I AM very glad for his sake that Billy Connolly is able to deal so stoically with his Parkinson's disease, and that he is able to use his work as a distraction ("Connolly works to forget Parkinson's", The Herald, October 17). Not all are so fortunate. Everyone's experience of disease is different, and many sufferers of Parkinson's disease and similar progressive neurological conditions are so seriously debilitated that they are not fit to work, no matter how much they might want to.
Mr Connolly is fortunate in that his celebrity status virtually guarantees him the opportunity of lucrative employment for as long as he wishes. Again, few are so privileged. In the everyday workplace, I imagine the chances of a 72-year old man suffering from Parkinson's disease being accepted by an employer are virtually nil.
To give the impression, albeit subliminal, that anyone suffering from Parkinson's disease can rise above it by keeping working is unrealistic and unhelpful.
Mr Connolly goes on to pronounce that he regards retirement as "an obscenity". Here again, everyone experiences retirement differently. While a few may descend into the sort of hopeless desolation he seems to think so widespread, it seems to me that the vast majority of retired folk - myself included - are out and about, thoroughly enjoying the well-earned fruits of their retirement in the most creative and rewarding fashion available to them. To depict retirement in Mr Connolly's doom-laden terms is, in my view, a harsh and uninformed hyperbole which paints an entirely false picture and helps no-one.
Celebrity does not constitute expertise.
Iain Stuart,
34 Oakbank Crescent, Perth.
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