Nicola Cecil was born into an Army family and enjoyed a nomadic childhood travelling with her parents and younger sister. After school and University in Bristol, she embarked on a career in international financial marketing before marrying her husband William. There followed a rather long break to raise her children, Amber, Jack and Katharine! Nicola has ridden since the age of nine and her whole family now has the equestrian bug. She runs a Livery Yard from her home near Winchester and her long involvement with horses became the catalyst for her association with the INSPIRE Foundation. She became a Patron in 2013.

Issy Bailey acquired a spinal injury in 2013, aged 19, following a car accident. During rehabilitation at Stoke Mandeville, Issy was introduced to shooting and was quickly picked up by the Paralympic shooting talent programme to shoot 10m air pistol. In 2014, she represented Great Britain for the first time and was selected for the World Class Programme in 2015. In 2016, she represented Paralympics GB at the Games in Rio, a few weeks after graduating from university.

She has since gone on to her second Paralympic Games in Tokyo 2021, competing in 10m air pistol and 25m sport pistol, and continues to represent GB on the World Shooting Parasport circuit. She also completed her Master's Degree in 2021 and hopes to go on to study for a PhD in the near future. Outside the shooting range, Issy is an avid traveller, visiting places few wheelchair users have been before, such as some of the South Pacific's smallest islands. She's delighted to be a patron for INSPIRE and hopes to encourage all with spinal injuries to pursue what they love most.

Sarah was born and grew up in Stirlingshire, Scotland where she attended primary and prep schools before boarding at St. Anne’s Windermere.  She spent a gap year as an `au pair’ in Germany and then decided to join the Army.  She was commissioned into the Womens Royal Army Corps in and left in order to get married.  There followed years travelling the World as an army wife, including tours in Hong King, Cyprus and Germany while harnessing her interest as a Case Worker for both SSAFA and Age Concern.  When her first marriage ended in 1993, Sarah moved to Shaftesbury and became a “Carer in the Community” looking after people in their own homes.  She re-married in 1996.

Sarah then undertook training at the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Unit in Salisbury learning lifting and handling techniques.  Many of her clients were wheelchair bound due to spinal injury, stroke, MS or dementia.  She worked for ‘Family Support’, covering South West Wilts and North Dorset, which then became part of ‘The Leonard Cheshire Foundation’.   In total she was a carer for 21 years before retiring in 2014.

In 2013, Sarah and her husband Christopher Cann, a self-employed businessman in Dorset, became Volunteers with the INSPIRE Foundation and have supported all possible activities and events over the years.   Sarah was on the board of INSPIRE Trustees for 5 years and is now delighted to become a Patron.

INSPIRE is delighted to have a new Patron in the House of Lords.  Caroline Cox, Baroness Cox of Queensberry, is a member of the World Committee on Disability and has been a member of the House of Lords since 1982.  We are delighted to welcome Baroness Cox to INSPIRE as a Patron and look forward to working with her.

Baroness (Caroline) Cox was created a Life Peer in 1982 and was a deputy speaker of the House of Lords from 1985 to 2005.  She was Founder Chancellor of Bournemouth University; Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University from 2006-2013 and is an Hon. Vice President of the Royal College of Nursing.   She was a founder Trustee of MERLIN [Medical Emergency Relief International] and is Founder and President of HART [Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust].

Her humanitarian work takes her to conflict and post-conflict zones, including the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda, Syria, the Shan and Chin regions of Burma. Previously, she visited communities suffering from conflict in Indonesia, helping to establish the International Islamic Christian Organisation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction (IICORR) with late former President Abdurrhaman Wahid.  She has visited North Korea to promote Parliamentary initiatives and medical programmes.

 Caroline Cox has been honoured with the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland; the Wilberforce Award; the International Mother Teresa Award from the All India Christian Council; the Mkhitar Gosh Medal conferred by the President of the Republic of Armenia; and the anniversary medal presented by Lech Walesa.  She has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Honorary Doctorates by universities in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, the Russian Federation and Armenia.

Prof Emeritus Michael Craggs has recently stepped down after nine years with INSPIRE’s National Scientific Committee and a distinguished career committed to medical science.  Michael is an Alumnus of both University College London (UCL) Faculty of Medicine and King's College London Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), Psychology & Neuroscience. Here Michael was also a Senior Scientist in the Medical Research Council’s Neurological Prostheses Unit for over 20 years with Professor Giles Brindley FRS.

He is Emeritus Professor of Applied Clinical Neurophysiology in the UCL Faculty of Medical Science and Former Director of Neuro-spinal Research & Consultant Clinical Scientist for the Functional Assessment & Restoration Service at The London Spinal Cord Injury Centre, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore. He also sits as an Observer at the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Spinal Cord Injury.  He is one of the world’s leading authorities on the clinical development and application of medical devices. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Michael was appointed a Life Patron in June 2021.  While technically retired, he intends to remain an active member of the INSPIRE community offering advice and guidance based on more than 40 years in the field of applied clinical neurophysiology. An accomplished sailor, Michael now lives with Angela in rural Somerset in a beautifully converted coach house.

John was born in Bath in 1974 and was brought up in rural Wiltshire. After attending King Edward’s School Bath where he was Head Boy, he won a place at Oxford University reading Modern History. There followed a career in industry in UK and USA and in politics. He was also a Magistrate (JP) at Horseferry Road, Westminster from 2006 to 2012. John was elected as MP for Salisbury and South Wilts at the 2010 General Election and became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in September 2012. After more than 10 years in the Commons in September 2021, he became the longest serving Economic Secretary to the Treasury since the creation of the post in 1947.  In October 2022 he was selected to join the Cabinet by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and became Chief Secretary to HM Treasury.  Of particular note and since 2010,  he has also been a much revered Patron of the INSPIRE Foundation.

Link: John Glen MP

Genevieve was born in London in 1962 and lived her early life in Berkshire. Her parents Gerald & Janet Benney were instrumental in launching the charity polo which the INSPIRE Foundation has been running for nearly twenty years. Genevieve’s first serious job in 1982 when she became the ‘Fan Mail Secretary’ to the Prince of Wales. She was later promoted to Personal Secretary to H.R.H. The Prince of Wales a position she held until 1994 and for which she was made a Member of the Victorian Order. At the same time she married and has since had three children. She subsequently started a fledgling artistic career and in 1999 also became Secretary to the Action Medical Research Charity in the South East area. She agreed to become a Patron of the INSPIRE Foundation in July 2014.

In 2009, aged just 17, Max suffered a C5/6 complete spinal cord injury whilst playing rugby for Truro School in Cornwall. Prior to his accident he lived an active life enjoying numerous sports and had lived on four continents due to his military upbringing.

Since the accident Max has strived to continue his lifestyle. He spent nine months in hospital, 6 of which were in Salisbury Spinal Treatment Centre, where he first discovered INSPIRE and felt a connection with our aims. After hospital he went straight back to Truro School to complete his A levels, achieving 2As and a B, despite missing many weeks with bouts of UTI, skin problems and exhaustion.

Following a gap year spent in and around Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) he went to the University of East Anglia where he gained a first class BSc in Business Economics, before taking up a scholarship and achieving a Merit in a Development Economics degree at master’s level.

He has since moved to East London where he has used the degrees in his work for the Government Economic Service, seconded to the Department for Work & Pensions. During his 7 years he has worked on a Pensions white paper, forecasted expenditure on disability benefits, analysed customer complaints and now leads the Ethnic Minority & Disadvantaged groups Analysis team.

In his spare time Max is still an avid sports fan, regularly attending West Ham football (where he has a season ticket), Twickenham for the rugby and visiting various F1 tracks around the world, and was thrilled to meet his tetraplegic hero Sir Frank Williams before his death, also taking a spin driving in an adapted vehicle at Snetterton racetrack! He also plays wheelchair rugby with London Wheelchair Rugby Club. He is still passionate about Travel and participating in any activity he is offered. With a mind to showing newly injured people that there is a life after injury he has started a YouTube channel showing his adventures called TheTetraTravels. He has recently started performing Stand Up comedy in various clubs throughout London.

Max has always been a keen supporter of disability rights and research in general, having other members of his family who also have different disabilities. This is why he gravitated towards INSPIRE and feels now is the right time to take a more active role. He hopes that he can help illustrate SCI in a positive light while highlighting the issues that come with his disability and how important research can be. He will be attending various INSPIRE events & highlighting the charity in his personal time. In September he is aiming to be the highest level spinal injured person to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and will be raising funds to support INSPIRE alongside other charities with which he has close connections.

Anne Luttman-Johnson was formally a solicitor with Irwin Mitchell. In 1984, while studying for her law degree, she sustained a spinal cord injury (T11 complete) in a car accident.

After qualifying as a solicitor she spent one year in private practice before moving to London to work for the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA). She spent 5 years with SIA developing their Legal Claims Service, and helping injured people and their families obtain specialist advice on claiming compensation. In 1995 she set up her own business as an expert witness, advising courts on the cost of disability.  In 2004 she started with Irwin Mitchell providing support to the firm’s spinal cord injured clients, advising on a wide range of issues, including housing, benefits, mobility, equipment needs, personal and social life. In addition she lectured on the cost of disability.  Anne enjoys travel and sailing, which she was able to combine when she sailed across the Atlantic in a tall ship in 2006 and from India to Singapore in 2014. She sings with a local choral society, and has been known to take to the stage in her village pantomimes.

In December 1992 Nessie dislocated and fractured her spinal cord at L1 by slipping on some ice whilst working as a Chalet Girl in France. She spent five months ‘in rehab’ at the Spinal Unit in Salisbury where the INSPIRE team was a massive source of inspiration and encouragement to her. She will never forget the very real fear of permanent paralysis becoming a reality. However, unlike the majority she was lucky and made an almost complete recovery.

Having previously cooked for clients’ private dinner parties, she soon discovered this was too physical after her accident so for five years she had a lovely job working at ‘Books for Cooks’ in London. This gave her the idea of launching Cook to INSPIRE. For Nessie, life did slowly return to normal and in time she married her lovely and supportive husband David. They had two children William and Jemima (now 11 and 9) and live in rural Dorset where she is just embarking on a B&B enterprise. She became a Patron of the INSPIRE Foundation in March 2016.

After attending Eton College, Jonathan Rudge went up to St Andrew’s University in Scotland, where he sustained a C5/6 Spinal Cord Injury in a car crash in 1981.

After rehabilitation, he gained a degree in Computing at Oxford Polytechnic, and worked in IT, before discovering a passion for biology. He completed Bachelors’ then Master’s degrees with the Open University, and was then awarded a PhD by Reading University in 2019.  He is now undertaking post-doctoral research in computer modelling and brain physiology, especially relating to Alzheimer’s disease.

Jonathan is married to Cherry, who works in leadership and management development, with global organisations across the world, including WaterAid and Save the Children.  One of his sisters is a senior nurse in the Spinal Injuries unit at Salisbury District Hospital.  Jonathan was elected to the INSPIRE Foundation Executive Committee in 1995, he became a Trustee in 2005 and Patron in 2024.

Barbara is a physiotherapist who trained at the Middlesex Hospital School of Physiotherapy, subsequently working her way through all of the various specialities, culminating in her being appointed to the role of Superintendent Physiotherapist at the Middlesex, the youngest in the country at the time.

After the birth of her first child, she went into private practice, working from home in South London. She has treated a broad spectrum of patients, the youngest being a day old and the oldest, at 101, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who she looked after for 14 years. Amongst her eclectic group of patients have been three Queens, one King, nine princes and princesses, one Prime Minister and her local refuse collectors, who frequently suffer from bad backs! In addition, she was selected to offer specialist support at the 2012 Olympic Games and in her uniquely understated way, felt ‘privileged’ to be part of such a special event.

Happily married for 34 years, with two grown up married daughters, she continues to practise and also looks after her little Grandson on a regular basis. With her wide ranging specialist experience, the Charity was delighted when Barbara agreed to further her interest in the INSPIRE Foundation, by becoming a Patron in December 2017.