County disability group keeps up good work of website's founder (From Hereford Times)

County disability group keeps up good work of website's founder

8:00am Monday 7th January 2013 in News By Mark Bowen

WHEN Roy Nicholls died the disability campaign group he set up with wife Sylvie not only lost a much loved member but also a vital element in its operation.

Roy, who suffered from spinal muscular atrophy and cancer, was the webmaster for Herefordshire Disability United (HDU) and also put the group's magazine together despite his regressive condition which prevented virtually all his voluntary muscles, with the exception of the heart, from functioning.

His death in October meant Sylvie had to learn the complicated hypertext markup language (HTML) used for putting web pages together.

Planning for this started before Roy died, with him instructing his wife in the mysteries of computer code.

“Roy was seen as the face of HDU as without his years of experience and knowledge the group would not have been initiated,” said Sylvie, who lives in Lea, near Ross-on-Wye, and cared for her husband 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Roy, who worked as a highways engineer in Powys, was self-taught when it came to computers and Sylvie hopes she will be able to develop her knowledge in the same way but it’s likely she will need some help.

“I think eventually I will have to get somebody in to support me,” said Sylvie.

Anyone interested in helping the group with their IT skills can email sylvia.nicholls@btinternet.com

The website can be found at herefordshiredisabilityunited.org.uk