The World I Fell Out Of: The Inspiring Sunday Times Bestseller

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There were challenges familiar to everyone. The anti-spasmodic drugs brought on the equivalent of early-stage dementia - my brain was woolly; my vocabulary went missing mid-sentence. Gene therapy will be the big thing in this century - changing genes, adapting genes, sending genes in to cure things. A lot of things will be cured by this therapy, like multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis and I think spinal repair will come out of that. And what about David? How did he feel about her openness? "I didn't show it to him before I sent it away," she says. "But, you know, he's very forthright, very realistic. And it's fine. We still have sexy cuddles. There is still a spark. We laugh a lot. And we adore each other. That's more important." She makes us coffee in the kitchen warmed by her blue Aga – occasional star of her columns - chatting about the wonderful horse country that lies around us. This webinar is available for on-demand viewing. The webinar recording will be available for registered event participants up to 60 days after the live webinar broadcast via Zoom. The link will be sent 24 hours after the webinar takes place.

In 2014 Gregor approached Times columnist Melanie Reid to help him tell his story. Together they travelled through the mining villages of central Scotland to uncover the mystery of his birth and early life. What emerged was a story of secrets, deception, tragic accidents and early death, coldness and rejection from some, but a welcome from the most unexpected of quarters.Most profoundly, the book explores how our identities are intertwined with our physical form, our mobility and our desirability: something most of us – in our able-bodied complacency – don't spend much time thinking about. And then I carry the coffees out to the table (“Every hand’s a help”) drenched with yesterday’s rain, to sit and talk, with the sun-warmed world at our feet. Now it’s challenging, going from a 52-fancies-herself-as-32-year-old woman, to 90 plus overnight… and even nonagenarians have superhero powers compared to tetraplegia. That’s 40 years of acclimatising to decline, frustration, loss of power and independence … pfff! – by-passed in an instant. So I abandon my car and walk the rest of the way up the rough path, suffused with an earthy smell of the outdoors, trying not to think the obvious: if you wanted to design a place perfectly unsuitable for tetraplegia, then don’t bother – nature got there long before you. And in two hours, they had stripped the tree completely. And I thought to myself, ‘If I’d been at work and come home, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed the berries had gone’. Yet the experience was so precious; like witnessing one of the mysteries of the world.”

A It is madness, the expense is colossal. I think it is one of the reasons my first marriage broke up. My husband said it was crazy, like digging a hole and throwing money into it. Melanie Reid will be in conversation with Libby Purves as part of the Cheltenham Literature Festival, from October 3-12; www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/literatureOnly after she came home to Stirlingshire, did she begin to accept her limitations (although, as we shall see, such things are relative). Returning to the countryside was both good and bad for her morale. She says it would have been a spiritual death to leave the house and might have killed her marriage. At the same time, gazing at hills she could no longer climb was a kind of torture. Reid says responding to the two complaints has already taken her four or five months of fulltime work. Jennings says the complaints have little merit and are an "abuse" of the complaints system.