Mary Colley: Tribute by Dr David Pollak
Mary Colley was the founder of the UK Developmental Adult Neurodiversity Association (DANDA). This is a personal statement by Dr David Pollak, founder of BRAIN.HE.
Mary died on Wednesday 22nd September 2010. I would like to express my appreciation of her contribution to the world of neurodiversity in terms of her collaboration with me. Of course I am aware that the foundation of DANDA, and her books, are key memorials to Mary; at this point, I simply wish to put my personal gratitude to her on record.
The first time we worked together was at a conference I organised at De Montfort University (Leicester) in September 2004. Mary spoke on ‘Learning support for dyspraxic students’ and wrote up her talk as an article in the conference proceedings book. This was my introduction to her courage, determination and inimitable presentation style. Subsequently, Mary kindly agreed to join the Advisory Group for the BRAIN.HE project. She came to meetings over three years, and always had valuable things to say. I went to two DANDA conferences in London, and spoke at one of them. These enabled me to witness Mary’s dynamism and to see what a difference she made to so many people’s lives.
When I put together ‘Neurodiversity in Higher Education: positive responses to specific learning differences’, Mary was the obvious person to write the chapter entitled ‘Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder – AD(H)D’. This was a major task for Mary; although an ADDer herself, she had not previously researched the literature to the extent which she had for dyspraxia. Although Mary had a degree in Medieval History and a Postgraduate Diploma in Librarianship, she achieved these before being identified with any learning difference. I was highly impressed by the range of AD(H)D literature she assembled, and by her command of the issues. Mary made no secret of the effort it took her to produce academic writing. She was always a demanding author for an editor to work with, but my goodness it was worth it.
Our final collaboration was for the National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP), which publishes the Journal of Inclusive Practice in Further and Higher Education. As editor of Issue 2, on neurodiversity (December 2009), I invited Mary to contribute an article. She chose to combine her interests, proposing the title ‘Dyspraxia and AD(H)D in post-16 education’, and stating in her introduction that ‘the two types of neurodiversity have been dealt with together because in 40 – 50% of people they overlap’. Mary was interviewed on camera for the BRAIN.HE project. Typically, she declined to use an alias; extracts from her interview (with Edward Griffin) can be found on this site under ‘Video and audio gallery’. In memory of Mary, her husband Peter has given permission for me to place the transcript here on BRAIN.HE. I think these are a fitting memorial to a unique and wonderful person.
