Health reporter LUCY STEPHENS finds out about a York charity which helps people with disabilities in all sorts of practical ways and is on the lookout for more customers.

HAVING a disability limits what you can do in all sorts of ways some of them completely unexpected.

It can mean having to stop a favourite hobby, or an inability to perform an everyday task that used to be taken for granted.

But that's when Remap may be able to help. The charity, which has branches across Britain, brings together people with skills such as engineering, electronics and woodwork. Its members build one-off pieces of equipment to help people with a disability to perform tasks that would otherwise be beyond them.

They make practical products specifically tailored to each person they help and all for free.

Take Taff Mason.

Taff, 43, lives full time at Alne Hall, a Cheshire Home for disabled people near Easingwold.

He is paralysed down one side but, thanks to the services of Remap, he can now enjoy his hobby of fishing after its engineers built a special adaptation to his wheelchair that could support his fishing rod.

Taff said he only had the use of one hand and without this attachment he would not be able to fish, a sport he enjoys.

Another group of people who have been helped by the charity's work are patients recovering from strokes at York Hospital.

Members of Remap have installed a three-panel scanning board with magnetic letters and numbers with the aim of helping stroke patients turn the upper half of their bodies which can be a problem for them.

Made with magnetic boards mounted on a castored steel clothes rack, it works by encouraging patients to turn to the right and left to identify letters and numbers using a laser pen which hangs round their neck.

Colette Sanctuary, an occupational therapist on the hospital's stroke rehabilitation ward, says the board is proving a real help to her patients. "We're finding it really beneficial for the patients, particularly when there are not many resources out there," she said.

"It's encouraging them to turn their trunks, which is really difficult when you've had a stroke. If you use it regularly you will notice an improvement." But the York branch of Remap has a problem. It wants to help more people and that means letting them know about the work it does.

Volunteer Mike Jones, a retired engineer who lives in Haxby, explained: "We'll go along and have a look at the problem and suggest a solution if the solution is something we can produce, then we'll do it.

"People who think they have got a problem we could solve should just contact us we will come along and have a look. We're here, we want to help, we don't get enough referrals."

The group dealt with 43 cases referred to its members in 12 months but volunteers say they can deal with more. You can contact Remap by phoning Martin and Ruth Whillock on 01347 821849.

Examples of Remap's work in York

o A prize-winning kitchen workstation for a nine-year-old girl with a disabled right arm, designed by a student from the art and design department at York St John University College.

o A special knife for a four-year-old girl with two toes transferred to her right hand to provide fingers after she was born without any. The knife allows her to eat unaided.