Lori and George Schappell were joined at the skull with separate bodies and lived on their own since the age of 24

The world’s oldest living conjoined twins have died at the age of 62 in their native Pennsylvania.

Lori and George Schappell died on 7 April at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, according to an obituary. A cause of death was not disclosed.

The Schappell twins were born on 18 September 1961 in Reading, in southern Pennsylvania. They were joined at the skull with separate bodies, sharing 30% of their brain and essential blood vessels.

George had spina bifida and used a mobility device. Lori pushed and steered George’s wheeled stool so the two could move around.

The twins represented the rarest form of conjoined twinning, which affects only 2% to 6% of conjoined twins, NBC Today reported.

George transitioned in 2007, with the Schappells becoming the first same-sex conjoined twins to identify as different genders, Guinness World Records reported.

George discussed his decision to come out with the Sun newspaper in 2011 when the siblings visited London to celebrate their 50th birthday and vowed to “continue living life to the full”.

He said: “I have known from a very young age that I should have been a boy.”

He added: “It was so tough, but I was getting older and I simply didn’t want to live a lie. I knew I had to live my life the way I wanted.”

The Schappells graduated from the Hiram G Andrews Center, a technical institute in Elim, Pennsylvania. They both worked for Reading hospital for a number of years.

The Schappells had distinct hobbies and interests.

George performed as a country music singer, traveling to several countries including Germany and Japan, according to Guinness World Records. Meanwhile, Lori was a lauded tenpin bowler.

The siblings lived on their own since the age of 24. They previously lived in an institution for people with intellectual impairments, despite not being mentally disabled, following a court order, New York Magazine reported.

Later, the two shared a two-bedroom apartment. Each sibling had their own room, alternating which room they would sleep in each night.

The Schappells said that, despite being conjoined, they were able to have privacy in the shared apartment.

“Just because we cannot get up and walk away from each other, doesn’t mean we cannot have solitude from other people or ourselves,” Lori said in a 1997 documentary.

For example, when George needed to rehearse his country music, the pair would go to his room, where Lori would remain quiet and allow George to practice.

While some conjoined twins have opted to be separated via surgery, such procedures weren’t available when the Schappells were born.

The twins also rejected the idea of separation.

“Would we be separated? Absolutely not,” George said in a 1997 documentary. “My theory is: why fix what is not broken?”

“I don’t believe in separation,” Lori said to the Los Angeles Times in a 2002 interview.

Lori and George Schappell were joined at the skull with separate bodies and lived on their own since the age of 24

The world’s oldest living conjoined twins have died at the age of 62 in their native Pennsylvania.

Lori and George Schappell died on 7 April at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, according to an obituary. A cause of death was not disclosed.

The Schappell twins were born on 18 September 1961 in Reading, in southern Pennsylvania. They were joined at the skull with separate bodies, sharing 30% of their brain and essential blood vessels.

George had spina bifida and used a mobility device. Lori pushed and steered George’s wheeled stool so the two could move around.

The twins represented the rarest form of conjoined twinning, which affects only 2% to 6% of conjoined twins, NBC Today reported.

George transitioned in 2007, with the Schappells becoming the first same-sex conjoined twins to identify as different genders, Guinness World Records reported.

George discussed his decision to come out with the Sun newspaper in 2011 when the siblings visited London to celebrate their 50th birthday and vowed to “continue living life to the full”.

He said: “I have known from a very young age that I should have been a boy.”

He added: “It was so tough, but I was getting older and I simply didn’t want to live a lie. I knew I had to live my life the way I wanted.”

The Schappells graduated from the Hiram G Andrews Center, a technical institute in Elim, Pennsylvania. They both worked for Reading hospital for a number of years.

The Schappells had distinct hobbies and interests.

George performed as a country music singer, traveling to several countries including Germany and Japan, according to Guinness World Records. Meanwhile, Lori was a lauded tenpin bowler.

The siblings lived on their own since the age of 24. They previously lived in an institution for people with intellectual impairments, despite not being mentally disabled, following a court order, New York Magazine reported.

Later, the two shared a two-bedroom apartment. Each sibling had their own room, alternating which room they would sleep in each night.

The Schappells said that, despite being conjoined, they were able to have privacy in the shared apartment.

“Just because we cannot get up and walk away from each other, doesn’t mean we cannot have solitude from other people or ourselves,” Lori said in a 1997 documentary.

For example, when George needed to rehearse his country music, the pair would go to his room, where Lori would remain quiet and allow George to practice.

While some conjoined twins have opted to be separated via surgery, such procedures weren’t available when the Schappells were born.

The twins also rejected the idea of separation.

“Would we be separated? Absolutely not,” George said in a 1997 documentary. “My theory is: why fix what is not broken?”

“I don’t believe in separation,” Lori said to the Los Angeles Times in a 2002 interview.

Observer investigation finds that private companies made £105m despite not being registered with Ofsted

Hundreds of extremely vulnerable school-age children in England are being sent to illegal, unregulated homes every year because of a chronic shortage of places in secure local authority units.

An Observer investigation has established that councils placed 706 children, the majority of them under the age of 16, in their care in homes that were not registered with Ofsted, the children’s social care watchdog, in 2022-23.

Most of the providers that staff or operate unregulated homes are private companies. The investigation found that providers received nearly £105m from English councils last year – equating to almost £150,000 a child.

It is an offence under the Care Standards Act 2000 to operate a children’s home without an Ofsted registration, which the watchdog says prevents unsuitable people from owning, managing or working in homes. But the Observer has discovered that Ofsted did not prosecute a single provider in 2022-23, despite launching 845 investigations into suspected illegal children’s homes.

The children’s commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, said she was appalled by the findings. “Some of these children will have experienced the worst trauma, abuse and neglect, with multiple and complex needs requiring genuine care – but instead they are placed in inappropriate settings which do not meet their needs, with little say in what happens to them, often miles from loved ones and sometimes denied basic rights like education.”

The illegal care system has expanded in recent years as local authorities have struggled to accommodate increasing numbers of vulnerable children, who pose a risk to themselves or others, or are being criminally or sexually exploited.

Many of these children, who often have troubled, traumatic pasts and histories of running away and getting into dangerous situations, are subject to court orders restricting their freedom, in order to keep them safe. However, there is a shortage of secure local authority-run homes that can provide therapeutic care in locked buildings. There are typically about 50 children each day awaiting a place.

As a result, family courts are having to authorise severe restrictions on children in unregistered homes, which range from rented properties and short-term holiday lets staffed by agency workers and security guards to supported accommodation designed for older children with minimal care needs. The staff, who are frequently required to restrain children, are not checked by Ofsted.

The new figures, compiled by the Observer and the charity Together Trust, show a 277% rise in numbers placed in illegal children’s homes in England between 2020 and 2023.

De Souza is particularly worried about children deprived of their liberty in unregistered placements: “These are the children with the highest level of need, in the country yet I often hear from children placed in makeshift, rented flats with no appropriate care in place.”

Few councils were prepared to name the companies involved, but the Observer obtained payment records from a handful of local authorities. Swindon borough council placed a child in a rented Airbnb property for a “short time” in 2022-23. The council said it placed the child there, with qualified staff, while it looked for suitable accommodation. Another council hired staff that year from two security companies to work alongside care workers in illegal children’s homes.

Ofsted said it needed new powers to take action against illegal providers, as it remained concerned that children were “at risk of harm” in unregistered homes. “The government promised additional powers in 2021 that would enable us to take action against illegal providers more quickly – these powers are urgently needed in the interests of children,” said a spokesperson.

Together Trust said council funding cutsleading to decline of community services, coupled with long delays for children in accessing mental health and disability support, have led to increased levels of need. “There remains a national shortage of safe, regulated homes for children in care, particularly those with complex needs,” said Lucy Croxton, the charity’s public affairs and campaigns manager.

The government has pledged to increase funding for secure children’s homes in recent years, including the building of two new secure homes in London and the West Midlands. The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced in the March budget that the government would invest £165m over the next four years to increase the capacity of the children’s homes estate.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services welcomed the funding but warned that it was a “drop in the ocean”. Andy Smith, its president, said councils were forced to use unregistered homes because of the lack of suitable places. “We know that 15 secure homes have closed since 2002 … there is a need for more than just two homes.”

The Department for Education said that all children in care deserve to live in settings that meet their needs and keep them safe.

“Local authorities are responsible for providing safe, appropriate homes for children, and are held to account for the quality of care they provide,” said a spokesperson.

The department added that all providers of care for children under 18 must be registered with Ofsted, which it said had powers to prosecute.

It said that the funding announced in the budget built on £259m previously announced by ministers to “expand the capacity of children’s homes”.

Neil Goodwin was charged over his protest outside parliament in 2023. However, a judge saw it for nonsense - and here, Neil tells all.

[Click to listen to the article, and support the Canary]

Last week the Canary ran my story A disabled man is being PROSECUTED for blocking parliament with his MOBILITY SCOOTER just before my trial at Westminster Magistrate’s Court. Here’s the full story.

The climate crisis: very real, and very now

On July 19 2023, exactly a year on from the hottest day on record, and the devastating Wennington wild fire in East London which completely destroyed four houses, I had travelled up to parliament to raise the alarm about the effects a climate catastrophe will have on the disabled community and vulnerable groups, the old, and the frail.

I have multiple sclerosis (MS) and the hottest day in 2022 really drained what little energy I usually have. I felt like the plants in my garden, completely wilted, my leaves turning brown. It was the first time that I’d had to be pushed into my garden in a wheelchair. We rescued an exhausted robin, unable to even fly up to the bird bath, cooling off in a tub of rancid water. It was truly horrifying.

In early July 2023, I attended a talk at the Southbank Centre with Greta Thunberg and was shocked to learn that the government was preparing to sign new, and very significant, oil and gas licenses.

I learnt that the Rosebank project, the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield 80 miles off the Shetland coast in the North Atlantic, would have the potential if it were burned to produce as much carbon dioxide as running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year.

So, at a time when the UN Chief António Guterres started using the term ‘Global Boiling’, to describe the acceleration of terrifying climate impacts, Rishi Sunak was preparing to effectively tear up our commitment to Net Zero and the Paris Agreement and block our only escape route from global catastrophe.

Warnings from the 1990s

I am a documentary film maker.

In the late 90’s, when ‘Global Warming’ was very much considered to be junk science, I made a film called ‘Turned out Nice Again – Britain under climate change’, which set out to show what life would be like in the-near-future, about 2060, if we failed to curb our use of fossil fuels. Stuff I thought I’d never have a front row seat to witness:

Turned Out Nice Again - Britain under Climate Change

It was during that time that I learnt that CO2 emissions take a while to affect the climate. Estimates range from between 10 to 30 years. So, the impacts we are experiencing today relate to past emissions, say the invasion of Iraq, and present emissions will affect the atmosphere roughly 10 to 30 years from now.

So, I knew that with CO2 it wasn’t simply a case of just turning off the tap. Phasing out needed to happen gradually and consistently, allowing the economy and society the time to adjust. It couldn’t be business as usual right up to the 2050 deadline, the deadline stipulated in the Paris Agreement, and then bother. It most certainly couldn’t involve utilising new oil and gas fields.

Disabled people taking a stand

So, extremely angry, I had travelled up to Westminster on a Wednesday, as I say, exactly one year on from the hottest day and the Wennington wild-fire, and at around the time PMQ’s would have been winding up and parked my mobility scooter right outside the Carriage Entrance to parliament.

I had dressed up the basket on the front to look like it was on fire, with a warning sign showing a wheelchair bound person caught between a fire and a flood; referencing the Wennington wildfire:

Image

Also, the danger from flash flooding, which was tragically emphasised in the run up to my plea hearing by the death of an 83-year-old Chesterfield woman called Maureen Gilbert, who drowned in her home during Storm Babet, as she was unable to escape the rapidly rising water inside her terrace home owing to mobility problems.

‘I cannot run from a climate emergency’

I had carried a placard with fake flames coming out of the top that said, ‘I cannot run from a Climate Emergency’. Neither run literally, because of my disability, nor run from what I felt was my social responsibility to try and spotlight the implications of a climate emergency, not just for the disabled community, but for all vulnerable people – the old and the frail.

I had asked the first police officer who approached me, I believe my arresting officer, to turn on his body cam and record a safety announcement. Me detailing my various disabilities. I also have ankylosing spondylitis (AS), an arthritic like condition that fuses your joints, that has left me with a completely fused neck, and completely fused lower spine, called a bamboo spine.

I explained exactly why I was there, and I was told that I was liable to be arrested:

Image

I remember asking him to see it not as an arrest, but a demonstration in how difficult it would be to save someone like me from a fire at a moment’s notice and to carry me to the safety of a police cell. To see it as an exercise in preparedness. To which, I remember him saying, ‘If you were in a burning building, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.’

And I remember thinking, if you threw me over your shoulder, it would be like throwing a 13 stone ironing board over your shoulder, as my back and neck are almost entirely fused, and you’d probably drop me and/or break my neck in the process. It certainly wouldn’t be that quick and easy.

Surrounded by cops

My plan was to attract a swarm of cops around me, then use them as bait to attract the press, thereby elevating my protest into newsworthiness, then get nicked.

No D locks, no superglue, no seriously pissed off commuters, just a very uncooperative seriously disabled man on a ‘burning’ mobility scooter, a potential public relations nightmare, saying, ‘come and have a go if you think you’re strong enough’. Or indeed, only if you’ve got suitably accessible police infrastructure. Which I had hoped to find out.

I was given every opportunity to leave, invited on numerous occasions to carry out my protest along the pavement, away from the entrance. But it felt right to remain just where I was. Right in the middle of what they like to call, ominously, The Sterile Zone:

Image

It’s strange, but I felt both my strongest and weakest at the same time. Surrounded by cops, one of whom apparently had a best friend with MS. None of whom could lay a finger on me, through fear of breaking something.

Who knew that fragility could become a super-power? Through-out, the burning issue of climate change held aloft, perhaps barring the way of the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who’s motorcade would have usually swept past right about then.

One of the police mentioned a secret tunnel right through to Downing Street and a short journey by golf cart.

Finally nicked

I was arrested under the 143 Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which I thought was quite apt, as I sincerely believed that I was acting socially responsibly raising these urgent issues, especially for the disabled, the vulnerable and the frail. Those who would be shoved onto the front line of the government’s war against the weather.

I later found out that that particular law had made it illegal to carry a sleeping bag in Parliament Square, in answer to Brian Haw’s more than a decade of dissent and Occupy.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t plucked to safety from my flaming mobility scooter. So, no dodgy optic of me being carried away.

I waited eight months for my day in court. With countless sleepless nights, abject terror and righteousness slugging it out all through the winter, fretting over fines, and legal costs, and the bailiffs seizing my stuff. You can take the tele, but don’t take my Penny Black!

Preparing for court

So, I had done myself a favour and talked to Andy at Green & Black Cross, who straightened me out on quite a few things.

Stuff like, the district judge that I would be getting at my trial last week, having a better understanding of the law than your ordinary magistrate, preferring to be addressed as ‘sir’ or just plain ‘Judge’ to ‘Your Honour’, and that he doesn’t wear the silly Les Misérables head gear. Unlike my nightmares, where he’s also wearing a black hankie.

The good news was that I wouldn’t be getting the dodgy hanging judge Silas Reid, the one who is trying to take away jury trials, basically redact that last little bit of the Magna Carta, and does you for contempt for even mentioning the word ‘climate’. He’s terrorising Just Stop Oil in the Crown Court.

I’d decided to represent myself, as, even though legal stuff just goes right over the top of my head, I’d learn on my feet and try and blag my way through the proceedings. Apparently, you get more leeway. Plus, I’d have a great McKenzie friend, called Josh, courtesy Green & Black, to whisper advice.

Climate change and the impact on disabled people

On the day, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) got off to a very bad start by disclosing crucial documents a quarter of an hour before the hearing. Very shoddy, I must say. But understandable, considering the mountain of paperwork Just Stop Oil is generating. No wonder the guy looked depressed. This apparently pissed-off the judge big time.

Before we got underway, there was just time to take the plea of a Met police officer accused of groping a colleague.

Right from the off, the judge began by making it clear that the existence of a climate emergency was not in question. So, all that evidence I’d gathered, and helpfully stuffed into a ‘bundle’ for the judge and CPS, couldn’t be heard.

I’d spent a lot of time looking at the government’s National Adaptation Programme (NAP,) particularly an outlook from Stephen Belcher, the Chief Scientist at the Met Office:

Climate change is happening now… Heavy rainfall events that can lead to flash flooding are expected to become more frequent and intense across the country. Summer temperatures above 40oC, seen for the first time in July 2022, will become more commonplace by the end of the 21st century.

Also the ‘UK Climate Change Risk Assessment’ (CCRA), the latest one published in January 2022, six months before the Wennington wild fire. Its Executive Summary sounding like an Extinction Rebellion leaflet:

Climate change is happening now. It is one of the biggest challenges of our generation and has already begun to cause irreversible damage to our planet and way of life. We have clear evidence demonstrating the pace of warming in recent decades and the impacts we will face should this continue. As we redouble our efforts to achieve net zero, we must also continue to raise ambitions on adaptation to ensure the UK is resilient to the challenges of a warming world.

CCRA3 landed on cabinet desks in January 2022, six months before the Wennington wild fire, giving us a snapshot of what the government knew about the seriousness and challenges of climate change at that point in time.

So the case would almost entirely revolve around Article Ten of the Human Rights Act 1998, and The Freedom of Expression, and how reasonable I was acting in pursuing this right.

Eight hours of cops bleeding their hearts

The prosecution set out the issues. I was arrested blah blah blah… and showed the body cam footage of my arrest. Me looking almost sullen. Even rude. Not saying a word, as my arresting officer cautioned me.

By that time, I had had two hours of eight cops worth of near constant questions and pleading and befriending and guilt trips. ‘My best friend has got MS.’ ‘I’m a lesbian.’ ‘My dad is dying of cancer and I was planning on visiting him.’ That kind of thing. So, I looked exhausted:

Image

My arresting officer took the stand. I counted five mentions of Just Stop Oil, who were being mass arrested on Parliament Square at the time of my action. Sorry JSO, but I was keen to distance myself from you.

The judge asked me what if there was any campaign group that I was connected to. I told him I was loosely affiliated with DPAC, Disabled People Against the Cuts, although my placard had said DPACC, Disabled People Against Climate Change.

It turned out that the Met had just the one suitably modified van to transport disabled people to the nick, codenamed Pixie1 (my old road protestor mates will appreciate the name). And that had been on its way to Croydon that day with part of the latest Just Stop Oil mass arrest. JSO had been having their last big bash before the summer recess and had pretty much used up every available van and cell inside the M25, including Pixie1.

I’d heard of the arrest of a disabled JSO protestor called Ari, who had been arrested, and witnessed the police practically begging a black cab to take her to the station, and had often wondered whether the cops could possibly handle a group action.

CPS trying their best to smear a disabled man

The CPS and the judge went to great lengths to try and ascertain the size of the gap I had left at the entrance, which they agreed was a double gate.

Did I block anyone? No.

Would I block anyone? Perhaps.

Slowly they scrolled through the grainy, partly obscured Body Cam footage looking for the right angle. Looking to see if I had completely blocked the highway, or whether a vehicle could still get by. Once I realised what they were doing I couldn’t help but give a little chuckle. I had the perfect photo taken by my mate Gareth Morris, where you could clearly see the gap.

When I showed them Gareth’s pic, and that there was plenty of space, the prosecution argued that a vehicle still wouldn’t be able to pass by safely. Whereupon the judge gave me my second spontaneous chuckle of the day, pointing out there were plenty of policeman there to stand between me and a vehicle, to make sure it was safe. He really had it in for the CPS that day.

‘Doing my bit’

I trundled my wheelchair up to the stand, where I dropped my notes, and made a futile attempt to pick them up. I told the court that according to the MS society’s website:

excessive heat can often make MS worse. Which when you consider that we already suffer greatly from fatigue, often mentioned as one of the worst symptoms of MS, the promise of more days, perhaps entire weeks, of 40-degree heat, would make life impossible and intolerable.

I broke down twice on the stand. Once when I spoke of my devastated garden on 19 July 2022, and once when I spoke of the tragic and terrifying drowning of Maureen Gilbert, during Storm Babet, one of the people I said the government had thrown onto the front line of their war against the weather.

I told the judge that I saw this as doing my bit as a 58-year-old man and decried the 20 somethings who were being imprisoned for demanding a future. A future that I felt that I could at least now look in the eye.

A judge sees sense

We waited for the verdict for about half an hour. Me convinced that, whilst the judge might say nice things about my convictions, his hands would be tied legally.

When he came back, after the usher had demanded ‘All Stand’, and according to my friend Saskia’s excellent notes, he mentioned ‘reasonable excuse.’ That ‘The defendant was there to protest under Article 10’. That it had been about ‘Government failure and the granting of new fossil fuel leases.’ About ‘How this would affect people with disabilities. How high temperatures directly affect people with MS.’ The risk of fires, and ‘on the anniversary of the Wennington fire.’

I was so made up that I’d been successful in linking all these elements together on my day in court.

I was, ‘peaceful and dignified.’ And, crucially, there were doubts that it I ‘can be properly said to have been blocking the gates.’ That, ‘Not one vehicle entered or left’ whilst I was demonstrating, so there was ‘no evidence of obstruction.’ I was ‘fully cooperative’ and moved once I had secured my day in court. I was “passionate, articulate and honest in everything that [I] said’. I was proper blushing by this stage, but still expecting the words, ‘but’ or ‘unfortunately’.

He went on. Exploring ‘the balance of rights under Article 10’, and ‘reasonable excuse’, about ‘Zeigler’, which gets mentioned a lot. To be honest, there were loads of legals that just went over the top of my head, including the classic what the hell does that mean? line ‘The occupation was more than minor but less than major.’

I fought the law…

Whereupon, he suddenly blurted out ‘Not guilty. You are free to go.’ Leaving me to just stare into space, until the usher finally chucked me out.

So yes, I can now say that I fought the law, and the law… lost. No guesses as to what tune I first played when I finally got home.

Featured images and additional images via Gareth Morris

Not long after the 1994 film became a smash hit, the titular bus disappeared. Where did it go? Who had it? And could it be recovered before it was too late?

Thirty years ago, a humble silver bus was transformed into a cinematic icon when the low-budget Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert became a heart-warming, Oscar-winning smash hit.

But for years, no one has known where the bus used in Stephan Elliott’s film went. Not long after the 38-day shoot finished in 1993, it seemingly vanished without a trace. This did not stop countless Australians from claiming they either owned it or knew who owned it, or that they had spotted it somewhere up and down the country.

The story of where she ended up, and how she was found, is worthy of a film in itself.

‘We were a bit suspicious at first’
In the 1994 film, Priscilla is home to drag queens Mitzi Del Bra (Hugo Weaving), Felicia Jollygoodfellow (Guy Pearce) and transgender woman Bernadette Bassenger (Terence Stamp) as they drive from Sydney to Alice Springs.

In reality, Priscilla is a 1976 Japanese model Hino RC320. It was owned by Sydney company Boronia Tours before it was sold to a couple who leased the bus to Latent Images, the film’s production company, for the duration of the shoot in September and October 1993. Afterwards, the couple hired it out occasionally, including to the Australian band the Whitlams, who used it as a tour bus for six months in 1994.

But after that, Priscilla vanished without a trace.

For years, the bus was the white whale for curatorial staff at the History Trust of South Australia, who hoped to acquire it for the National Motor Museum in Birdwood, SA – home to several famous cars from cinema, including the Mad Max Bigfoot buggy.

So when a man called Michael Mahon got in touch with the History Trust in 2019 claiming Priscilla was sitting on his property in Ewingar, New South Wales (population: 67), no one really believed him.

“Michael sent a message saying he had the bus and wanted to sell it. I felt like I was in The Castle – I said, ‘tell him he’s dreaming’,” says Paul Rees, head of museums at the History Trust and former director of the National Motor Museum. “We were a bit suspicious at first, to be honest. But we put our Sherlock Holmes hats on and soon realised it wasn’t a joke, so we started our investigation.”

Curators spent months determining if the bus was truly Priscilla. “A few things really made us confident: it had the right number plates, the distinctive animal print curtains and dashboard cover, and the original name roller,” says Adam Paterson, manager curatorial at the History Trust.

Complicating matters were the many pretenders to the throne: there are many copies of Priscilla, including the bus that was driven around the 2000 Olympics closing ceremony in Sydney; another was made for the talent show I Will Survive; and the one used in the Priscilla stage show, now displayed in Broken Hill.

In the film, the bus is famously painted bright pink partway through – but because the film-makers could only afford one bus, they painted just half of it pink and left the other side silver so they could shoot out of sequence. Crucially, some old pink paint hadn’t been removed from a hinge.

“What convinced everyone in the end was the pink paint scrapings,” says Rees. “Curators are fantastically conservative - they will not jump until they’re absolutely sure. But I was jumping all over the place.”

Some facts and dates remain a little murky, but what everyone agrees on is this: the couple who owned Priscilla eventually broke up and one of them got the bus in the separation. That person drove it to their new partner’s place in Ewingar sometime around 2006, where it was eventually abandoned when that relationship ended. When the owner of that house in Ewingar died, it was sold – complete with Priscilla – to Mahon in 2016.

“I’d been here in Ewingar for about six months when I went down to the community hall to say hello to everybody, and they said, ‘G’day! What are you going to do with the bus?’” says Mahon. “I said to the bloke behind the bar, ‘Why is everyone asking me about the bus?’ and he went, ‘That’s Priscilla!’ ‘Strewth,’ I said.”

Mahon did some research online and rewatched the film, then looked over the bus with fresh eyes. Everything matched, down to the number plates. He went on Facebook for advice on bus restoration, but “everyone thought I was an idiot and a liar because they thought she had been stolen or destroyed”.

Eventually he made friends with a few enthusiasts, who told him the rusting vehicle outside his house was known by two names in the bus-loving community. “One was ‘The Hunt for Red October’ because they’d been looking for it for years,” says Mahon. “The other was ‘the Holy Grail’.”

By that time, the bus had been languishing outdoors for a decade. In the years following, it survived multiple bushfires and floods. In October 2019, when huge flames came within centimetres of the bus, a water bomb struck it and saved it.

“The fire went right alongside Priscilla and took out a van, a boat and two cars right next to it,” Mahon says. “You wouldn’t believe it. It was 2,000-degree temperatures. The fire went straight over the roof of the house, the fireball was 50 feet above the treetop. But Priscilla survived.”

Right after the 2019 fires came floods, which made finding a new home for Priscilla even more urgent. “With all the rain, it started to really rust because it copped a lot of heat,” says Mahon. “Thankfully, the museum was in the same frame of mind as me – it is a true blue, ridgy-didge Australian icon. It’s got to be saved.”

“I’ve heard it so many times – ‘I’ve got the bus!’ – that it gets boring,” says Stephan Elliott, the director and writer of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. When the History Trust got in touch to see if he could help verify the bus’s authenticity, he was sceptical.

“But I was astonished when they showed me the photos,” he says. “I said, ‘There’s two things I need to see: the carpet and if there is a side-railing on the roof.’ They sent more photos and I immediately said, ‘That’s it. You got her.’ My jaw was just on the ground.”

The side-railing was installed on the bus’s interior so a camera could be hung from it “like a little cable car”, to allow for moving shots inside the bus while it was on the road. “It’s so odd, no one else would think to put it there,” says Elliott.

The director, who fondly calls Priscilla “the old bus and chain”, wrote the film at the same time as his 1993 comedy Frauds, which ended up being made first. The experience was “terrible, the whole Hollywood nightmare … I was completely ruined by the end, I was literally a dribbling wreck.”

“We were having an early production meeting for Priscilla and I said, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t want to ever make a film again.’ Everyone was shocked. But Owen [Paterson, the production designer] said, ‘Well, there’s something that I’ve found and it’s about to pull up. Come and have a look.’

“So we’re sitting there in Paddington and around the corner she came. It was a very weird moment where I got inside the bus and I put my hand on the wall. I turned to everyone and said, ‘I think I can do this.’”

Elliott estimates he has seen 50 different copies of the bus over the years, “at premieres, Mardi Gras and daggy things”. “So to hear that the original was still alive, it was very special,” he adds. “I don’t understand how it is. It is just extraordinary.”

Given the complex nature of who actually owned Priscilla, having been abandoned on a deceased estate, the History Trust applied to the NSW courts to buy the vehicle as abandoned property in 2021, 18 months after Mahon first contacted them. This process required them to wait another whole year for someone to come forward to claim it as their own. But no one did.

Mahon was finally deemed the legal owner of the bus and sold it to the History Trust in May 2023. In September, “a whole army of very experienced mechanics and engineers” turned up to Ewingar to move her for the first time in at least 16 years.

“I was actually on leave but I drove myself all the way to NSW to watch it be moved – this is what a project like this does to you,” says Rees.

The bus’s flat tyres were carefully filled with air; if they couldn’t be filled or burst, it would become a much more complex operation. Everyone held their breath as the bus was wriggled “inch by inch” out of a tight spot on a slope, then down the hill on to a truck. Just as it went on, one tyre popped.

Ten or so Ewingar locals gathered to watch her go. (“Word started to spread and as the bus drove out, they all sort of waved goodbye,” says Paterson. “That was pretty cool.”)

Was Mahon sad to see Priscilla go? “Yes and no,” he says. “I believe museums are important, so it was going to the right place.” But long after she was taken, he felt a pang when he looked over the spot, “like something was missing”.

“Part of me was gone,” Mahon says. “But if it stayed where it was for another 12 months, it probably would have been unrepairable.”

Priscilla is now at a restoration business in Queensland, ready to be glammed up – but not too much.

“We are restoring it to the state it was in during the making of Priscilla because the film is why it is significant,” says Rees. “So if the crew say it was a bit manky then, then it’s going to be that way when we’re done with it.”

But Priscilla was almost 20 years old when she featured in the film and will turn 50 in two years’ time, so she needs a lot of work. The History Trust is hoping people around the world will help raise A$2.2m (US$1.4m/£1.1m) – a total that includes A$750,000 for an extensive restoration, including possibly making the bus roadworthy again. The rest will go to building an ambitious “immersive” exhibit, fit for a queen, in the National Motor Museum in South Australia. (The SA government has already committed $100,000.)

“She’s not in good shape, she’s not been loved and cared for. But she’s very, very salvageable – if you’ve got money to throw at it,” says Rees. “We want the exhibition to be fabulous. If we’re taking her on the road to Mardi Gras, we want that to be a fabulous experience. All those things cost a lot of money, as do the decades of care we will provide her with.

“It’s survived flood, fires, 16 years out in the open,” he adds. “But the film is all about survival – and somehow, the bus survived.”

Joewackle J Kusi was finishing his film Nyame Mma when an anti-LGBTQ+ bill was passed, bringing the threat of prosecution for those ‘promoting’ queer stories

Arare Ghanian film featuring a queer main character could not have been released at a worse time for its director and cast. Joewackle J Kusi was making finishing touches to his short film, Nyame Mma (Children of God), and arranging screenings in the capital, Accra, when a piece of legislation passed through Ghana’s parliament, targeting LGBTQ+ content.

According to the bill approved in late February, those involved in the “wilful promotion, sponsorship or support of LGBTQ+ activities” will face jail sentences of up to five years. The legislation, awaiting presidential endorsement before it becomes law, also stipulates a prison sentence of between six months and three years for those found guilty of identifying as LGBTQ+.

Kusi says the bill’s passing forced him to cut the schedule short, to just one private screening for prominent art and film figures. It was shown on 6 March, Ghana’s independence day, at a venue in Accra, but Kusi has no idea if it will ever reach a wider audience.

“I was nervous, I was anxious because of the bill,” Kusi says. “The safety of my cast and crew kept me up at night.

“We considered that it was safer to just have one night. We didn’t go big because it didn’t feel safe to screen a film with a queer character in Ghana around the time this bill was passed.”

Nyame Mma tells the story of Kwamena (played by Kobina Amissah-Sam), who moves away from home to live in Bolgatanga, a town in northern Ghana, because of family friction over his sexuality. After the sudden death of his father, the 30-year-old queer man returns home to Sekondi, in the country’s south-west.

There, he meets his estranged lover, Maroof (played by Papa Osei A Adjei), who, under intense societal pressures, is about to marry a woman. Kwamena is left grieving not just for his father, but also the loss of Maroof.

In a touch of magical realism, Kwamena, in a dream sequence, meets his father in the afterlife. The film also alludes to Sekondi’s annual masquerade – the Ankos festival – with spirits featuring in surreal episodes.

“Some of the stories we are going to tell are going to be heavily impacted by the bill. It’s stifling to creativity,” Kusi says.

“When this film goes out there at the right time I could spend four to five years in prison because I made a film that acknowledges and highlights marginalised and queer stories.”

The bill, he says, is in contrast with Ghana positioning itself as a tourist destination, particularly after its 2019 Year of Return initiative, designed to encourage the diaspora to come back to the country.

Based in Accra, Kusi, 31, studied broadcast journalism and mass communications at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He worked as a writer and producer at a local television network before losing his job during the pandemic which led him to focus on film-making.

One of his first major productions was a well-received audio drama called Goodbye, Gold Coast, telling the love story of a Ghanian schoolteacher and her European lover on the eve of Ghana’s independence in 1957..

Finding actors willing to play queer characters was a major challenge during Nyame Mma’s production. Kusi choose straight actors because “if I had to cast queer actors then they would have to go in hiding”.

“People read the script and said beautiful things about it but said they can’t act the role,” he says.

“Growing up, every single time I have seen a queer representation in a Ghanian film it’s been in negative light. You’ll see them at the end of the film giving their life to Christ, or they’re probably on the bed dying from some STDs. I felt that shouldn’t be the only real representation, so I tried to create positive characters.”

The existing colonial-era gay sex law in Ghana, which carries a prison sentence of three years, has recently led to arrests. In 2021, a group of 16 women and five men were arrested in southeastern Ghana after attending a meeting for LGBTQ+ advocates, in a case that attracted global attention – however a few months later they were acquitted.

“The [new] bill is targeting and criminalising all aspects of nonconformity,” Kusi says.

Human rights groups have been urging the president, Nana Akufo-Addo, not to sign the bill into law. One, Outright International, says it would “lead to a surge in violence and human rights violations against LGBTQ persons in Ghana”, including “an increased risk of mob attacks, physical and sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, blackmail, online harassment, forced evictions, homelessness, and employment discrimination”.

But Kusi points out it is election year in Ghana, and the season for populist policies.

“The only thing that unites Ghanians, no matter what political party, or religion, is homophobia,” Kusi says.

“Homophobia makes it really hard for people to think clearly. It obstructs your reasoning.”

Joewackle J Kusi was finishing his film Nyame Mma when an anti-LGBTQ+ bill was passed, bringing the threat of prosecution for those ‘promoting’ queer stories

Arare Ghanian film featuring a queer main character could not have been released at a worse time for its director and cast. Joewackle J Kusi was making finishing touches to his short film, Nyame Mma (Children of God), and arranging screenings in the capital, Accra, when a piece of legislation passed through Ghana’s parliament, targeting LGBTQ+ content.

According to the bill approved in late February, those involved in the “wilful promotion, sponsorship or support of LGBTQ+ activities” will face jail sentences of up to five years. The legislation, awaiting presidential endorsement before it becomes law, also stipulates a prison sentence of between six months and three years for those found guilty of identifying as LGBTQ+.

Kusi says the bill’s passing forced him to cut the schedule short, to just one private screening for prominent art and film figures. It was shown on 6 March, Ghana’s independence day, at a venue in Accra, but Kusi has no idea if it will ever reach a wider audience.

“I was nervous, I was anxious because of the bill,” Kusi says. “The safety of my cast and crew kept me up at night.

“We considered that it was safer to just have one night. We didn’t go big because it didn’t feel safe to screen a film with a queer character in Ghana around the time this bill was passed.”

Nyame Mma tells the story of Kwamena (played by Kobina Amissah-Sam), who moves away from home to live in Bolgatanga, a town in northern Ghana, because of family friction over his sexuality. After the sudden death of his father, the 30-year-old queer man returns home to Sekondi, in the country’s south-west.

There, he meets his estranged lover, Maroof (played by Papa Osei A Adjei), who, under intense societal pressures, is about to marry a woman. Kwamena is left grieving not just for his father, but also the loss of Maroof.

In a touch of magical realism, Kwamena, in a dream sequence, meets his father in the afterlife. The film also alludes to Sekondi’s annual masquerade – the Ankos festival – with spirits featuring in surreal episodes.

“Some of the stories we are going to tell are going to be heavily impacted by the bill. It’s stifling to creativity,” Kusi says.

“When this film goes out there at the right time I could spend four to five years in prison because I made a film that acknowledges and highlights marginalised and queer stories.”

The bill, he says, is in contrast with Ghana positioning itself as a tourist destination, particularly after its 2019 Year of Return initiative, designed to encourage the diaspora to come back to the country.

Based in Accra, Kusi, 31, studied broadcast journalism and mass communications at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He worked as a writer and producer at a local television network before losing his job during the pandemic which led him to focus on film-making.

One of his first major productions was a well-received audio drama called Goodbye, Gold Coast, telling the love story of a Ghanian schoolteacher and her European lover on the eve of Ghana’s independence in 1957..

Finding actors willing to play queer characters was a major challenge during Nyame Mma’s production. Kusi choose straight actors because “if I had to cast queer actors then they would have to go in hiding”.

“People read the script and said beautiful things about it but said they can’t act the role,” he says.

“Growing up, every single time I have seen a queer representation in a Ghanian film it’s been in negative light. You’ll see them at the end of the film giving their life to Christ, or they’re probably on the bed dying from some STDs. I felt that shouldn’t be the only real representation, so I tried to create positive characters.”

The existing colonial-era gay sex law in Ghana, which carries a prison sentence of three years, has recently led to arrests. In 2021, a group of 16 women and five men were arrested in southeastern Ghana after attending a meeting for LGBTQ+ advocates, in a case that attracted global attention – however a few months later they were acquitted.

“The [new] bill is targeting and criminalising all aspects of nonconformity,” Kusi says.

Human rights groups have been urging the president, Nana Akufo-Addo, not to sign the bill into law. One, Outright International, says it would “lead to a surge in violence and human rights violations against LGBTQ persons in Ghana”, including “an increased risk of mob attacks, physical and sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, blackmail, online harassment, forced evictions, homelessness, and employment discrimination”.

But Kusi points out it is election year in Ghana, and the season for populist policies.

“The only thing that unites Ghanians, no matter what political party, or religion, is homophobia,” Kusi says.

“Homophobia makes it really hard for people to think clearly. It obstructs your reasoning.”

Waking and baking, both track and vape take a minute to kick in..

Foo Fighters cover to kick morning brain in to gear

Disabled activist Neil Goodwin was arrested under the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act outside parliament

The below article is an opinion piece from Neil Goodwin, an activist who was arrested for blocking an entrance to parliament with his mobility scooter

[Click to listen to the article]

I’m in Westminster Magistrate’s Court at 10am on Wednesday 3 April, charged with blocking the entrance to parliament in my mobility scooter; I’m disabled, living with multiple sclerosis (MS). This is a bit of what I am hoping to tell the judge.

Protesting the climate crisis as a disabled person

On 19 July 2023, exactly a year on from the hottest day on record and the devastating Wennington wild fire, I travelled up to parliament to protest. It was a Wednesday, and Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) was on – the busiest day of the week for parliament and for the media who cover it.

I positioned myself in front of the carriage entrance, facing towards the road:

[Photo]

I had dressed up the basket on the front of my mobility scooter to look like it was on fire, with a warning sign on the from showing a disabled wheelchair user caught between a fire and a flood – referencing the Wennington wildfire exactly a year previously.

It also referenced the danger from flash flooding, which was tragically emphasised in the run up to my plea hearing by the death of an 83-year-old Chesterfield woman called Maureen Gilbert, who drowned in her home during Storm Babet, as she was unable to escape the rapidly rising water inside her terrace home owing to mobility problems.

I carried a placard with fake flames coming out of the top, that said, ‘I cannot run from a Climate Emergency’. Neither run literally, because of my disability, nor run from what I feel is my social responsibility to try and spotlight the implications of a climate emergency, not just for disabled communities, but for all vulnerable people – the old and the frail.

Cops provide a concerning response

I asked the first police officer who approached me, I believe my arresting officer, to turn on his body cam and record a safety announcement – me detailing my various disabilities.

I explained exactly why I was there, and I was told that I was liable to be arrested.

I remember asking one officer, I think my arresting officer, to see it not as an arrest, but a demonstration in how difficult it would be to save someone like me from a fire at a moment’s notice and carry me to the safety of a police cell. To see it as an exercise in preparedness, as it were – to which, I remember him saying:

If you were in a burning building, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.

I remember thinking, if you threw me over your shoulder, it would be like throwing a 13-stone ironing board over your shoulder, as my back and neck are almost entirely fused, and you’d probably drop me and/or break my neck in the process. It certainly wouldn’t be that quick and easy.

I was given every opportunity to leave, invited on numerous occasions to carry out my protest along the pavement, away from the entrance. But it felt right to remain just where I was: right in the middle of what they like to call the Sterile Zone.

Now prosecuting disabled people to acting ‘socially responsibly’

It’s strange, but I felt both my strongest and weakest at the same time. Surrounded by cops, one of whom apparently had a best friend with MS, yet none of whom could lay a finger on me, through fear of breaking something.

Who knew that fragility could become a super-power; the burning issue of climate change held aloft, perhaps barring the way of prime minister Rishi Sunak who’s motorcade would have usually swept past by then.

So, I was arrested under section 143 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which I thought was quite apt, as I sincerely believe that I was acting socially responsibly raising these urgent issues, especially for disabled, vulnerable and frail people; those who will be shoved onto the front line of this Tory government’s war against the weather.

I pleaded ‘not guilty’ because I don’t think that I did anything wrong. My mum told me to tell the judge that I had seen the error of my ways – when in fact some of us were beginning to feel a real terror in our days:

[Click through to article to watch video]

Disabled activist Neil Goodwin was arrested under the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act outside parliament

The below article is an opinion piece from Neil Goodwin, an activist who was arrested for blocking an entrance to parliament with his mobility scooter

[Click to listen to the article]

I’m in Westminster Magistrate’s Court at 10am on Wednesday 3 April, charged with blocking the entrance to parliament in my mobility scooter; I’m disabled, living with multiple sclerosis (MS). This is a bit of what I am hoping to tell the judge.

Protesting the climate crisis as a disabled person

On 19 July 2023, exactly a year on from the hottest day on record and the devastating Wennington wild fire, I travelled up to parliament to protest. It was a Wednesday, and Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) was on – the busiest day of the week for parliament and for the media who cover it.

I positioned myself in front of the carriage entrance, facing towards the road:

[Photo]

I had dressed up the basket on the front of my mobility scooter to look like it was on fire, with a warning sign on the from showing a disabled wheelchair user caught between a fire and a flood – referencing the Wennington wildfire exactly a year previously.

It also referenced the danger from flash flooding, which was tragically emphasised in the run up to my plea hearing by the death of an 83-year-old Chesterfield woman called Maureen Gilbert, who drowned in her home during Storm Babet, as she was unable to escape the rapidly rising water inside her terrace home owing to mobility problems.

I carried a placard with fake flames coming out of the top, that said, ‘I cannot run from a Climate Emergency’. Neither run literally, because of my disability, nor run from what I feel is my social responsibility to try and spotlight the implications of a climate emergency, not just for disabled communities, but for all vulnerable people – the old and the frail.

Cops provide a concerning response

I asked the first police officer who approached me, I believe my arresting officer, to turn on his body cam and record a safety announcement – me detailing my various disabilities.

I explained exactly why I was there, and I was told that I was liable to be arrested.

I remember asking one officer, I think my arresting officer, to see it not as an arrest, but a demonstration in how difficult it would be to save someone like me from a fire at a moment’s notice and carry me to the safety of a police cell. To see it as an exercise in preparedness, as it were – to which, I remember him saying:

If you were in a burning building, I’d throw you over my shoulder and carry you out.

I remember thinking, if you threw me over your shoulder, it would be like throwing a 13-stone ironing board over your shoulder, as my back and neck are almost entirely fused, and you’d probably drop me and/or break my neck in the process. It certainly wouldn’t be that quick and easy.

I was given every opportunity to leave, invited on numerous occasions to carry out my protest along the pavement, away from the entrance. But it felt right to remain just where I was: right in the middle of what they like to call the Sterile Zone.

Now prosecuting disabled people to acting ‘socially responsibly’

It’s strange, but I felt both my strongest and weakest at the same time. Surrounded by cops, one of whom apparently had a best friend with MS, yet none of whom could lay a finger on me, through fear of breaking something.

Who knew that fragility could become a super-power; the burning issue of climate change held aloft, perhaps barring the way of prime minister Rishi Sunak who’s motorcade would have usually swept past by then.

So, I was arrested under section 143 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 which I thought was quite apt, as I sincerely believe that I was acting socially responsibly raising these urgent issues, especially for disabled, vulnerable and frail people; those who will be shoved onto the front line of this Tory government’s war against the weather.

I pleaded ‘not guilty’ because I don’t think that I did anything wrong. My mum told me to tell the judge that I had seen the error of my ways – when in fact some of us were beginning to feel a real terror in our days:

[Click through to article to watch video]

I love their tracks that take you on a journey, like epic questing music..