By the 1990s I had reclaimed my life. I was living reasonably independently, helping on the farm, could fly an ultralight and was enjoying my social life. But still there was something missing.
The view from the top of my mountain was pretty spectacular but, like anything, it’s always better if you can share it with someone else. I didn’t have a female companion to share this rebuilt life with, someone to grow old with, to share the highs and lows, to work with side by side, day in, day out. I wanted someone to wake up to every morning, to be able to roll over and wrap my arms around. Someone to watch the sunset with, sitting on the verandah with a beer at the end of the day. To share a joke with. Someone to chase my goals with, to restore an old house with. Someone to love. I felt I had an enormous amount of love to give.
As the years passed, I began to think it wasn’t going to happen. I watched all my mates get married and have kids and I observed from the sidelines — happy for them, increasingly sad for me. Often I sat among the guests at the reception and looked at the bride and groom and wondered if it would ever be me sitting up there, grinning from ear to ear.
But like most things in my life, I accepted it. There was no point in yearning for something I couldn’t have, so I focussed on what I had. I imagined life with just me and my dogs. I’d continue to live with Mum and Dad and they’d care for me and when they weren’t around any more, then Bill and Kate might look after me, or I’d find someone else.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a complete monk throughout those years. I had relationships with two or three girls but mostly they fell in love with Sam. When they got to know his mate quadriplegia, it wasn’t for them.
The issue wasn’t simply them accepting my injury. It was also about me getting past the fear that I would place too much of a burden on their life. I had to come to terms with what I couldn’t contribute to a relationship, and I would have to live with that frustration and knowledge every day. It was like having a little voice in the back of my head reminding me every now and again of my shortcomings. As a man with spinal injury, it was hard to cope with not being able to do the heavy work. The little things like loading luggage into a car, mowing the lawn, changing a flat tyre — all the jobs the male tended to do. For me, that included things around the farm as well.
And of course, there was sex — or the lack of it. The majority of men who suffer a spinal cord injury also lose the ability to control their erections. The effect of every spinal cord injury is different, but generally it completely changes your sex life. From very early on I worried about it. Eventually I discovered that, because I felt virtually no sensation or stimulation from my injury down, I too didn’t get an erection normally. I could still get one but not necessarily at the right time and it was not to be relied upon. Like an old lawnmower that had seen better days, I didn’t know when it would start and when it wouldn’t. You could bet your boots that when the grass was most in need of a cut, it would fail me. This didn’t do much for my self-esteem and left me wondering if I could ever satisfy a woman sexually. I felt I’d lost my manhood, my masculinity, and I was inadequate. And down the track, there were questions about whether I’d be able to father children — another big sacrifice for most women.
So my injury wasn’t only about the loss of mobility. It was also about the loss of sexual function, bowel and bladder, temperature control, being able to father my own kids, kick them a football or help with the day-to-day jobs that a male normally does in the household. It was about being the man about the house and being a role model. It was going to take a pretty extraordinary girl to take all that on. She’d have to be willing to accept all the things I couldn’t do. In a sense, she’d be partly taking on a spinal injury herself, but on top of that, she would have to deal with extra tasks, things a husband might otherwise do.
As if that wasn’t a tall enough order, I faced an extra dilemma. I wanted to settle down with a country girl — someone who would want to help me on the farm, but I knew that would almost certainly mean she’d be keen on other outdoor activities too, most of which I wouldn’t be able to share. She’d probably want to ride horses, which I couldn’t do. If she liked sport or bushwalking or canoeing, it would be difficult for me to do it with her.
It seemed an impossible dream — finding all the things I needed in one girl. Then I had to be lucky enough to meet her, and teach her all about spinal cord injury and its complications without scaring her off. It was the stuff that fantasies were made of.
While I accepted my fate, I didn’t completely give up all hope that my dream might come true, and it was fuelled by a conversation I had one day.
I was staying with an old school friend whose grandmother was visiting. We were talking about finding that special person to spend our lives with, and I said I wondered if I ever would. The old lady was surrounded by her brood of grandchildren — the physical evidence of a long and family-filled life. She’d seen romance and love, marriage and childbirth. Hers was a life full of memories, both happy and sad, and the wisdom that these brought.
‘Sam, you’ll meet a very special girl one day,’ she said. There was no doubt in her mind. I carried those words with me from that moment on. They gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, she might be right.
Another person gave me hope. He was Mike Warden, a C5/6 quadriplegic who lived in Tamworth, about three hours’ drive away. He became one of my best friends and a great mentor. We first met in 1991 and from that time on he was such an inspiration to me. Our lives had many parallels. We had both suffered spinal injuries in car accidents early in our lives, me at nineteen years of age, Mike at twenty-one. We both loved the bush and chose to go back home to the land after our injuries and live life as normally as possible with a positive attitude. Those similarities were like a magnet between us.
But Mike was perhaps most amazing because he had suffered his injury way back in 1952, before the days of specialist spinal units and the drugs and medical technology and expertise we take for granted today. After his accident he was taken to Tamworth Hospital, where he was placed in a plaster jacket from head to waist. Like me, he was left with no temperature control and it was the middle of January. He sweltered in forty-degree Celsius temperatures with no airconditioning. A couple of weeks later he was flown to Sydney for an operation on his neck. His plane was late and Mike lay waiting on a stretcher in a tin shed, still encased in plaster. He waited like that in horrendous heat for more than an hour. The fact he survived at all was an amazing feat and credit to his own personal determination and stamina.
Mike says he was lucky because it was just after the Korean War and medical staff were starting to learn more about spinal injuries and how to treat them. But when I consider how I was rushed within two days to a fully operational, state-of-the-art spinal unit with specialist doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, I think how lucky I was. Of course, today there’s even more knowledge about the injury and I’m sure it will be only a matter of time before researchers make it possible to operate on spinal cord injuries and patients will walk out of hospitals within weeks.
In Mike’s case, the enthusiastic Tamworth hospital staff did everything they could to make his life as productive as possible. Within six months he returned to the family farm, and after his parents died he helped run it, getting around on a small tractor, similar in size to a ride-on mower.
Then in the early 1990s, after being single for most of his life, he married Marg, a nurse who he first met in 1966 at Tamworth Base Hospital. At the time she was married with three boys, but Mike became a special family friend. She sat by his bedside in 1990 when he was so ill he almost died and their friendship blossomed into something more. I visited Mike and Marg constantly throughout the 1990s and did the honours as best man at their wedding.
Their love story gave me so much hope, letting me know that it was possible for someone to love another person, despite a severe disability and all its associated challenges. Marg told me one day, ‘Wait until you’re thirty, Sam. You won’t find anyone until you’re thirty.’
And so, despite all the odds, deep down in my heart I never gave up hope. I trusted that if I met the right girl, she wouldn’t mind my mate quadriplegia. That she’d be able to see past the wheelchair and my inability to do a few things, and see just me.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t sitting at home moping. In the winter of 1991 I went skiing at Thredbo. A family friend, Paul Griffiths, was heavily involved with disabled skiing in Australia and invited me to go to the snow with his family. He also organised lessons for me with the school for disabled skiers. It was fantastic and I will be forever in his debt. I had a terrific instructor called Eddie, who rode shotgun behind me for the first four days while I learnt to balance myself on a sitski, which was like a wheelchair without wheels. Instead it slid on a single ski about two-and-a-half metres long and eight centimetres wide. I helped balance and manoeuvre myself with little outriggers on both arms — like crutches with tiny skis on the ends — but it was pretty difficult with no trunk muscles. We added a harness and ropes to tie me in, and that helped, but it wasn’t easy.
I started on Friday Flat, the beginners’ slope and I spent most of the week there. Eddie taught me how to stay upright and helped me get back up when I fell, which I did regularly. The chairlift was pretty scary to start with as well, but I eventually mastered that. Probably the worst thing was the cold. By the end of each day I was freezing and it would take me half the night to warm up again. But I still had a great time. I’ll never forget going down the slope on the fourth day, thinking Eddie was behind me helping and suddenly halfway down the hill he skied past me. I’d thought he was holding me up.
What a feeling, flowing down the icy slope with the wind in my face and those mountains around me. I’d finally mastered it, or so I thought. The next day we decided to try a more difficult slope, which proved to be way beyond me, so it was back to the beginner’s flat … and a few more days perfecting my skills. Nevertheless by the end of the week I was really getting the hang of it, and knew that, with a bit more practice I would have been ready for a more challenging slope, but it was time to go home. There are better disabled skis available now — they come with two skis rather than one, so it would be a lot more stable. I’m sure I’ll give it another try one day.
My next big adventure was travelling overseas. My uncle, Philip Bailey, and my cousin, Georgie Bailey, were both living in England at the time, so I instantly had a base to travel from and contacts through them. Philip did some research for me and sent information over to help me plan the trip, and I talked a friend into going with me. She provided some backup because she worked in the medical profession and was familiar with the treatment of spinal injury.
But it was daunting, leaving behind the security of my home country for the first time, with all its medical facilities, our common language and its familiarity. It really hit home when I was sitting in the jumbo about to take off for our first stopover in the Philippines. For a few moments I did wonder, ‘What are you doing this for?’ because I really was severing my lifelines. If something serious happened while I was in another country, I wasn’t sure if I could get the same level of medical expertise I was accustomed to in Australia. I went through my list of essentials like drugs and catheters dozens of times to make sure I had everything, and hoped like hell that my wheelchair didn’t go missing in transit.
The two nights in the Philippines confirmed some of my concerns. Even though we’d asked for a room with disabled access and booked a first-class motel thinking that would help, the room wasn’t at all suitable. We had to remove one wheel from my wheelchair to get it through the bathroom door. The next morning I thought, ‘Shit, what have I done?’
But things improved once we got to London and we travelled throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland without any major problems. In fact, that trip was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Many of the old castles and buildings had ramps and some provided scooters, which were fantastic. With a scooter, I could get around and see everything easily, including the Dover wartime tunnels — an absolute highlight. After we discovered a motel chain that provided reliable accessible rooms, we often stayed with them as we travelled. It was a bit like McDonalds fast food restaurants — love the food or hate it, you always knew what you were getting.
As luck would have it, we also managed to get our hands on a set of portable hand controls for a motor car. We were able to use them on the vehicle we hired and they were easy to put on and off. A rod was attached to the brake at one end and there was a handle at the other, a bit like the curved handle of a walking stick. It rested near my right knee. Under my thumb there was a button, which activated a second rod attached to the accelerator. The whole thing was held in place by a Velcro strap around the steering column. It was brilliant. So simple yet so effective.
Phil and his good friend Tim Coupland owned a Mercedes, which was their pride and joy. I decided to try the hand controls on it, so Phil reluctantly put them on and I climbed in. He was looking extremely nervous. Here was Sam about to try these new hand controls for the first time ever in his prized possession and as we backed out the driveway, I could see how tense he was.
‘We won’t go out on the highway,’ he said. ‘We’ll just go down this back road.’
So I started off and I intentionally jerked the car and spun the wheels, all the while watching the horrified expression on Phil’s face. ‘Don’t worry, I’m in total control,’ I said. His face turned ashen. Then he saw me laughing. I don’t think that helped much. He was mighty relieved when we got back to the house safely, and immediately removed the hand controls from his beloved Merc. I didn’t put a scratch on his car but he never offered it to me again. But Phil and Tim welcomed us with open arms and I could never have done the trip as easily without their convenient and welcoming home base.
As I said once before, there are moments in your life when a split-second decision can change the path you follow forever. I had another experience like that in the winter of 1995.
One afternoon the phone rang. It was a guy called Shane Mahony, the presenter of ABC Radio’s daily rural program, the Country Hour. He was ringing from Sydney and had heard about me while speaking to someone at the Rural Health Unit in Moree. It was coming up to Farm Safety Week and Shane was looking for someone to interview. He asked me if I’d do something with him over the phone for the Country Hour.
‘I’d rather not do it over the phone, if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘Is there any chance someone could come up here and meet me?’
Don’t ask me why I said that. I look back now and it’s eerie. I’d done lots of radio interviews over the phone in the past. In fact, I’d never asked to do it face-to-face before that day. I’d just try to paint a picture as best as I could over the phone — and that was it. I never thought twice about it.
But there I was that winter afternoon saying no. It seems even more bizarre now looking back because it was the first time it was for a truly rural program — the others had been with city radio stations. I must have had rocks in my head. But perhaps it was fate. Like the day I decided to go to the pub in Camooweal all those Sundays ago, the day I had my accident and completely changed the direction of my life forever. Some things just seem to be meant to happen.
‘It’s terribly difficult to describe over the phone how my hoist works, or how I get on or off my bike and the other things I do around the farm. I think it would be much more beneficial if someone could actually come and see it for themselves.’
‘That’s no trouble at all,’ said Shane. ‘I can totally understand that. Leave it with me and someone will get back in touch.’
We said goodbye and as I put down the phone I thought, ‘That’ll be the last I’ll hear of him.’
But I was wrong. A few days later the phone rang and a young woman introduced herself. ‘Hi, I’m Jenny Black from ABC Radio. Shane Mahony suggested I give you a call. I was wondering if I could come up and do an interview?’ You could have bowled me over with a feather.
We started to chat. Pretty soon I discovered we’d both grown up on the land and there was an instant connection. We immediately shared a common language and interests. There was also this bubbly, smiley voice that came through the phone and grabbed me. Sparks flew down the phone line straightaway.
I arranged for Jenny to come to Bardin the following week and gave her directions. I hung up the phone, seriously impressed, and went looking for Mum.
‘Have you ever heard of Jenny Black?’
‘She’s with ABC Radio, isn’t she? We’ve been listening to Jenny for quite a few years. She does a program on the ABC in Tamworth every morning before the seven o’clock news. It’s quite interesting. She often talks to people we know … from the New England Northwest area.’
So the next morning, yours truly gave the local FM music station the flick and tuned into ABC Radio in Tamworth.
It was Jenny’s voice that first captivated me. It bubbled out of the radio and made me want to listen. Like a good working dog, it headed me off and rounded me up and wouldn’t let me escape. She sounded cheerful and fun and had this infectious giggle. I started painting a picture of what she looked like. For some reason I imagined she was quite tall and had dark hair and an olive complexion. As I listened through the week she got taller and taller and better and better-looking.
When the day of Jenny’s visit finally arrived I was very excited. I decided to meet her at the front ramp, and I sat there in the cool, mid-afternoon sun — not a cloud in the sky — with my three dogs, Dusty, Missy, and Jaffa, on the back of the bike. I’d been waiting about ten minutes when I saw a swirl of dust slowly rising in the distance. A white station wagon turned off Croppa Creek Road and drove up the driveway, over our front ramp.
As the vehicle came closer I eagerly peered through the windscreen. Straightaway the long-anticipated dark, olive complexion disappeared; there was a reddish reflection through the glass.
Jenny pulled up and wound down the car window. ‘Hello, you must be Sam.’
She looked completely the opposite of what I was expecting. I don’t mean I was disappointed — shocked is probably more like it — because she was nothing like I’d imagined.
These are Jenny’s recollections of that first time we saw each other: ‘I remember thinking he was very handsome, with his suntanned face — its colour deepened by the cold wind. He wore a large, thick faded green coat. It made him look big, cuddly and strong. Was it love at first sight? I don’t think so — I took my job very seriously and I was there to do an interview.’
We introduced ourselves and chatted. One thing I noticed almost immediately was how close the driver’s seat was to the steering wheel — it was less than thirty centimetres away — so I quickly put two and two together and figured out Jenny wasn’t going to be especially tall either.
I followed her car up to the house. She parked it under the shade of a gnarled old pepper tree while I put my bike in the shed and jumped across into my chair. As Jenny got out of the car, I spun around and was amazed to see a red-haired, freckly-faced, sawn-off little runt. But she was the best-looking red-haired, freckly-faced, sawn-off little runt I’d ever laid eyes on. There was a spark right from the very start.
But I still couldn’t get over how short she was. I was used to being surrounded by tall people. My parents are tall and I was 188 centimetres before my accident. Jenny was only 157 centimetres.
Throughout the afternoon Jenny recorded my story on tape. She asked me about my life so far, the accident, what I did on the farm and how I did it. We talked about my injury and about quadriplegia, and the challenges I faced living on the land. She recorded the sounds of me getting on and off different pieces of equipment and driving away on the motorbike. The interview was completely unlike those I’d done before. In the past I’d spoken on city radio stations to people who didn’t know anything about farming or life on the land. Often they didn’t know the difference between a bull and a steer or a wheat crop and barley crop, so a lot of their questions didn’t really hit the right spot. Jenny was a whole different ball game. She understood farming life and asked relevant questions.
After we’d finished recording I did something that maybe was indicative of how I felt about this girl I’d only just met. On that cold, blustery winter day, I attempted to take Jenny over to Pine Hills, the adjoining property we’d bought a few years earlier and where, if I ever married, I imagined I would live. She was doing a series of radio items on interesting shearing sheds in the region and I thought she might like to see the shed there. We set off on my four-wheel bike as the sun was setting and the wind turning icy. We’d gone about a fifth of the six-kilometre journey when I decided to turn back, despite Jenny’s assurances she wasn’t too cold. I suspect she was secretly relieved — and she had no idea we still had so far to go. She would have been an icicle by the time we got back home.
It was dark when we returned and Jenny had an hour’s drive ahead of her back to her motel in Moree. But with a bit of help and persuasion from my parents, I talked her into staying with us instead. That night we sat around the fire, Mum, Dad, Jenny and me. We talked about agriculture, the season, grain and cattle prices, politics, all sorts of things. I hardly got a word in edgeways. In fact, the only time I spent alone with Jenny that night was when we went into the quiet of my bedroom to record some more for the interview. Finally, we could talk, just the two of us. Later that night I lay in bed and thought, ‘What a great girl.’
She left early the next morning but she stayed prominently in my thoughts for days. I couldn’t wait to see how the interview would turn out, but Jenny had also had a big impact on me personally. It wasn’t love at first sight, but she’d certainly gained a new member of her fan club.
I thought about Jenny a lot over the next couple of years. It was hard not to because I’d turn on the radio in the morning and there she was. Often she’d be interviewing someone I knew. I didn’t think about her all the time, but every now and again we’d speak on the phone or she’d come to the area doing interviews and she’d stay the night. It would rekindle the friendship.
And so we got to know each other better and better. I found out Jenny was a keen horse rider, competing in one-day eventing and dressage, and loved to go bushwalking and camping. I wondered whether a deeper relationship was possible but dismissed the idea because I thought she’d have to give up her horses and other outdoor interests if she ended up with me. I couldn’t ask her to do that. Anyway, I imagined a terrific girl like Jenny would have a boyfriend and, if she didn’t, she’d have plenty chasing her. Why would she rather have me?
It wasn’t only that. Hot summers and cold winters would never be the same for her if she shared my life — thanks to my inability to tolerate the heat and cold. And I wondered whether she’d be willing to do most of the physical work around the place — the mowing, packing and unpacking the car or fixing broken water pipes or pumps. It seemed safer for me to do nothing.
Meanwhile, the interview was broadcast on Jenny’s ABC regional radio program in the New England Northwest, then repeated on Country Hour programs across the nation and it even went internationally on Radio Australia. It drew an enormous response.
Despite all my misgivings about relationships, I did seek Jenny out on a couple of occasions. One night I really wanted to phone her. She had a silent number at home, which she’d given me and I kept it in my electronic personal organiser. But when I turned it on, its batteries were going flat. I could just make out Jenny’s name, but I couldn’t read the last three digits of her phone number. At that stage, I didn’t know any of Jenny’s friends and it was after hours so I couldn’t ring the ABC to get her number.
Then I had a brainwave. I remembered how the heat on the dashboard of my car had helped boost the batteries the weekend before. I thought, ‘I just need to heat it up a bit.’ So I put it in the microwave and gave it a quick zap. I only gave it a few seconds. A puff of blue smoke instantly filled the interior. F …! I opened the door of the microwave and a foul smell and smoke flooded the kitchen. I’d bloody cooked it. It’s not a story I tell proudly, but it proved Jenny had some sort of spell over me because I certainly wasn’t thinking straight.
The next morning, sheepishly, I rang the ABC.
‘ABC Radio, can I help you?’ It was Jenny’s workmate and the breakfast presenter, Bill Gleeson.
‘It’s Sam Bailey speaking.’
‘Hello, Sam. How’s things at Croppa Creek?’
We chatted for a while, then I said, ‘What I’m really ringing for is Jenny Black’s phone number and I know it’s probably not protocol for you to give it out …’
But Bill very quickly interrupted, ‘Oh no, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I gave you her phone number.’
So he did and I rang her. I didn’t tell her the story about the electronic organiser until a long time after. I was far too embarrassed.
Whenever I spoke to Jenny we talked for ages. When I got off the phone I was always floating on cloud nine. The first thing I felt like doing was ringing her straight back.
Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask her out. I was staying with Mike and Marg in Tamworth and it was the week of the Country Music Festival. We were having breakfast one morning when Mike mentioned he’d bought a copy of a book Jenny had written for ABC Books called The Country’s Finest Hour — Fifty Years of Rural Broadcasting. He thought it’d be nice to have Jenny sign it. I thought to myself, ‘You beauty!’
It was a brilliant opportunity. I was always trying to think of reasons to contact her, but I didn’t want to show my cards too much. I still didn’t want to look too keen in case she didn’t feel the same way. Mike had just given me the perfect excuse. I rang and arranged to take the book around to be signed. I couldn’t grab the book and get out that door fast enough.
As I left, Mike gave me careful instructions. ‘Could you get Jenny to sign it Mike? I hate “Michael” and I really loathe “Mick.”’
It was lucky I didn’t pass a police car — I sped the whole way. It was the first time I’d been to Jenny’s home on the outskirts of town and I hadn’t seen her for quite a while. She walked out the front door to meet me and again I was amazed at how short she was. We chatted and eventually I thought, here goes. I took a deep breath.
‘Jenny, what are you doing for lunch? There’s probably a band on somewhere down the street we could go and see. Would you like to have lunch?’
‘You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve got some friends staying for the Country Music Festival and we’re all going to a barbecue. Sorry, Sam, I can’t.’
Damn! Well, that didn’t work … now to plan B. I took another deep breath. ‘What about tonight, Jenny? Are you doing anything tonight? The Bushwackers are playing at the Long Yard Hotel, maybe we could go there.’
‘Oh, sorry Sam, I’ve got to cover the national rodeo finals tonight for my program in the morning.’
Unbelievable!
I was so deflated; talk about letting the air out of the tyre. But I wasn’t completely defeated because I was thinking, surely if she had any feelings for me at all, the immediate response would be to ask me what I was doing the next day or next weekend or something. Nothing. She didn’t say a thing. Quite obviously she wasn’t interested in pursuing anything more than a friendship with me. And I still didn’t know if she had another bloke.
We chatted for a bit longer, with me sitting there in my ute feeling like a failed sponge cake. All the while Jenny’s black and tan kelpie dog, Winkie, had been lying under the shade of a nearby tree. Suddenly, she wandered over to the car and jumped up, putting both front paws on the window sill. She gently licked my arm.
Jenny was stunned. ‘That’s amazing. My dog never normally takes to anyone that quickly.’
‘Well, I wish you’d take some bloody lessons from your dog,’ I thought.
After that, there wasn’t much reason to stay. I gave her the book, asked her to sign it and I left.
As I climbed out of the ute at Mike’s place and reached for the book, I tried to console myself that at least the trip achieved one thing. I glanced inside the cover to see what Jenny had written and you wouldn’t believe it, she’d written ‘Dear Mick’. So I had to go in and apologise to Mike and explain what had happened. What a dud trip. To tell the truth, I didn’t really enjoy any of the Country Music Festival that year.
The experience certainly didn’t erase the image I had of myself growing old. The picture of me in my wheelchair sitting alone on the verandah, with only my dogs for company, was still well and truly in place.