Learning to fly
The moment Resie Alcott saw her son Zack fly past the kitchen window on a skateboard, she knew it was only a matter of time before his younger brother Dylan would follow.
“Whatever Zack did, Dylan wanted to do too,” she smiles, “and we treated them exactly the same so when Dylan decided he wanted to go skateboarding with his brother, we found a way to do it.”
Modified skateboards for disabled kids weren’t readily available in the 1990s, but as they’d done many times before, when a hurdle was placed in front of Resie and Martin Alcott, they simply jumped higher to overcome it.
“We always found a way for Dylan to do what he wanted to do,” she says. “We made our own skateboard – we bought a long board and put wheels on it – it worked beautifully and Dylan loved it,” even if she was a nervous wreck every time he took off down the street of the family’s bayside Melbourne home.
“Can you imagine me on a skateboard on my stomach flying down the street?” Dylan laughs. “Cars can’t see me, I’m a big chance of being run over, it was so dangerous … but I thought I was invincible. Now that I’m older I can see how difficult it would’ve been for Mum and Dad to let me
