Tony Heaton

When, at the age of 16, a motor bike accident left him with a spinal injury, he switched from a comprehensive school to a local arts college at Southport.

From 1972, he was self-employed as artist, sign writer, disc jockey, record shop proprietor, progressive rock band member and mural painter.

According to a Disability Arts Online profile, at this period "Heaton gathered enormous expertise and self-reliance whilst appearing to drift aimlessly".

Lancaster's head of sculpture, Paul Hatton, noted that the marks left by Heaton were immediately distinguishable from the footprints of his fellow students and urged him to develop work about this.

Heaton states that, "A chance comment about how the marks left in the sand by my feet and crutches made my tracks immediately identifiable became the catalyst for a whole series of works relating to disability and my interaction with the environment".

The whole edifice was brought crashing to the ground when Heaton threw an artificial leg at it, suggesting that the hierarchical system could be destroyed by the collective power of disabled people.

For instance, "Split" (1995) is a woodcarving made from a piece of ash discarded by a wood turner as useless because it has a shake; a fault running through it.

[8] During the 2012 Paralympics Heaton was invited to redesign 'Great Britain From a Wheelchair' as lecterns for Lord Coe and Sir Phillip Craven during the opening and closing ceremonies.

Heaton stated: "I wanted to use the structure of the Big 4 as one of four elements that would fuse together to form a new cohesive piece - which would provoke thought and celebrate Channel 4's involvement and commitment to the Paralympics.

[14] From 1997 to 2007, Heaton was based in Dorset, as Director of the Holton Lee Trust[15] which offers a mix of environmental, artistic and spiritual activities, with short stay residential facilities for Disabled people, in an SSSI comprising 350 acres of woodland, reed bed and heath land landscape adjacent to Poole Harbour.