BY coincidence, the announcement of an MBE in the New Year Honours list for special gymnastics coach John Grady coincided with news of the death of disabled campaigner Gill Curtis.

In their different ways, both have made an enormous contribution to improving the lives of disabled people in Jersey and to bringing about what amounts to a remarkable change in social attitudes. While offering warm congratulations to Mr Grady, therefore, we also pay tribute to the life and work of Miss Curtis, a wheelchair user with muscular dystrophy who was herself made MBE in 1999 for her tireless work towards equality of treatment.

It seems astonishing now that, not so very long ago, people with disabilities were marginalised from mainstream society, routinely patronised or neglected, and even shunned. No one who has seen the standards of performance and degree of personal satisfaction attained by members of Mr Grady’s Jersey Special Gymnastics Club can be in any doubt that the only real limits in life are the practical ones, a matter of degree which affects all of us, whether disabled or not.

A former head teacher of Mont à l’Abbé School – itself an institution which has made a major contribution to the development of more inclusive social policies and attitudes in Jersey – Mr Grady has seen the school’s now renamed gym club develop into one which competes at the highest level and regularly provides gymnasts for the Great Britain team. Its success has reinforced a steady shift which now ensures that sport for the disabled enjoys full support, funding and recognition, in a welcome local reflection of international change.

The level of interest in this year’s Paralympics, in which Jersey’s Simon Laurens was a medal winner in the dressage team, and the continuing success of the Jersey Sports Association for the Disabled and its annual games provide further evidence of this trend.

Away from the sports field, meanwhile, the needs of the disabled are now routinely taken into consideration in the workplace and in the planning of buildings, helping to ensure that everyone in Jersey can enjoy the opportunity to achieve their full potential. That situation could not have been reached without the empathy, commitment and determination of people like Mr Grady and Miss Curtis, to whom Jersey owes a debt of gratitude.