled once and reinstated twice, he managed to escape, sorry leave, with rather too many O levels, a few A levels and a place at university to read economics. But this was now the Sixties, so he dropped out for, well let's say a while ,and caught up on his education in other ways.Later, Stuart decided that it was time to do something with his life - his mother used to insist that she remembered it differently and rambled on using such words as ultimatums, rent, food, a roof over his head. Stuart had been interested in photography for many years and was able to enrol in one of the few advanced photographic courses available at Portsmouth College of Art. In those happy days, higher education was still in the make it up as you go along mode, as well as being free, so he stayed for an extra year course in film making - one of the first such courses available. IIP, City & Guilds and film extension were the highest and only qualifications that could be achieved in the early sixties and he managed a 1st Intermediate Institute of Incorporated Photographers, 2nd City and Guilds Commercial Photography and a 2nd City and Guilds Scientific Photography.These reasonable professional qualifications secured an interview, via Robin Day an old boy at Bembridge, with the BBC with the view of becoming a cameraman. This ambition was brought to an abrupt halt as he was turned down because he was disabled. Since then Stuart has done many jobs in the media slowly building up from a photographer in a museum, exhibition designer, newsreel cameraman for Butlins, cinematographer at a college, got an ACTT ticket, assistant head of the film camera department at Thames TV for a very short time and finally to a fully freelance cameraman/producer.Stuart co-founded the charity called COMPAID (Computer Charity for Disabled People) and write a book about the same subject.In the early 90s, Stuart felt that I now had enough experience as a disabled producer/photographer to approach the BBC. Once again, he secured an interview only to be told that he was not really disabled. He then concentrated more on his secondary career of writing software. Family illness, the death of his business partner and then a car accident all in 1994, which triggered further difficulties with his leg, contributed to a lengthy suspension of his camerawork. 1994 was not a good year!As far as he is aware, in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, he was the only working professional cameraman with a mobility disability in the world. It is important to point out that this does not mean film-maker, there were, and are, many more people with different severities of disability who were making films during that period. If you think this claim is wrong, please get in touch and tell him why. It, also, means that in comparison to able-bodied professional cameramen, he considers that he's not done that much but in comparison to what people thought and told him what he was capable of, he's done rather a lot!Having retired, he decided in 202 that maybe he wasn't too old, too grey, too much of a BOF or too lazy to start making films again, so he summoned up the courage and spend several thousand pounds on a new camera equipment and got the tripod, lights and mics out of store. And then spent ages faffing around trying to find a suitable project.Finally he started on a new film, "Cycle Writer", following a year in the life of a local photo journalist.Stuart is continuing to make films along with organising and directing the first year of the Bill Vinten GTC University Award.::Stuart