Dan’s life story interview

I have a really good family, actually, that have supported me a lot.

Do you spend a lot of time with them?

I do, yeah.

Going on, like, lots of family holidays and stuff when you were younger?

I went on the some abroad. I remember one of my first holidays I went to. We went to Spain. I don’t know where in Spain.

I can’t remember, but I remember, we went into this bar or restaurant or something. We ordered this Knickerbocker glory, but I didn’t know what to call it, and I called it a Banana Gaga.

You still call them that to this day

I do, yes.

Things like that stick, don’t they?

They do. Yes.

I think I was only about four.

I went to Boys Brigade. But before I could join Boys Brigade because of the age I was when I joined, I only joined because one of my friends went and it was just right opposite my house. So I thought there’s no reason for me not to go because it’s just over the road.

So, what are all these pins you got for? Are they awarded for something?

They are all awarded for something. One of them [from] in 2012. At the age of eight, it was the Queen’s Jubilee. We did something for – we got given this task to do for the Queen’s Jubilee. And if you completed it, you got this badge.

Wow. You must have completed a few. You’ve got quite a few on there.

Yeah.

So, Olympics year as well.

Yeah, London 2012. That’s what got me into athletics.

Oh, yeah. Because you said you were eight when you joined that as well.

Yeah. That same year. Yeah.

I went to two secondary schools. I started off at Manor and then I went to AppleFields. I went to their satellite unit, which is because Apple Fields partnered with Manor so they could have a class, about two, three classrooms that they could use and an office space which they could use.

What’s a satellite?

It’s kind of for people that… Like more… more educated enough to not be at the Apple Fields main site. But it’s so they could have a bit of experience of what mainstream school’s like.

So we did- we did like a half and half. We did so-

Slowly exposing you need to mainstream?

Yeah. The mainstream schools are. So, I joined there, when I left Manor.

I had to leave Manor for reasons. Stress reasons. But… I even had to fight to get into Applefields satellite unit.

Did you enjoy it once you got that?

Oh, enjoyed it when I got there. Yeah.

Did you have a favourite subject?

I did there, yeah.

Go on, tell us.

I enjoyed P.E. for the simple fact of the teacher.

Really good teacher?

It was a really good. There was this warm up game we had and it was called Pac-Man. So, we had- Well, what it was we had-there was all these lines, you know, like the badminton court lines. And then there was basketball court lines and netball court lines.

All laid on top of each other.

So, all laid on top of each other. We had all different colours and what we did was we had to only walk across any of the lines, but we couldn’t cross. So, we had to follow the line up to a certain point till there was like two that kind of- one went left, one went right, and then you then you had to go that way.

And then you had, you know, the ghosts that were allowed to go, they were allowed to cross lines, and they had to try and tig you. And then you became a ghost and had to go and tig them till the last person.

So, that was my favourite warm up. My favourite PE lesson. One, it was two hours and that warm up was great. It’s long, but the first hour was quite relaxed.

Yeah, but it was more it was more of learn the skills and learn little bits and that.

The York City Knights Rugby League. They created this learning disability league, which was tag rugby.

Noncompetitive league. And our school got an email to say, ‘if anyone was interested in joining us for a game at Bootham Crescent on this specific day.’  So, I went to the stadium. I played at Bootham Crescent. Even the mascot got involved. It was brilliant.

I love Bootham Crescent, proper stadium.

Yeah, it was a very good stadium. I only ever went in it once. And that was the day of that.

But you did rugby for quite a while didn’t you?

Oh, I’m still doing it there. Oh, still doing it.

I remember last year, you brought in a video you created

Yeah, I did, yeah. I recently got my first ever award…

Congratulations

…for the rugby. I got the Coaches’ Player of the Year this year, which was good.

So is that the Learning Disability- Yeah. Learning Disability Rugby league

During my first year – because it was ‘Coviddy’ sort of time,  2020/2021 –  my mum knew that there was a thing called a one-opportunity internship where you could do something at church.

Of course, it’s an internship, so you get paid for it. They said because it was past September, they said that even though it’s past September – it was about April time when –

So, quite a bit from September.

Yeah…But they said, ‘yeah. great.’ And so I worked three hours a week doing a thing called Messy Church, which is…-

Oh, yeah. I know what that is.

Yeah, it’s in the title.

It’s for kids, isn’t it? Well, yeah, it’s for kids. You get a bunch of primary school, infant school, nurseries, school children in, and we get messy!

With paints and all sorts of different things. But because it was Covid, you couldn’t do it in person. The whole thing about the internship is –  you’re the head of it, you are like the manager of it. So, I did trails for them. I did mini activity packs for them, I sent emails to the person who puts it on the Facebook group because I couldn’t get access to it. And then I emailed someone else, so I could put it on the notices up at church on the outdoor notices so anyone walking by can see it. Anyone who is part of the church could see it on the notices as well.

So digitally and Physically. And so, I did that for about a year. That was fun. But it was definitely challenging.

I enjoyed it really. It was my first experience of work.