Comedian Ryan Cull says childhood wearing leg braces gave him unique perspective on the world

A CHILDHOOD diagnosis of Legg Perthes Disease doesn’t sound like the likeliest path to a career in comedy.

But for Canadian comic Ryan Cull, the two years he spent in heavy-duty leg braces gave him a unique perspective on the world.

Legg Perthes (pronounced “Perth-ays”) causes the bone in the ball joint at the top of the femur to die, and children are often put in braces to stabilise the hip as it grows back.

And Ryan reckons the time he spent as a “half boy, half machine” made it difficult to feel normal and left him with body-image issues and insecurities.

At my primary school, one of the boys had to wear what we called callipers for a couple of years.

They seemed to be a triangular wooden frame with a solid metal bar between his ankles to hold his legs rigidly 45° apart.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I had as a kid,” nods Ryan, who’s 37.

“I was like RoboCop — but without the powers.

“With me, my hip bone was nowhere near the socket — it was like the song except in my case the hip bone was connected to nothing! — and my parents noticed I was limping.

“So doctors had to put my legs in these braces so they would hold the bone in the socket and it would grow into it.

“I was only six years old, so once it grew into it, they were sure it would stay in.

“I had to spend a couple of months in a hospital bed with weights at the end of my legs to strengthen them, then I had to put on the leg braces, and to go back to school.”

Legg Perthes affects about one child in 1,200 but Ryan says: “I honestly have never seen another kid in braces.

“One of my dreams was to meet another one, just so I could go up and talk to them, because I felt like I was the only one who ever had to deal with this.

“I sometimes wondered if the day after I got them, they invented a pill that just fixed it, and I got the last pair of braces!

“They looked like the oldest technology,” explains Ryan.

“Your shoe would sit on this giant block of wood and because that was really hard on me, my dad put the tread from car tyres on the bottom to try to cushion them a bit more.

“Everyone just assumes they were braces like Forrest Gump, because he’s the most-famous of all the leg-brace wearers, but his were nothing compared to what I had.

“That’s my most-hated movie of all time, because I watched it and just said: ‘No, this guy does not represent us and what we went through — our struggle!’

“The braces did fix the problem, but there were a few things I couldn’t do like playing ice hockey which as a Canadian is devastating.

“It’s even more upsetting when, like me, you’re a kid from Bradford, Ontario, where the greatest hockey player ever, Wayne Gretzky, comes from!

“I haven’t had any real physical problems since, although every now and again it gets a bit sore, and the medics say I’ll probably have arthritis in my hip when I’m older.

“To be honest, the long-term effects have all been emotional rather than physical,” admits Ryan.

“I’ve always had these issues about masculinity, or about not feeling tough or big or strong enough.

“You wonder why you feel like that all the time and I think obviously it all comes back to the fact that at six years old, my childhood just got stopped, basically.

“After that, it feels as if you’re not like any of the other kids.

“You feel weird and that just resonates through your life, and my show is basically about my growing up with that.

“But it wasn’t the other kids that were cruel,” Ryan reveals.

“One of my friends was having a birthday party and when you’re a kid, that’s the greatest thing, the social event of the year, but he didn’t invite me when I was in the leg braces.

“When I asked him about it, he said: ‘I couldn’t invite you because my mom said you’d ruin our new carpet!’

“She obviously thought I was going to spray oil everywhere like a worn-out car.

“No wonder stuff like that had an effect — and no wonder I’m a comedian!

“Also, my parents are Welsh so when I was in hospital or housebound we’d just watch British sitcoms like Fawlty Towers.

“I think my dad was of the opinion that it was good for me and he thought: ‘Well, if he’s laughing he’s definitely not crying.’

“That’s when I first got into comedy — it was as an escape for me.”

Ryan Cull: Brace Yourself is at Edinburgh’s Gilded Balloon throughout August. For tickets visit www.edfringe.com

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