Inclusion and Disability

Conversations about inclusion and disability have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.
I was statemented as a child, having been born with a heart problem that led to open-heart surgery at six weeks old. The outcome was minor brain damage, which has been the biggest defining feature in my life — shaping who I am in every way.

I live with mild spastic diplegia (a form of cerebral palsy) and pseudobulbar palsy, a condition affecting the part of the brain that controls emotion and facial movement. This causes emotional lability — sometimes misdiagnosed as facial spasticity — which can affect speech, swallowing, and facial control.

These challenges weren’t formally diagnosed until I was 18, when I decided to find out why I struggled so much with drooling — something deeply upsetting at the time, but ironically, largely cured when I started smoking!

Growing up, I had so many unanswered questions — both medical and social. One of the biggest challenges I faced was people assuming I was drunk or learning disabled, which often made me feel vulnerable and misunderstood.

Inspiration behind BEAT BLOCKS

The inspiration behind Beat Blocks comes from a combination of my passions and background — all leading to an idea about how haptic dance floors could transform the live entertainment industry into a more immersive, inclusive, and exciting experience.

I’m an unlikely tech founder — probably the most luddite person I know — but Beat Blocks is driven by my passions and the accumulation of all my work and life experiences.

Education, Discovering Performance

At 18, I became a Special Support Assistant at a special needs school, which later led to me teaching SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) at my local further education college. I also completed a Post-16 Certificate in Education through evening classes.

During these years, the constant experience of discrimination quietly wore me down. Within my family and friends, it was often minimised or ignored. I felt as though I had a “dirty secret” — the label of being disabled — that I tried to brush off.

Performance poetry became my outlet; it was how I demonstrated my intelligence and shared my story. In 2015, I left teaching to create my first show, “Easy for You to Say.”

That’s when I became increasingly interested in how we could design theatre and performance spaces that embed inclusion from the very beginning.

From Poetry to Haptics

Poetry has always been an important part of my life, but due to my brain injury, I’ve always been rhythmically challenged.

This led me to explore haptic vests as a way to overcome those difficulties. I found it much easier to move and speak in time with music using vibration feedback. However, I noticed that while I could recognise songs through vibration alone, once the drums kicked in, everything else was drowned out.

That frustration sparked the idea for Beat Blocks — a vibrational haptic floor designed to deliver a detailed, rich range of vibrations that accurately reflect the nuances of music.
My love of theatre inspired me to make this technology portable and adaptable, suitable for different environments