It was with great excitement I made my way to the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games.
Ticket, programme and apple in hand I was ready to be 'dazzled' as Seb Coe puts it. With many thanks to Gregor at DUGV our seats were 10 rows from the front, in prime location to see the hoisting of the Paralympic Flag and the lighting of the torch.
A favourite moment was when the Queen declared the Paralympic Games open! Ever since I had been part of the project I had been waiting for the Games to start. We were nudging nearer with every Channel 4 show and every ticket sold to make it the first ever sell-out and now it’s here and the hard work begins.
It was amazing to watch the athletes’ parade in their specially designed kit. We cheered on and on through the alphabet: Brazil … Egypt … Jordan … Lesotho - the crowd were still going strong. Mauritius … Panama - flags keep flying, hands keeping waving. Then the Ss and Ts, and I knew itv was not long now.
Virgin Islands, Zambia, Zimbabwe and finally Great Britain!
The crowd uses all their reserves of energy and everybody’s on their feet stamping and clapping. But I can’t get a good photo because of the confetti.
It was a pleasure to follow Miranda on her journey of scientific discovery with the help of Stephen Hawking. I had only ever heard his voice on TV but to hear him in the huge stadium tell us 'don’t just look down at your feet, look up at the stars' was great. To celebrate Newton’s discovery of gravity we all took a collective bite of an apple.
What a special evening it was and far we’ve come from 1948 playing Archery on the lawn in front of Stoke Mandeville hospital.
