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My old wheelchair used to squeak all the time. I hated it because everyone looked at me. It made me feel different. I never used to like going into the school hall or going out anywhere with my family, not even down the shops. This meant I never went out, I just used to stay at home and play on the computer. I really wanted to go out with my friends, hang around down the park, but because of my squeaky wheelchair I didn’t. I found it too embarrassing. I got really bored most of the time.

When we went to parties and outings organised by the Jessie May Trust and Muscular Dystrophy Campaign I started to socialise more with other people like me. I came to notice that they all had wheelchairs that tilted back, raised, lowered; they had indicators, headlights and horns. There was even one boy who could stand up in his wheelchair. I was jealous because all my wheelchair did was squeak. It made me feel really down and sad that my chair didn’t compare with theirs.

One time when we were at a pantomime I got so frustrated with my chair I became emotional. This is how bad it made me feel. I had to put up with this for four and a half years. I felt that people noticed my disability and not me.

Now I have my new wheelchair that doesn’t squeak and it is the same as the ones all those other boys have. I can join in with my friends slouching out in front of the television because my wheelchair now tilts. And when we are down the beach, although I cannot join in on the pebbles, my wheelchair now raises up so I can see over the sea wall and I can have just as much fun watching.

Now I don’t feel any different and sometimes when I am out with my friends I forget I have muscular dystrophy and I feel people don’t notice my disability - they just notice me, the person who I am, without my illness and I am happy that way.

I like the person I am.

Gary’s wheelchair was paid for through a local fundraising campaign.