Early Life
Alison Lapper has a congenital disorder, phocomelia, which caused her to be born without arms and with truncated legs. Her mother met her for the last time during her childhood when she was four months old, although a reconciliation was attempted later in Lapper's life. She was institutionalized from her childhood, and is still distant from her relatives.
When she was fitted with artificial limbs, she experienced them only as an attempt to make her look less disconcerting instead of actually helping her. So she abandoned them and learned to live without external aids.
At the age of 19, Lapper left Chailey Heritage School and moved to London. She acquired a driving licence and a flat. Lapper studied in The Faculty of Arts and Architecture at the University of Brighton and graduated with a first class honours degree in Fine Art in 1994.
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