Peter Ross

We are delighted to share the latest artwork from Headway Sussex member, Peter Ross, who has an incredible background in engineering.

Peter was born in Southern India and came to England as a child. He went to school in Sussex, where he still lives and has three grown-up children. He was an Aircraft Technician in the Royal Air Force, during which time he obtained a BA, BSc and a masters.

For three years after that, he was a maintenance manager at Worth Engineering before joining British Airways as an aircraft engineer in 1987.

He remained there until 1995 when he became the engineering manager responsible for the Supersonic Land Speed Record Project known as ‘Thrust’.

This was the first car to beat the land speed record on 15 October 1997 in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The vehicle was jet-propelled, weighed nearly ten tonnes and was driven by a Royal Air Force fighter pilot. The car is now displayed in the Coventry Transport Museum.

Peter was also the Technical Superintendent at the School of Engineering at Surrey University and later became the Safety Advisor at the University of Brighton.

Peter suffered a devastating stroke in November of 2012, which left him paralysed on his right side, and his speech was badly impaired. Peter was in hospital for nearly a year and was unconscious for many weeks.

Peter now attends Headway in Newick East Sussex one day a week, where he participates in several activities. He is a talented artist and produces pencil sketches from imagination.

He recently finished creating a 3D donkey model, which took six months and began life as a flat piece of card. Peter finds artwork helps him with mobility in his upper body and encourages relaxation. He also draws and paints at home and is a member of Brighton Art Club.

At Headway, Peter also takes part in group cognitive exercises, which he says enable him to gather his thoughts and
transfer them into words – something which has proved an enormous challenge since his stroke.

Peter finds meeting up at Headway with others who have suffered brain injury beneficial, as he can chat with them as well as the carers and volunteers. When he wishes to have some quiet time, he also enjoys tending the raised beds of herbs and vegetables and maintaining the house plants and seedlings.