Farming is in Peter Prentice’s blood, so he hasn’t let spina bifida get in the way of helping run a 100 acre farm in the Cotswolds. It has, though, inspired him to establish his own mobility equipment business!

MY STORY

Growing up on a farm with spina bifida was always going to be a challenge. There wasn’t so much mobility equipment available in those days, but my father was very “solution orientated”, so he provided me with various DIY contraptions for getting around. When I was 10, for instance, he bought me a garden tractor, which was fantastic.

After school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and so ended up at Hereward College, a further education institution supporting disabled students. Up to this point I’d had little contact with other disabled people, so this was a real eye opener for me. I spent three years there and did quite a lot of growing up during that time.

When I came home, I wasn’t sure what to do next. From an early age I had always watched and helped dad when he was making something or repairing the machinery. Engineering had always held a special fascination for me, so – just for fun 

– I started to rebuild an old 1959 International Tractor that had been parked for around 10 years among the stinging nettles. 

Having studied accountancy at college, I started working for an agricultural feed merchant. Half way through my first day, though, I realised this was definitely not for me, and escaped back home to work on the tractor! I went on to complete a three year course in Agricultural Engineering and then a further year to get an HNC in Engineering. That included a year’s work experience with a local tractor dealer, where one of my main jobs was working on the Combines. 

With the HNC under my belt, I could start looking for work in agriculture, but just at that time farming practices were changing and there were no jobs. Eventually I became a rehabilitation engineer at the Oxfordshire Wheelchair Service. I have now worked for the NHS for 13 years, spending much of the time hopping from my wheelchair to the floor to grope underneath wheels! Through this, I learned a lot about adult and paediatric mobility equipment, including postural issues and wheelchair controls. 

Besides working for the NHS, I still make a point of going up to help at the farm at weekends and sometimes after work too. We have 100 acres of land and around 100 breeding sheep. During hay making in the summer, my main task is on the loader tractor, loading the bales onto trailers and then into the barn. If anything breaks down it’s up to me to fix it; I regularly have to get on and off the tractor to sort out problems with the mechanism. Stacking bales in the barn is hard for everyone, but more so for me as I handle the bales on my knees and use my upper body to stack them.

Of course,  there are places on a farm that are impossible for me to go in an ordinary wheelchair – most of the farmyard is uneven, broken concrete, so I regularly found myself on the ground. That’s what inspired me to set up my own company, Cotswold Mobility, which imports and sells a range of mobility equipment including the TracAbout, a tough powerchair that can go across fields and down muddy tracks! My NHS experience also means that I can offer a good level of assessment, service and support – which is so important, especially when things go wrong.

On the farm, the only thing I can think of that I really can’t do is sheep shearing – as you can imagine, trying to catch the sheep while in a wheelchair is an experience! As is lambing time; most ewes have two lambs and these need carrying from the lambing shed to the mothering pens which are about 50 metres apart and up a steep slope. That’s where my  TracAbout comes into its own – I can control it with one hand and hold the lambs with the other. 

I do feel fulfilled in my life, although it can be a struggle fitting everything in. I live in the Cotswolds with my wife, Julie, and – until they grew up and left home – her two children. I try to find a window at weekends when I can spend time with Julie, the kids and grand-daughter Emily. I have a great deal to thank my parents for; they brought me up to believe that, if you really want to, you can achieve virtually anything, and it’s due to their determination and support that I got to where I am now.

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Cotswold Mobility Limited

01608 658 899

www.cotswoldmobility.co.uk