About Me — James Warwick
Stumbling through life, one trip to the pavement at a time.
Hello! I’m James and I live in the UK.
I’ve suffered from cerebral palsy my whole life, but, I’ve never really felt it as being an ‘identity’, it’s just something that’s always been with me.
I was born 12 weeks premature, weighing 2 pounds 7 ounces and wasn’t immediately the odds on favourite for survival. So the fact I’m sitting here typing this 30 years on is a small miracle in itself.
Studies have shown that on average, within the first seven seconds of meeting someone, a person will have a solid impression of who you are. When your legs carry you into a room of new people looking like you’ve just fallen out of the pub, regardless of the time of day, it can feel like you’re starting on the wrong foot. There are a number of events in my life that I’m sure you have also experienced similarly – starting a new school or college, going to University, attending a job interview or meeting someone for a first date. If truth be told, I’ve probably approached every one of those with the feeling in the back of my mind that someone is going to judge me, purely based on something I have no control over, before I’ve even said a single word.
Whilst my condition has limited my ability to participate in sports, I am a big fan of spectating them! The two sports I follow most closely, are Football.. and Football, or to make it a little easier to distinguish Soccer and the NFL, my teams in the respective sports are Liverpool and the Las Vegas Raiders, I also follow the England national team very closely and was fortunate enough to attend a number of games at the recent Euro 2020 finals.
Aside from writing, I host and produce a weekly podcast called ‘You Really Shouldn’t Have’ – each week I sit down with a different guest to discuss their career and the story behind the worst gift they’ve ever been given! I’ve had some amazing people on the show over the past year, including Michael Jackson’s former publicist, Howard Bloom, to the drummer of Jane’s Addiction, Stephen Perkins.
During my time at University I performed stand up comedy mainly around London and the south of England, I also performed a 1 hour solo show titled ‘Walking Tall, But Limping Slightly.’ Whilst it's been almost ten years since I last performed, it's a period of my life I look back on fondly and met some great people in the process.
My writing usually focuses on my own experiences of living with a physical disability since birth and stories of me navigating the world around me to the best of my ability.
I’ve heard people ask a number of times, ‘If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change?’ Now, with me, there is an obvious answer, but the truth is… I hate only being 5'6 so I’d make myself 6ft!
Living with a disability sure does present its challenges, but had I not faced and tackled these to the best of my ability, I would not be the person I am today.
