I was stricken with infantile paralysis (polio) at the age of two and had my last tendon stretching operation at about eleven, after that I tried to forget about it and get on with my life.

About five years ago I started to collapse forward and realized that the time had arrived when I needed some support in walking. I first paid for a brace to be made for me but it was not successful, so decided to have a go at making one myself. This, of course was all new to me so it was a matter of starting from scratch.

I was born in Victor Harbour in 1946 and when Polio came to visit me around 1950 I was probably 4 years old, too young to understand what was happening to me but definitely too young to remember much about it later. My family were living in Port Elliott at the time and I was the second in a line of four boys, luckily the only one infected by the polio virus.

I contracted the Paralytic Polio at the age of 9 and I led a fairly regular sort of existence once I got back into mainstream after being in hospital and enjoyed pretty decent health. By the time I was in my 40s started to experience difficulties which resulted in depression – stemmed from frustration not being able to do what you think you should be able to do.

It was 1946 and the war was finally over. The family had moved from London to Essex and I attended the local primary school.

One day we were supplied with a form to take home for our parents to sign, it was to advise them that with the onset of polio, the whole school was to be vaccinated, and they were required to sign the application giving their permission. With the knowledge that in the past I always had a bad reaction to any form of injection, my mother was naturally concerned.

Jo Gordon has had a love of drawing and painting since she was about six years old. After leaving school, she went to art school to refine her natural talent and gain useful skills and techniques in life drawing.

There was no epidemic in South Australia when I contracted Polio early in 1944 but it was one of those infectious diseases that was always around. I remember they put a block of camphor in a little bag that was hung around the neck in the hope that it would ward off polio. Not much use in my case!