Neville Cohen
Perhaps the most impressive participant at the 1956 Stoke Mandeville Games, however, was Neville Cohen from South Africa. Neville had previously been a patient at Stoke Mandeville three years previously and had arrived in the UK in late April, having driven overland with a friend all the way from Johannesburg in South Africa. According to his autobiography by the time Neville applied to take part in the Games all of the accommodation was already full and so he pitched his tent underneath the window of Dr Guttmann’s office.
Neville Cohen was the first South African to be introduced to sport at the Stoke Mandeville hospital during his rehabilitation after a motor vehicle accident that left him paralysed. On completion of Neville’s rehabilitation, Dr Guttmann invited him to take part in the 1956 Stoke Mandeville Games. In May 1956, Neville, accompanied by his friend Danny Wiener, completed a journey of 19 312 km from Johannesburg to London through Africa with his self-adapted vehicle. It took them just over three months to reach London. That year Neville became the first South African to unofficially take part in the fifth International Stoke Mandeville Games and win a gold medal for swimming. The following year Neville and Danny followed the same route back to Johannesburg, where they put a South African team together to take part in the next Stoke Mandeville Games as well as the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia.
https://www.rollinginspiration.co.za/sport-for-people-with-disabilities-in-south-africa/
This memorial lecture serves to honour Neville Cohen – one of the founding members of the Centre for AAC in 1990; visionary extraordinaire disability advocate, mobility engineer …. a man ahead of his time.
Chairman Industries is a wheelchair and disability aids manufacturer in Jeppestown, Johannesburg that pride ourselves in our service and care of the disabled community of Southern Africa. Chairman Industries was founded by Neville Cohen in 1983 to provide a service for disabled people that lacked quality equipment and the independence they deserve. Since 2010 the company has been owned and run by Viv Sierra who has engrained a sense of quality and work ethic that flows through to the products we produce.