From nurse to biographer

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 16

From nurse to biographer

From

KEN COATES

in London

The first job a New Zealander, Marc Alexander, got when he arrived in London 26 years ago was as a hospital medical orderly. ' One of the patients at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases was a young ballet dancer, struck down by polio, but keeping a precarious hold on life in an iron lung. Everyone at the hospital, including Marc, thought she would die. Not only did Elizabeth Twistington Higgins, -0.8. E., live in spite of being paralysed for life, she has become a worldfamous painter, and runs her own dance troupe. Marc Alexander, now an author who has published

25 books, has written the script for a film about Elizabeth’s courageous life, soon to have its premiere in London. It is . called, appropriately, “The ■ Dance Goes On,” and has been produced by Aquarius Film Productions, of which Marc is a director. “When I turned up at the hospital 26 years ago, fresh from Gisborne, I thought I would be mopping floors,” Marc says. “Instead I was given a white coat and told to carry out nursing work. “It was fascinating, and I particularly remember Elizabeth Higgins, who had loved her dancing and was devastated. She • couldn’t even breathe

properly out of the iron lung, and I helped to lift her in and out.”

Elizabeth Higgins was the daughter of a prominent Harley Street surgeon. Her parents opposed her becoming a. dancer, but . she persisted, was eventually accepted for the Royal Academy, and became thoroughly professional, dancing in the West End and often appearing in eight shows a week. On a . summer’s day, when she was 23, Elizabeth complained of feeling unwell;. , hours later she was fighting for her life against polio. “She was so ill,. people at the hospital rather' hoped she would pass, on mercifully quick-

ly,” Marc Alexander recalls. He left the hospital for a job in Fleet Street and forgot about Elizabeth Higgins. He did not know that the girl he left lingering in an iron lung had fought back to establish an independent life of her own, against tremendous odds. It was 25 years later, by chance while he was watching a late evening semi-religious TV programme, he recognised Elizabeth Twistington Higgins. He realised, too, the possibilities in her story for a book, and wrote to her at her house in Chelmsford, Essex. “It turned out to be an incredible story of courage and determination.” Elizabeth had discovered she retained slight movement in her neck, and she laboriously taught herself to breathe outside the iron lung, using her neck muscles. She made herself gasp air into her lungs, to take the place of the involuntary breathing we accept without. thinking. Then a dedicated woman friend taught her to paint, using a brush, held in her rpouth.

Elizabeth thoroughly understood the human

form through her ballet teaching, and found she had a real talent especially in painting pictures of dancers. She became internationally known as an artist, and from the sale of her paintings made sufficient money to buy a house — and a considerable measure of independence. She was able to buy an ambulance; friends lift her in and out on a roster basis. She has a wide range of electronic gadgetry enabling her to use' the telephone and even teach and organise her own dance company. . “She is a .marvellous person,” Marc Alexander says. “She always takes great care to look nice —- her nails are always polished, her hair beautifully brushed, and she dresses in a fresh silk blouse each day.” . He also describes her as “very tough and determined,” possessing a creative drive that has always been with her. “Basically, she is an artist, and that gives her something to hang on to.” Marc finished his book on Elizabeth’s life at the end of last year, and the film is based on it. Both will ; be- launched .at the same time.