In a bit of light relief Chris attended the South Wales Art Society (SWAS) Christmas event. A number of paintings were on display, where members can vote on the winner. Chris is seen here with mouth painter, iPad painting student and disability campaign legend Rosaleen Moriarty-Simmons, OBE. Rosie’s much loved book ‘Four Fingers and Fourteen Toes’ Can bee seen here.
Rosaleen is the only Thalidomide impaired person to have written her autobiography, and interspersed it with a definitive factual history of the drug Thalidomide from its early years of manufacture in Nazi Germany, and then into the new millennium.
Described as an essential read “that will make you laugh and cry, be angry and proud with every turn of the page” Four Fingers and Thirteen Toes tells the story of how Rosie overcame horrendous injuries to her physical being as a result of her mother being prescribed the “so-called” wonder drug that became known the world over as Thalidomide.
The drug left Rosie with four fingers, two sprouting from each shoulder and thirteen toes on legs which came to an abrupt end above the knee.
The fascinating and beautifully written true story, charts Rosie‘s birth into an Irish immigrant family, and leads the reader through every facet of her inspirational life. It includes her early years filled with long periods of hospitalisation and treatment; her education, employment and relationships; and onto true fulfilment of a lifetime’s desire to be independent.
