Gurmeet

 

I moved from Oxford to London in 1980, and started working with disabled people in King Henrys Walk run by Islington council. I worked closely with Gurmeet who had moved there a month or so before I arrived there. He was a similar age to me, and we got on. He was disabled from birth, and used a wheelchair. His Sikh family had moved to Islington from India. They were not well off. His sister and younger brother were also similarly also disabled. It was the 1960s. Gurmeet was sent off to a residential unit in Northamptonshire. Eventually his social worker got Gurmeet a place at King Henrys Walk. Back in the urban environment, and able to use the staff and volunteers to assist him without question, Gurmeet flew. He persuaded Time Out magazine to commission him to do access reviews for every venue in the capital. He worked at the Kings Head Theatre on Upper Street in Islington. Within a year he had his first play on BBC radio 4, and soon after he decided he wanted to make a film with Faye Dunaway in it. Through incredible persistence, some talent, and a lot of nerve, he managed it. Starring Faye and that bloke out of Gregory's Girl the BBC made a film, Raspberry Ripple which was broadcast in 1988. Gurmeet went on to work with, amongst others, Ian Drury and Tina Turner, on ideas for projects. I travelled with him to the Cannes film festival, as his carer in 1982, and we managed to blag our way into the premiere of Fitzcaralldo the Werner Herzog movie. I helped him get his own flat supported by CSV volunteers in 1983. His determination and maximisation of anything he had going for him was something else. I went to his funeral in the early 1990s, and met up in the Kings Head for a wake drink with a few of his friends. Through the door we saw an old light blue Morris traveller slow down outside the pub, then ease off down Upper street. Gurmeet had always had such a car; they were not common.