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Getting married wasn’t “on the books” for London couple Craig Pollard and Alex Herd for a long time. But that changed when Alex got diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in 2021, aged 30. “We decided to get married as a bit of a consequence of Alex’s diagnosis,” explains Pollard, 35. “It wasn’t something that was on the books for us before, especially as being gay, marriage wasn’t available to us when we were younger, so wasn’t necessarily something we’d aspired to. “But then thinking about the legacy we wanted and how much time we had together, we saw it as a good way of bringing our families together and celebrating something really positive in our life.” MND affects nerves in the brain and spinal cord which send signals to muscles. There is currently no cure, so as muscle loss gets worse over time – affecting movement, speech, swallowing and breathing – it eventually leads to death. It’s uncommon and mostly affects people in their 60s and 70s, although as Herd’s diagnosis shows, MND can occur in younger adults too. The charity Challenging MND, which helps people with MND, has the ‘opportunity to create amazing memories’, funded the couple’s big day last year – a fabulous festival-inspired party officiated by drag queen Just May from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 4. They had already been together for a decade, so the wedding was a “celebration of all the things we’ve enjoyed together over the last 10 years”, Pollard notes (plus “lots of glitter and sparkle – it was perfect”). It was also the last time Herd went a full day without using a wheelchair. “So it was the very last moment we possibly could have done that,” adds Herd, now 32. “And we can look back at that as a really special day.” He first started noticing symptoms in early 2021 – muscle twitching then weakness in his hands and arms, before his legs became increasingly affected. Herd used a manual wheelchair for a while but recently switched to an electric one. “That’s changed my life quite a lot,” says Herd. “While I was in the manual wheelchair and Craig was pushing around, I sort of felt like I didn’t really exist anymore, because everyone would interact with him, and I wasn’t responsible for where I was. But now I’m in control of my movement, I feel like I’m more interacting with people myself.” The diagnosis has been challenging on multiple levels, individually and as a couple. MND doesn’t present with exactly the same patterns for everyone – so there is no guidebook as such, and navigating support services relies on a lot of self-advocating. Things such as specialist physiotherapy and occupational therapy can be helpful, along with home adaptations. “Having MND, you have to get used to things changing,” says Herd. “I mean, I can’t necessarily relate at this point to someone who’s been in their wheelchair for their whole life, but because things keep changing, you can’t really get used to it properly. So it’s very difficult for me to kind of keep hold of my identity.” In a recent survey, Challenging MND found 63% of people living with the MND had felt marginalised or ‘othered’ because of their condition, while 51% felt others see MND as their identity. In addition, 80% said they felt isolated, and 69% worry about being a burden to their family. Feeling ‘othered’ is something Alex found himself thinking about while attending Pride London recently. “It’s almost more like something I’m doing, than something other people are doing – because I’m seeing people doing what I would’ve been doing a year ago, it’s still fairly fresh for me, so I’m still comparing the before and after,” he reflects. “At Pride, lots of people get to see themselves represented in the crowds, and that’s nice. But then I realised how much more of a minority people in wheelchairs are. It made us realise how different our situation is now, our priorities and expectations in general.” Music has been an important way for him to stay connected with his identity. “I’ve been making music for over 10 years, so it’s nice I’m still able to do that. I think as much as possible, people in a situation like this need to try and keep doing the things that made them happy before,” he says. While he can no longer play his guitar, Herd made voice recordings to use an instrument and creates tracks on his computer, using foot pedals as he can no longer click the mouse. Since his diagnosis, he’s actually been finishing a lot more songs. “I have less distractions now!” Herd quips. “But using music as a communication tool, that’s definitely become more important to me.” Challenging MND also supported the couple with a trip to Eurovision – “which was really touching and we made great memories”, says Pollard. They’re also grateful to support from the Motor Neurone Disease Association, who provides a local area liaison, and their local St Christopher’s Hospice has been “really helpful”. These things make a huge difference. “Something I’m very conscious of as an able-bodied person is watching Alex have to come to terms with first of all being disabled, then being visibly disabled, and then being disabled in public – there’s been a lot of different elements we’ve had to really tackle,” Pollard reflects, citing navigating public transport as one of the main everyday challenges. There’s an emotional toll too. “My energy levels are a lot lower than they used to be, and my capacity for stress. I feel like I already have this much higher baseline of anxiety about various things, so it feels much easier to become overwhelmed,” says Herd. “I think the only thing we can really do is just try and focus on the next thing, rather than worrying about everything.” As members of the LGBTQ+ community, there are sometimes other nuances to their experiences. They’ve noticed LGBTQ+ events are doing well with accessibility, but representation can be a more subtle matter. “There’s definitely an element of the community who are very mindful of others and very empathetic, which I think has been where I’ve learned a lot about different people’s experiences in my life,” says Pollard. “But when it comes to the overall society of the community, I think there’s still a large proportion of it based on image, based around being cool and trendy. So it’s quite easy for people with accessible requirements to be kind of ignored in that space.” As for their experiences in public, Craig says: “We have struggled to feel like we can take up space. First of all being LGBT, we often don’t feel that safe in certain spaces, public transport we’ve had trouble on once or twice in the past, so you’re always a bit uneasy. With moving into being more visibly disabled and needing more accessible requirements, that’s something we’ve to discuss and manage.” Thanks to Challenging MND, the couple are banking up the joyful times. “They offered to support our wedding, which was really special, and without them we probably wouldn’t have had it,” says Pollard. “That isn’t just a memory for us, it’s a memory for our families and friends too. It was really special.” Challenging MND aims to support and empower those living with MND to create lasting memories for themselves and their families. To date they’ve granted in excess of £1.1million and supported over 100 families.

After Colleen Ballinger posted a video in response to the grooming and predatory behaviour allegations made against her, Adam McIntyre one of the first to speak about his experience with Ballinger whilst she was an adult and he was a minor, uploaded his own video. McIntyre, who is now 22, had raised issues publicly about Ballinger back in 2020. At the time, the 36-year-old known for YouTube personality 'Miranda Sings', responded to his claims, admitting to sending him a bra when he was just a teenager. During that apology video, she had said: "I don't know what part of my brain was missing at the time. But I am not a monster, I am not a groomer, and I shouldn't kill myself." At the time, people had largely accepted her apology and many turned on McIntyre as a result. But this year, McIntyre posted another video, this time over an hour long, documenting his relationship with Ballinger. In the video, he shared screenshots of a group chat he was in with Ballinger and other fans of her's called "Colleeny's Weenies," where she had asked a teenage McIntyre what his "favourite position" was. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter McIntyre's allegations led to others coming out about how Ballinger had made them uncomfortable whilst they were minors. McIntyre has initially responded to the video on Twitter saying: "As much as Colleen discredited & made fun of me, I'm glad her video did ONE thing, show you all Exactly the type of evil woman she is". However, McIntyre has now posted a response of his own, with the same title and same 'style'. hi. www.youtube.com At the beginning of his video, McIntyre picks up a ukulele, starts strumming the strings randomly and says: "Hey. It seems this is the only way she'll listen." "What was not true?" McIntyre asks when she says that the claims going around "aren't quite true." Later on, he says "we're all ears" when Ballinger claims that people don't care about her side of the story. He says that Ballinger "harassed" him for "three years in group chats." He also argues that in her 2020 apology video she "edited evidence to make a 17-year-old look bad." As well as saying that she doesn't have any facts to disprove his claims. When Ballinger tries to explain she was just trying to be "besties with everybody", McIntyre says: "Besties with children? Don't really know if that's helping your case." However he agrees with her when she says her behaviour was "weird": "It was weird," he sings, before bluntly saying, "very, actually." He also disagrees with Ballinger's claim that she "changed her behaviours and took accountability." He simply asks, "where? Where did you do that?" "There's making a mistake and then there's what you've done, for years," McIntyre adds. When Ballinger says that her YouTube persona Miranda Sings has always been PG-13 and that she has "always relied on parents to decide if they're comfortable with their families watching my YouTube videos or coming to my live shows." "You cater towards children," McIntyre says, "let's not pretend that Miranda Sings has not been a character catered towards children." In her song, Ballinger minimises an ex-fan named Becky, who came forward saying that when she was about 16 she went to a Miranda Sings show and got called up on stage for the "yoga challenge". "I am laying down and Colleen is spreading my legs," explains Becky. "She spreads them so far that you can see the spandex I was wearing under my romper." "I was lying under Colleen and she was smirking down at me while thousands of people were laughing and I was terrified that my body wasn't covered enough by the spandex or the romper. I basically felt naked, so it felt incredibly sexually violating," Becky shares. "For her to use my body as entertainment on stage really set my confidence back quite a lot." Becky also said that afterwards she felt that many men were staring at her in "a very predatory way." Colleen then referred to this situation in her song as simply a "fart joke." McIntyre puts down his ukulele and says: "You didn't make a fart joke. You called a fan, who was a minor, up on stage and spread their legs and made their body a joke, so much so that they felt threatened leaving the venue." He adds, "how dare you diminish what Becky spoke up about." Many viewers enjoyed McIntyre's response, with one fan commenting "Adam had the chance to do the funniest thing possible and he did." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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