Disabled pioneer still raising the barboard because it is a holiday at-mosphere where I feel I can do everything everyone else is do-ing,” Nick said. “On a cruise ship I can go anywhere and do most things everyone else is doing.

“And I really like the special friendship on board. There’s a feeling that grows up between the passengers and the crew – that we’re all in this together. By the end of the trip I have found I have made a lot of good friends. It’s a great feeling.”

On the job, Nick has consoli-dated his position as a salesman, as well as taking the position of stock controller for the dealer-ship.

He has also won the coveted “Gold Leader” award from his employer, Toyota, three times over the past three years. To win the award the salesman has to sell more than 220 vehicles over the preceding year. Few people, even without a disability, are able to achieve it and most of them are in big-city dealerships with many times the number of potential customers that Nick has.

So how has he done it?

“The main thing I try to do when I am dealing with cus-tomers is to show that I care about them,” Nick says. “Buying a new car is a big thing for many people. Some can only afford to do it once in their life and it is something special.

“So I do everything I can to get them the car that they feel they need.”

Nick says it has helped that he has always loved dealing with

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people. Like many disabled peo-ple, he has a special empathy.

As we pointed out in our first article, Nick’s disability was caused by problems at birth that

deprived his brain of oxygen causing damage to the move-ment centres of his brain.

Now, aged 38, he drives his own car, is paying off his own

‘He has always had to battle to get by and to fit in – to overcome the temptation to feel he deserves special treatment. He says he got much of his strength from his parents

who taught him that life is a battle for everyone and “you make life what you want

to make it, whoever you are”.’

home, and lives a similar life to most people who are not disa-bled. He has been used to living a “normal” life like everyone else since his earliest years when he

became the first disabled person at the school he attended, paving the way for many other disabled students over the years.

He has always had to battle to get by and to fit in – to overcome the temptation to feel he deserves spe-cial treatment.

He says he got much of his

strength from his parents who taught him that life is a battle for everyone and that “you make life what you want to make it, whoever you are.”

Nick Burling outside the Windsor Toyota dealership

PeoplePeople

Disabled pioneer still raising the barNick Burling has always been

a pacesetter. When we first wrote about him almost five years ago he was already a pioneer. He had led the way for disabled kids at a normal school, despite the fact that he was severely affected by cerebral palsy. He had also established himself as a successful car salesman at a new car dealership in Windsor in Sydney’s outer west.

Since then, Nick has gone from strength to strength. He has consistently sold more cars than most salesmen in big city dealerships and he has defied sceptics by showing he can even take care of himself on board a ship.

“When I approached a cruise

ship company to take a cruise on my own, they said it couldn’t be done,” Nick says. “They said that someone in a wheelchair couldn’t get by without a carer. But I didn’t hold it against them - they didn’t know me.”

When we spoke, Nick was getting ready for his fourth cruise. Not only did he man-age to get by on his own on the others, he became a star enter-tainer. On one trip he made it into the finals in a talent contest with his rendition of Billy Joel’s evergreen hit “Piano Man”. Even though passengers should have been in bed getting some sleep before an early rise the next morning, half the ship stayed up to see him perform.

“I’m really not that great a singer,” Nick laughed, “but eve-ryone seemed to have so much fun when I got up there it spurred me on. You never know what you can do until you try.”

One of Nick’s proudest pos-sessions these days is the iPad on which he keeps the videos that other passengers took of him motoring about in his electric wheelchair, visiting everything from the ship’s restaurants and the swimming pool to the on-board disco. One shows him responding to a dare to join the dancing by raising himself next to his wheelchair and swaying along with the dancers.

“I have had a great time on

By William West

MARCH 201236 PERSPECTIVE

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