'You can be what you want': York's stroke-surviving new Lord Mayor

There’s a good reason for that: because a few years ago, Margaret herself suffered a stroke.

It was during the Covid crisis. Margaret, who was 61, woke up in the middle of the night, and realised she couldn’t turn over in bed.

There was a strange numbness in her left arm and leg. She thought she must have been lying in a funny position and so cut off the blood supply. But when she tried to get up, she fell backwards onto the bed.

Her husband Paul helped her back to bed: but then she decided she’d go downstairs to make a cup of tea and see if by moving she could get some feeling back.

She bumped downstairs on her bottom – and half way down burst out laughing.

“I suddenly thought; ‘How am I going to get back up again?” she said. “I’m quite happy to laugh at myself. It’s how I deal with stress!”

She knew in her heart that something was wrong, though she didn’t want to think about the word ‘stroke’.

So when she got downstairs, she phoned 111.

When she described her symptoms, an ambulance was quickly dispatched. She was whisked off to hospital – and sure enough, scans revealed she’d had a stroke.

She still remembers the moment she was loaded onto the ambulance to go off to hospital. She looked at Paul as the ambulance doors closed, and wondered if she’d ever see him again.

Incoming Lord Mayor Cllr Margaret Wells, front left, and her husband, Paul Midgley, back left. Also pictured: Stroke Association's Stuart Mitchell (front centre), Sheriff Fiona Fitzpatrick (front right) and Sheriff’s consort Geoff Cossins (back right) (Image: Supplied)

Not because she was worried about the stroke – but because the pandemic was raging, and she’d heard stories about people going into hospital and not coming out again.

At the same time, another part of her felt guilty. “I didn’t want to waste their time,” she said. “I thought; ‘What if I was just lying funny.”

But the hospital staff were ’amazing’, she said.

A stroke nurse was waiting, she was given a scan, and once her condition had been diagnosed, she began to receive physiotherapy.

After being discharged from hospital, she went to White Cross Lodge, where she continued her rehabilitation.

The incoming Sheriff of York, Fiona Fitzpatrick (left), Lord Mayor of York Margaret Wells (right) and Survive CEO Mags Godderidge (centre) (Image: Supplied)

Today, she has recovered much of her mobility. She can use her left arm – though not as well as before – and, with the help of an ankle support for her left leg, can walk without limping.

“Although it means I don’t have attractive shoes!” she said.

The stroke came as a wake-up call, both for her and for Paul, who is her third husband and who will serve as Lord Mayor’s Consort during her year in office. “It’s made me appreciate an awful lot of things much more,” she said.

She decided to speak up about her stroke because she wanted to show people that you can achieve things, whatever your circumstances.

As a girl growing up in Huntington and New Earswick, who left school at 17 because she never thought she was ‘good enough’ to go to university, she never dreamed that one day she would be Lord Mayor.

Her route to becoming first a Labour councillor and now Lord Mayor saw her going to the University of York as a mature student in her 30s after having two children.

She studied social policy, and after graduating got a job first in the ombudsman’s office, and then working for Labour MPs Hugh Bayley and Rachael Maskell.

She was elected as Labour councillor for Clifton in 2015.

“So I want to say to people, ‘you can!’’, she said. “You can achieve what you want and be what you want.”

The Lord Mayor's Charities

If there's one thing Margaret Wells regrets, it’s that she didn’t approach The Stroke Association for help when she really needed it.

She did find things difficult when she returned home from rehab after suffering her stroke, she admits.

Coming downstairs was ‘scary’ and ordinary everyday chores weren’t easy.

But she didn’t approach the Stoke Association at the time.

“I never thought about myself as having a disability,” she said. “I thought I could ignore it.”

She now wishes she had approached them - because she realises how much help they could have been.

“Their aim is to give people the best life that they can have,” she said.

Many people assume that once someone has had a stroke, they will either die, or recover fully, Cllr Wells said.

It’s not like that, she stressed. “It affects people for life.”

The Stroke Association really can help survivors, she said.

Both she and her Sheriff Fiona Fitzpatrick are themselves stroke survivors – which is why they have made the Stroke Association their main charity of the year.

They have chosen three other charities, too, though.

These are:

• Survive, who help adult survivors of rape, sexual abuse or child sexual abuse to rebuild their lives
• York RLFC Foundation, who use the power of sport to help people lead fulfilled, healthy and active lives
• York City Football Club Foundation, which works to improve community cohesion and reduce social isolation and loneliness through sports activities

Sheriff Fiona Fitzpatrick said: “We are excited to be working with these amazing charities. We have some great fundraising events planned … and I am sure that there will be something for everyone to enjoy.”