> Putting people first >
Registered Charity No: 1059015
Return to homepage (alt-1)- Who we are (alt-a)
- What we do (alt-d)
- How you can help (alt-h)
- Services (alt-s)
- Text version (alt-t)
- Return to graphical version
Meet the HAD/Accord winner
Ann Norman has Multiple Sclerosis. She also has an academic and business CV that’s second to none. And now she is £1500 richer after being honoured in the 2003 HAD/Accord awards.
More than 40 guests, including dignitaries and friends gathered at HAD’s Welwyn Garden City HQ to see Accord Chief Executive Stelio Stefanou present the cheque to Ann.
“It’s great to receive this award and I want to thank HAD and Accord for their generosity,” Ann explained. “I want everyone to know I’ll be putting the money towards buying a new motorised wheelchair next year,” Ann said.
Ann, from Hitchin, developed MS in 1983 but continued with her job as Head Occupational Therapist at Hitchin Hospital despite failing health and the demands of looking after her sick husband, four teenage children and terminally ill father.
In 1985 she was taken ill again with Crohn’s Disease and was forced into early retirement. However an improvement in her health saw her take up calligraphy and soon after she started studying German.
“I’d visited my daughter and family there and was frustrated at not being able to speak the language,” Ann explained. She obtained O, AS and A levels and then became an undergraduate at Luton University where she gained a BA degree in German.
Ann then started a part-time MSc course in Geography, Health and Environment at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU) in Cambridge, gaining her degree in 2003. Ann’s dissertation topic researched ‘the needs of disabled people in flood warning and response’.
She is currently continuing to work in this field and has recently begun a distance-learning part-time course at Northumbria University leading to a PhD.
The annual HAD/Accord awards were established 15 years ago in memory of local businessman and Accord founder John Doyle, who had Multiple Sclerosis for most of his life.
Previous | Next Archive story: Julie spreads the word on epilepsy
Back
Tel: 