In the third in our series Women on Wheels, editor Liz spoke to Meg Peplowen about getting around on a mobility scooter.

This interview was first published in Issue 26. You can buy the issue here or subscribe to Oh Comely here. 

Meg Peplowen‘s reputation has preceded her. Her scooter is just back from the repairman after she burnt out its motor brushes in a mere two years. I‘ve heard tales of her riding it down rough tracks and hauling herself over low-hanging branches—no small feat given that MS limits her mobility. At home in picturesque Snowdonia, I call Meg for a chat about how wheels have enhanced her life.

I hear you‘re quite hard on your scooters. The first one that I had, I struck lucky and got a secondhand old tank, absolutely brilliant. It lasted me ten years or so of really pushing it, going off on bumpy tracks and up steep hills. The scooter I‘ve got now is not quite so robust. So I‘ve been a bit more gentle on it, but I just can‘t give up getting out of the village and there are some quite steep roads out. They give you a feeling of height and being away from things.

When you first got it, how did it change your life? With MS, like a lot of chronic illnesses, a major part is balancing how you‘re using your energy. I‘ve always loved being out in nature, and I used to love walking—I‘d walk really far. Having the scooter allowed me to do the boring bits of the walk, through the village and up the hill, and then I‘d park my scooter on the side of the road and head off on my crutches. If I‘d set off walking from my house, by the time I‘d got to anywhere nice, I would be too exhausted to go any further. It was a huge increase in my freedom, and it has really helped me cope with the decreasing ability to walk.

Some people use scooters and some people use wheelchairs, and I was wondering what determines which one you go for. I wouldn‘t feel secure enough on a powered wheelchair going along roads or tracks. The big plus for wheelchairs is their manoeuvrability. I‘ll use my wheelchair to get around the house on days when my legs are really buckling. And I have a very heroic spouse who will push me on it. There‘s a quarry where you can walk all the way along to the end of one of the lowest slag heaps, then there‘s a wonderful view out over the valley. I hadn‘t been up there for years and my partner Nick pushed me up there and along this hill. They had put a new safety fence there that goes up nearly five feet. So I was there in the wheelchair with this big horrible ugly fence between me and the view. We got to the end, and I stood up, but it still wasn‘t enough for me to be able to see over, so I decided to climb over the fence. I was using my wheelchair as a climbing prop, and I‘ve got one very unmoveable leg, so it‘s really quite a challenge to get that over the fence, but I managed it.

And then you had to get back over the fence the other way without the wheelchair! Yes. Without the wheelchair. Nature is a very replenishing thing, though. In a way, I had more ability for climbing back over.

Read more in this series: Pam Prescod Drives a Bus; Stefanie Mainey Competes on Roller Skates.