Ex-Army officer with Parkinson’s Disease who drove across Africa to raise awareness of this incurable illness
INTERVIEW MARK DIXON
I’M NOT AN OFF-ROAD enthusiast, but I’m always wanting to see what’s on the other side of the hill; to go places that other people can’t or won’t go to. I used to be very gregarious but having Parkinson’s has made me more solitary, because I don’t want to keep having to explain myself. And I like to be self-sufficient.
I was serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2010 as a Colonel in the British Army when the first signs of the disease appeared. I was tripping and stumbling more than usual, and my right hand seemed to have a mind of its own – while I was brushing my teeth with my left hand, the right would float upwards independently. Shortly after I returned home in December 2010, my nephew Charles visited, who happened to be an Army doctor in training. He insisted I see a consultant.
The examination took less than ten minutes and then the neurologist said: ‘The good news is you have Parkinson’s. There are pills to control it and it won’t kill you. The bad news is there’s no cure and it’s going to get worse.’
Fortunately, the British Army is a fabulous employer and kept confidence in me, even though they were aware the disease was stalking me. But by 2019 it was time to go. I decided my last great adventure would be an odyssey: to drive from home in England through Africa to Sierra Leone and beyond. But to give it some meaning, I wanted to raise awareness of Parkinson’s in Africa, where an estimated 2.2million people suffer from it, often without access to affordable medicine. Helen Matthews, CEO of the charity Cure Parkinson’s, appointed me as an ambassador, and four weeks later the adventure began.
I’d bought my VW T5.1 California camper two years earlier, to replace my old T2.5 Syncro. The T5.1 has four-wheel drive but is actually less capable than the Syncro because it has no crawler gear, less-effective diff locks, and lower ground clearance. But a brilliant bloke called Rob Willis of Volkstrek in Aberystwyth prepped it with a Seikel two-inch suspension lift, bash plates and rock sliders and much else, and I set off through Europe.
I’d only got as far as Andorra when the rear diff broke. Jimmy, an ex-pat Brit at my campsite, and his friend Mohammed helped me order a new one; they then fitted it for a pittance before Mohammed took me round some shops owned by friends and relatives, who loaded me up wit
