Wedding suit worn by Kevin Donnellon

Customised jacket and trousers, with orange tie, made for Kevin Donnellon, a person living with thalidomide impairments, to wear on his wedding day, made by Daniel Hechter, United Kingdom, 2015

Kevin is a lecturer, disability consultant, activist, and father to his two children and husband to wife, Angela. On his wedding day he wore this suit, adapted to fit him. Kevin is living with impairments caused by thalidomide, one of at least 500 people born in Britain. Each person’s experience of living with thalidomide impairments is different.

Thalidomide was a compound found in drugs prescribed to people in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although today it is associated primarily as a treatment for pregnancy related nausea, it was also prescribed to anyone experiencing symptoms of colds, flu, headaches, anxiety, and insomnia. Thalidomide causes nerve damage in the hands and feet of adults, but when taken in early pregnancy it causes impairments such as limb difference, sight loss, hearing loss, facial paralysis, and impact to internal organs. One tablet is enough to cause significant impairments. Researchers later identified that there was a link between the impairment a person is living with, and which day of the pregnancy thalidomide was taken. UK distributors withdrew the drug in 1961 and a government warning was issued in May 1962.