WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES.

Those of you who regularly read my blog entries will realise you’ve had nothing new to read for weeks. There are two good reasons for this, the first of which is simply that I’ve been too fed up to right and the second is that I’ve been busy because the spiritual “sun” which I thought had gone behind a permanent cloud, has peeped out and spread new light on my circumstances which are now about to change.

I am sure you will recall the loss of my dear beloved guide dog, Esme, now happily settled in the New Forest while I have been trapped without her in my home with only a painful back and feet for company. You may also recall that I said I couldn’t have another dog unless I move.

In January, this year, I had a letter from another housing complex for blind people, asking me if I wanted to remain on their waiting list. Having only moved last June I was tempted to say “no” but something told me not to so I said “yes” instead. I was told I was second on their list, having jumped up from fourth. If only they’d been talking about a book in the best seller list, written by me of course! Instead they were talking of their waiting list and my place on it. Each day I waited patiently for the phone to ring with the news that I longed for – That I had got a place there.

Just before Easter I was told they had a vacancy and offered the opportunity of staying for a week in their guest flat to see how I liked it and help the staff and me make a decision as to whether it’d be the best place for me. I went. We all got on well. I loved it and am moving tomorrow. In the weeks between January and now, my present environment has gone from bad to worse – Children running around an unattended complex at night, no meals provided for those who need them, and people clamouring to leave in droves, not least of whom was a lovely and efficient receptionist who couldn’t take working here any longer. This must be the only place with a waiting list to get out!

Without caring relatives I wondered how I was going to manage this move and what I would do regards the practical problems of clearing stuff out and packing. My lovely German lady who boarded Esme has said she will come and take me down to my new home and help me all day; other sighted people have lent their hands and helped with writing letters to folks I can’t email and helped with the acquisition of the post office form needed for the redirection of mail. Esme’s former boarder and my fairy godmother, even gave me the details of a removal firm which is reliable and that really was a load off my mind.

I managed most things like arranging for the stopping of my standing order at the bank and to have my BT account transferred but my back problem has made clearing stuff out very difficult though I’ve even managed that also to a very large extent. What I have been stunned by is the unexpected kindness of those I hadn’t thought would come, including a lady who I met when she talked to me on the street about God and tried to involve me in her religious group. Most outstanding of all though is the goodness of U, the lady who looked after Esme when I was first ill and whom I shall meet for the first time tomorrow.

I have mixed emotions today. I’m glad to leave the worst run place for blind people that I have ever had the misfortune to enter, sad to leave those who unfortunately can’t come with me, especially some of the old and frail people who are being sold short when they need help most and who are having their anxieties heightened instead of relieved and I shed tears when I said my farewells to S, my kind and trusted home help. She has also been a great help to me in these last weeks leading up to this move. She will come and see me I know.

Tomorrow I will be off to a bigger flat in a better area with more facilities and nearer shops and dedicated, kind staff some of whom hugged me when I came home last month, saying: “See you in a month’s time”. While there I went out for three meals with tenants, some of whom have offered me their help when I get there tomorrow. It will be strange at first, for I don’t know the area, only know my way round part of the building and everything will be in different places in a completely new flat. However, I’m also relieved as well as dog tired and excited to be making a new start. Maybe there will be another wagging tail at the end of another dog who will come bounding into my life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring apart from the furniture van and my fairy godmother? I can only offer up a silent prayer of thanks for my deliverance from this dismal dump and hope that the needless sorrow to which my poor friends here have been exposed, due to crass and stupid mismanagement and a profit before people ethos will soon end for them too.

I’m not stupid enough to believe my problems will all be left here and will not be found at my new home but the difference is that there will be joys too which is more than can be said for life here. Those whose responsibility it is to run this place should hang their heads in shame for they do not even deliver their services with kindness or care. When the door to this chapter of my life closes tomorrow, I can only hope that the opening door will indeed be on a brighter and happier day – Something I thought would never happen, especially when the Guide Dogs employee took away my lovely Esme last August. She, together with my friends, some dead and some living, was all that kept me going through the sixteen years of needless misery and worsening services which I’ve had to endure here and which are now, thankfully, coming to an end. Maybe that annoying cliché really is true (my Nan said it often enough to my great irritation because I don’t like clichés and platitudes). “When one door closes another one opens”.

ALMOST HUMAN – A TRIBUTE TO ESME.

If you who are reading this have a dog, whether a soppy little mongrel or a great lumbering creature on legs, doubtless it will mean the world to you and when the time comes to part or the dog dies then surely you will feel as I do, namely that your whole world has collapsed or even disappeared before your very eyes. How much more is this true when that dog has been your eyes for approximately eight years.

I first met Esme at the Guide Dogs Training Centre in Wokingham where the food was like that served in a top class hotel and the compassion and kindness of the staff matched it in equal measure. However, food enthusiast that I am though much of it is forbidden these days for health reasons, my main longing wasn’t for a decent meal but for my first meeting with my dog. From the moment she bounded into the room I knew that I loved her. How much I would come to love her more even I couldn’t begin to imagine.

Because of a back problem which has now forced me to retire her a little earlier than would otherwise have been so, the Association matched me with a slow walking though very conscientious dog who was rightly described by Julie Tranfield, our instructor, as “generous”. For eight years nearly we walked the streets of my local area and Esme rarely made a mistake. At home though, it was a different matter entirely in that she turned from the conscientious guide into an exuberant and lively dog who needed some effort on my part when drying her after the rain had soaked her coat. She would back me into a corner, stand on the towel I was trying to use after shaking herself inside the flat of course and finally pin me to the bath as she rolled onto her back with all four paws in the air. My friends described her as a real character – One or two commenting that they have never seen a dog like her.

Esme’s strangest but most welcome characteristic was her love of the vet’s surgery. Most dogs have to be dragged kicking and barking to the vet but not Esme. She would stand on the crossing, quivering and whining and almost run me over the road in order to get inside for the liver treats she was given there. In fact I had to get the receptionist to help me back over the crossing because if I didn’t, Esme would walk round in ever decreasing circles, finally ending up at the door again with tail wagging on the frame in the vain hope of another few treats. When her plans were thwarted she would walk sulkily home at a snail’s pace with the tail down.

Hearing the “windows” tune on the computer was a source of joy to her as she realised I was logging off in order to feed or take her for a walk. Amazingly she was not afraid of fireworks or loud bangs and thunder.

The dark cloud on my dog owning horizon began to form last August, just after I’d completed the “Race for Life” walk with two other visually impaired people and two sighted guides, in July. Already my feet were painful so maybe it was stupid to do the walk which didn’t cause the problem but may have aggravated it. Diagnosed with plantar fasciitis which makes the heels intensely painful, I had to have physiotherapy but worse than that, had to have Esme boarded out by Guide Dogs who found her several suitable boarders including a lovely German lady with whom I’m now in touch and who sent me photos of Esme via the computer which to my utter chagrin I cannot see but still have so others can see how lovely she is. Always in my mind was the kernel of hope that I may be reunited with her once the physio was over. However, just before Christmas just past, I developed numbness and pins and needles in my right leg, which shows no signs of going and have been told it is due to a back problem I’ve had since I was born ten weeks premature which is why I’m blind in the first place as I needed so much oxygen to help me breathe that the high levels damaged my eyes.

This week (Tuesday, 27th January in fact) a Guide Dog Mobility Instructor visited me and we sadly came to the decision to retire the best friend any blind person can ever have and in some cases is ever likely to have. Since Esme is now ten and hasn’t worked for months it seemed silly to bring her back to work and very wrong too since I can’t go very far at present as this area is so hilly. The worst aspect is that though I’d planned to have her back in order to see how I’d cope with a new dog, because these wretched pins and needles have started it has been mutually agreed that while I live in this area which anyway has few amenities now, my guide dog owning days are at an end though if I can move then perhaps I can own one again in the future but knowing my luck I’m not holding my breath.

What I can say is that throughout Esme’s time with me I had a friend who was almost human, a magnificent pair of eyes and a unique character quite different from those of the dogs I had before who were in their turn distinct and special. At first I was relieved not to have to take care of her because of my health problems but now that I know that my supposed temporary parting is permanent and that the prospect of more guide dogs is uncertain I’m devastated.

The kindness and compassion of the staff at Guide Dogs who have praised me for the high standard of care I gave to Esme plus our equally praiseworthy standard of work as a team,is greatly appreciated and shows me just how worthwhile a cause Guide Dogs is and it is to be hoped they don’t suffer in these times of recession especially as the charity gets no state aid.

Finally, I know I shall always have my memories of her but you can’t be guided in the street by a memory and neither does a memory wag its tail when you’ve just popped out to throw the rubbish down the chute and welcome you as if you’ve returned from Australia. Painful though the decision was to make, I know I did the only thing I could do – Release Esme from her duties so she could have the retirement she deserves. No it wasn’t a life of drudgery and slavery for her but a mutually beneficial life for both of us as she conscientiously worked for me, even slowing down when she knew my back was bad – While I, in my turn, loved and cared for her to the enth degree as she deserved. She was, as I say, almost human and an ever faithful pair of “eyes” which I have lost all over again. My only consolation is that I’ve heard she has adapted to being without me since dogs live in the present and will no doubt go to a loving home but what I can say with absolute certainty is that nobody, however loving and kind they will be to her, can ever love her more than I did and still do for she, like my other dogs, brought me to the brink of an understanding which just about still eludes me, as to the miracle of sight itself because walking with a dog is the ultimate in blind people’s mobility and beats using a cane into a cocked hat. Only thing is though, I never shed a bucketful of tears when I parted from any white cane but grief is the price you pay for love and anyone who meets or met Esme, never mind owned her as I did, could do anything other than love her.

BITTER-SWEET.

I have just this minute finished a book, telling the story of someone else who, like me, has owned a guide dog. I wanted to see whether her experiences were anything like my own but as I read the story, it became clear that our paths were to diverge in a way I could never have suspected.

Much later in the story, the author was seen by an eye specialist who operated on her eyes and returned her lost sight to her as a result. She had a genetic disease which blinded her but, like me, could see light at some time but unlike me; she saw colours too which I have never been able to do as far as I can remember for my sight was lost too early for me to recall them.

As I became aware that her operation was going to be a success, I was aware of mixed emotions. I wanted to know how she reacted to sight and seeing the world, herself and family plus colours and how she would learn to see but I was also aware of a deep sense of sadness that I am never to have this experience. Yes it was as I had imagined in that I have always thought that you can’t just open your eyes and see and know what everything was like. No you wouldn’t be able to get up out of a chair and just go anywhere without feeling apprehension and fear because your brain would have to adjust to your new situation and for a while at least you would have to close your eyes and touch things so you could recognise them that way. You’d have also to learn to write in the usual way with a pen and paper but once done, you would be filled with a sense of wonder at the world and all that is in it which is surely what a young child must feel when confronted with the world’s visual imagery for the first time.

I learned things from this story that I never realised and know now that I was quite correct in assuming that there is a great deal of difference between knowing things factually: “The sky is blue or grey”, “roses are red, violets are blue”; “clouds can be like fluffy bits of cotton wool in the sky” etc. and knowing things experientially. She describes how lettuces catch the light, or perhaps it’s the water they’re being washed in as it runs from the tap, and how it creates pools of reflected light which swirl around. I have never thought of this before.

This author was honest enough to talk about the implications of blindness, what it robs you of, how narrow it can make your life and how disconnected from the world you can be because of it and she was fortunate enough to have married a sighted man whilst blind and have many friends who can see.

In other ways I wish I’d not read this book – Not because I am not pleased for her and not just because of sour grapes and horrible feelings of envy, jealousy, rage and frustration but because it has brought to the forefront of my mind the tantalising nearness of a world I live with in parallel to but cannot enter and, yes, I would be telling lies if I said that I happily read this book and thought: “Oh well, never mind! That’s your story I’m happy as I am and never think how good it would be were things different”.

The only area on which I disagree with her is that about when it is “best” to become blind. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The terrible feelings of helplessness, fear, resentment and longing which often accompany loss of sight later in life are not exclusive to the adventitiously blind. These feelings of knowing what you’ve missed or at least that you have, feeling left out and indeed being so and knowing your life is not going to be the same as it could have been had you not been blind or otherwise disabled for that matter are just as painful in youth and adulthood for those who haven’t seen. It’s like being hit on the back rather than in the stomach. Both hurt and both have to be coped with. Those who’ve lost their sight have a visual memory to take with them and an understanding of a world they are forced to leave – The world of vision – Whereas I have no actual readjusting to do in one way but a cobbled together understanding which makes it hard to choose clothes, find my way by thinking in terms of spatial distances and raised maps and suchlike. I do admit that because I was taught how to cope in the home I don’t “feel blind” at home and can and do cook, know how to identify my tins because I can put Braille labels on them and can do such things as measure cereal out without spilling it everywhere. I neither burn or scald myself and don’t fall downstairs and am not a fire hazard. Older blind people who have seen do tend to do some of these things more often but I am sure that, were I to sleep in the same house with one of them, they would at some time have heard me shedding tears over a horrible journey through a world of nothingness just as I would hear them doing so over things no longer seen by them or possible like their lost ability to paint or read books; see flowers or family.

One thing I do know for sure is that, after I have next slept, I am going to need to employ my happiness strategies all the more rigorously. Just beside me, walking stealthily, is that other “me” which does wonder what the world is really like, why this had to happen in the first place and why something can’t be done to reverse things and, as with monopoly: “get me out of jail”. Sheila, the author, has called this other self from the shadows and it’s a voice I’ve not heard for a long time and a longing I’ve not had for a long time and rarely get now until I hear of someone who has been liberated. It’s going to take all my strength to restrain this other self; to send it back into the shadows because, like her guide dog, mine is ten now as hers was when she wrote the story, and my future is by no means going to be as hers was. However, I don’t know what has happened to her in later life though I have another book here which will no doubt tell me and I don’t know what my future is to be either. I just know that, as it is for the rest of you, it’s got to be a question of one day at a time and playing the hand of cards I’ve been given. However, soon I shall have, for the sake of all these suppressed and now expressed longings, either to escape into fiction – Either reading or writing it and into music in order to divert my thoughts.

What a wonderful reversal of fortune this woman had! At least though, she did, as I hope I would, appreciate it and didn’t, as I don’t, shrug off and play down the enormous impact blindness has on people. The secret now is not to dwell on the difficulties – Easier said than done but I have become an adept at it for it’s something I have to do every day and though I had tears in my eyes when I’d finished this book, I was smiling at the same time. Well then folks, could you call that the facial equivalent of a rainbow?

IT CAN BE DONE.

Let’s start 2009 on a positive note. I’m going to make what will, to some be an outrageous statement and a contradiction in terms. Christmas and the New Year celebrations can be enjoyed without the inclusion of alcohol! Yes you did read it right.

Some years ago, after the death of my husband, I took to drink in a big way. My intention was simple – Drink enough and I’ll forget the misery of being unexpectedly and unpredictably alone – Drink more than enough and hopefully I’d join him. I kept this up for some considerable time until I realised that not only am I a tough little individual who is resilient and constitutionally quite strong but that the procedure didn’t work! I didn’t forget and haven’t died yet! All I had for my troubles was a headache which felt as if a band had set up their equipment inside my skull and I was the poorer both financially and spiritually and was on the way to doing serious damage to my liver and other organs. I didn’t have a moment of supreme enlightment on the way to the road to my personal Damascus and neither did I “get religion” though I have read the Bible from cover to cover. I just got fed up with the dry mouth, continual thirst and headaches and the fact that I needed more of the stuff to achieve the same very transient effect. Then I found that my epilepsy had worsened to the point where I was hospitalised and needed life-long medication which doesn’t go well with alcohol. So I kicked the habit, with only one or two relapses at Christmas time when the pressure to drink is at its strongest.

I had to sit down and analyse the reasons why I drank and knew only too well that it was to do with my deep and painful unhappiness. It was because I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I was on my own when I didn’t want to be and resented the rejection of me by many sighted people who either don’t get to know me or keep making promises they don’t keep or conduct any sort of relationship on their terms and I wanted a short cut to the oblivion which death brings to us all. At aged thirty-five I had three massive epileptic fits but still refused to die. I wasn’t drunk at the time but instead had just come home from switchboard work at the U.K’s well known charity for those with sight loss. I lost several hours of time and woke up in hospital with a canular in my arm, which dripped anti convulsant medication into my body. I wondered then why I was still here and realised that, though not lucky because of all I have suffered, at least I was still around which is more than could be said for the man I fell in love with and married. I thought too of the terrible distress my very elderly grandmother would suffer had I died or if I destroyed myself by abusing alcohol. Though the epilepsy is definitely the result of the oxygen damage which blinded me, and which began in early adolescence, I can’t deny the fact that what I was doing to myself must have affected its progress just as surely as my having to cope alone without help both of a practical or emotional support.

So conditioned are we to think that every and any celebration must include alcohol that even after I’d made the decision to stop, my Christmas relapses were always due to the fact that I thought I couldn’t enjoy them without it. As it is Christmas is not my favourite time of year so anything which would oil the wheels seemed to me a must. What about the Christmas just gone then?

In June I made my escape from the unspeakably inconsiderate oaf who spoiled my life for seventeen months by playing loud music all night and moved into another flat within the block where I’ve lived for years. With apprehension I heard that a couple was moving in beside me. I dreaded it in case they were a couple of beer swilling louts with an equally loud stereo system and no desire to wear headphones. I worried myself to death for days until I could stand it no longer. Armed with a box of chocolates I did something I’m not noted for – I rang their bell and introduced myself to them. They invited me in, told me they’d suffered in the same way and that they were quiet and private people who also avoided alcohol. We clicked at once and are now not just neighbours but friends and I was so touched when, dreading Christmas as I always do, they invited me round for Christmas dinner. I had the loveliest Christmas possible. The lady of the house is a superb cook and I’ve been teasing them both about constructing a serving hatch in the adjoining wall so that I can push my plate through at meal times. They popped in for New Year’s Eve and throughout both occasions we drank coke or water. When I came home and when they left after each celebration, respectively, I was on such a self-induced high that on went the headphones and up went the music! Then I said to myself, with a shock: “June, you’ve done it all without alcohol but not without friends whose kindness helped you accomplish it”. Both these lovely people keep their eyes on me. If they don’t see me for a little while, I get a ring on the bell to ask if I’m okay. It’s taken me all my adult life to realise that celebrations, especially Christmas and New Year do not have to be lived in an alcoholic haze and life can be happy without it too.

Of course one addiction or need if you like has been replaced with another. I live with music in my ears and as I’ve said before I’ve a strong compulsion to write but at least these are harmless compulsions especially since, in the case of music, I keep it at a sensible volume because I need my ears so much more than I would if I could see. I have been invited to my friends’ and neighbours’ wedding this year and, yes, I expect that too will be an alcohol free affair but the obvious love they feel for each other is all they need and having them as my new neighbours and friends is all I need so folks, if you’re struggling with alcohol consumption and were, like me, conditioned to believe that you can’t manage your celebrations without it, the good news is that you can. Also, if you feel a bit apprehensive about popping round to new neighbours with a box of chocks and introducing yourself, go on, give it a go! You may be unlucky and find you’ve met a real waste of space like I did when the floods in my first flat caused me to live underneath the neighbour from hell but then again you may, as I have, strike oil. Whatever the outcome, if you sit in your own flat or apartment or house, isolated and drinking alone as I did, you’ll never know and you may miss the warmth and kindness of others which will come back to you for that which you gave and that is more beneficial and precious than any number of bottles of alcohol. Here’s to friendship, love and kindness, as I sit here with my cup of tea!

WHAT TO DO WHEN HAPPINESS STRATEGIES FAIL.

As you may know, on this blog I have written my own personal suggestions, developed out of necessity, in order to help you find the best chance of reaching a happy state. I am not an expert in anything but living the life I have been given and playing the hand of cards fate has dealt me but I have suffered both from physical disability which is still with me and includes total blindness and mental illness in the form of depression so maybe as a lay person I can be of help. I certainly hope so because the unbearable sadness and weight of severe depression is destructive to the spirit, painful to bear and maybe avoidable altogether in the future or at least not so severe if it does return.

It will be impossible in some cases for you to realise how ill you have become since your thinking powers and ability to see yourself clearly and to reason properly will be affected. Therefore it is essential that you do not let pride stop you from seeking medical help even if that help includes taking drugs to alleviate and cure the symptoms. You must have the same attitude as you would to the wearing of glasses or a plaster on a broken leg. Depression is a normal reaction to an abnormal load of human suffering or misfortune, often carried alone and without appropriate support or even any support. The dangerous and damaging English attitude to: “Keep it all in” and adopt a permanently stiff upper lip is probably responsible for the terrible feelings of shame you may feel about being depressed in the first place. This may seem as if I’m contradicting my earlier statements about there being people worse off and all of us needing to count our blessings. While I stand by those statements, this is only possible once you have accepted that you are ill, sought and accepted treatment and then returned to health again. While in the throes of your depression, these maxims will sound like trite and meaningless rubbish which you will, in your negative state, dismiss just as I did.

It is essential too that you must learn to cry; feel sorry for yourself without feeling guilty and learn to love yourself because unless you do this you will never be in a position to love anyone else or to empathise with them or even to laugh with joy again. Just how do you learn to love yourself when for years someone has told you that you’re worthless and inadequate; hopeless and have no redeeming features? You sit down and think of all those who have had time for you. Few of us have gone through life with absolutely nobody to care for us or have been unfortunate enough never to have been told that someone loves us. Even if you have to go way back into childhood to find them, I bet someone once told you they believed in you, that you were good at this or that at school and even perhaps that you had a lovely smile or nice hair or skin. Start from there. Then think of a reason why there was a constant person in your life who devalued you all the time. If, as in my case, it was a parent, ask yourself why this happened and tell yourself that although it was because you were told it was due to your innate worthlessness, whether in fact it was because they were transferring their inadequacy to you or whether they needed to feel better and could only do this by making you feel worse. Tell yourself anyway that they were wrong, even if at first you don’t actually believe it. Say that today, although you are feeling miserable you will get through to nightfall, having perhaps achieved the small act of eating a little something or briefly smiling at someone who speaks to you even if it takes all your effort of will and then say to yourself: “Would the worthless person I was told I am do that”? Answer: “No”. At first this will seem stupid and pointless but from this small beginning greater steps will be taken believe me.

We were not meant to live alone, cope alone or be alone. So why are we? There are lots of reasons for this. Some have to do with the fragmentation of society; our over dependence on and value and even worship of material things and possessions; our writing off of weaker and more vulnerable people as worthless and insignificant; the structure of our cities which have enormous concrete tower blocks in which to house people and the transient nature of our physical relationships and an ever faster pace of life. We are taught that to be unable to cope is a sign of weakness and moral inadequacy and failure. We are conditioned to strive for and laud physical perfection and mental stamina and wholeness and that anything which does not match up is thought of as “uncool” so it’s no wonder that we fail, fall and need help. What would be the first thing which you would do if you saw me, a blind person, trip over something and land on my back on the pavement? I’m sure you would rush to my side, give me an arm and pull me up; always assuming I hadn’t broken a leg. You need, and so do I, a mental “hand up” when the weight of our unhappiness causes us to fall spiritually and mentally.

Depression is not something to be ashamed of. Deep and heartbreaking unhappiness and feelings of utter despair and hopelessness are feelings to be admitted and not denied for fear that people will ridicule you. Years ago you would never have got me to admit to being a blind writer on this blog. I never would have had blind characters in any of my stories which are too long for it and most certainly I would never have openly talked on the radio of my experience of depression. Now, in middle age and certainly in the second half of my life I don’t care. If people want to think I’m doing it to gain sympathy that’s their prerogative. I am flawed, fragile; frightened of increasing disability, cancer and/or having a stroke and being alone for the rest of my life and do you know what? So are you and so are they. I don’t like the thought of not existing one day or of having a painful death and being dealt with harshly by impersonal strangers or thinking that I will die unloved. Neither do you and neither do they. Therefore for you to have these feelings and worries, for you to feel crushed and defeated by life is normal. Struggling stoically all on your own is not. Talk to someone and if they tell you that you need help then believe them. Don’t let the fact that you feel better in the evenings full you. You cannot get over serious depression without help and treatment.

Finally, believe that you will get better. I did not believe I would ever get better. I harboured thoughts of suicide; drank too much before becoming ill; felt too full of misery to eat; hated people being near me then wanted them to be when they weren’t; felt overwhelmed by all the suffering both of my own and on the news; then eventually walked with a white cane up to the surgery to see my doctor, the tears streaming down my face as I went. When he asked me what was wrong I said: “Everything” and burst into tears again. I did not want pills, thinking that people’s affection and company would help but I took them all the same because I trusted him enough to believe I’d not get better without them. I also had six weeks’ counselling but don’t personally have that high an opinion of that, due to the guy who gave it to me who I consider to have made rude and offensive remarks during my last session but that’s just my opinion of it and it may work for you so try it if it’s suggested.

Now I am cheerful and happy again despite still being blind and having a bit of a painful back and having had something wrong with my feet for months. I believe in you though I don’t know you simply because I know how much the human spirit can overcome. I’ve seen it time and time and time again. I know I’m no better than you are and would lay odds on your return to full health again providing you accept yourself as you are, admit that you are ill and need help and then accept it. Most of all you must reject and disregard the opinions of those who have told you that you’re worthless and not loveable you’re not. Like me you’re just flawed and frightened though it’s probable that you are sighted.

When you are well again, then and only then, will my recipe for happiness have any chance of working for you. If it doesn’t, find your own and stick to it for your personality may not be the same as mine. Depression will hold you as securely as any lover but it is not your lover. Instead it is a cruel prison with barbed wire arms which will shred you into little bits if you don’t gently let others disentangle you and bind up your wounds. I promise you that you will heal. You will heal and feel again, love and laugh again and find some joy in life again but it takes courage which I can’t give you but which you must find from within yourself. I hope I have helped you. Please let others do so too.

BY GEORGE HE’S GOT IT!

“Hi Ken! Are you all packed and ready to go? I sure can’t wait to get into the White House which sounds kinda strange don’t you think? First black guy in the White House. Where you gonna live now that the people and I have turned you out? Do you reckon you’ll end up in the Wild West in one of those cowboy films? I mean remember Ronnie! Anyway, there’ll always be a room for you here if you’d like to come visit some time. Yours apologetically,

The other ‘big O’”.

“Hi, ‘Big O’,

I keep a-tellin’ ya, my name’s George don’t you know? Just ‘cos my wife’s name’s Barbie, that don’t mean I’m a male doll. I was once the most powerful man on the plane – Hell no! I mean the planet don’ I! Anyway, don’t you worry a darn thing about me. I’m goin’ to migrate, you know, like the little old tweetie birds do when the cold gets into ‘em. We’sa goin’ to Britain, me and Barbie. We got our eyes on a nice little pad near the Strand if not on it. Why they even named it after us! That was real nice o’ them. They did it ‘cos of the special relationship we’sa got. Why it’s so lovely and quiet in there that I will have time and privateness to write my memorabelia. ‘Scuse my spellifications. I never got much learnin’ at school you understand. Anyway, now that we got that Osama Binladen out of Iraq and killed all those poor soldiers of the Americas and Britanicles I feel really happified now. I mean I will go down in historics as the greatest President the little old U.SA has ever knowd. I know you’ll never beat that Big Boy but I wish you all the luckification in all the big old worl’.

Yours sincerely,

George (not Ken) dubblya.

“Hi again Ken,

I loved your letter. I’m interested to know where you’re going to emigrate to in Britain.

By the way, it was Saddam who was killed, not Binladen. Still, man of your standing is allowed a little mistake once in a while. I can’t think of a single place in Britain which is named after you. Maybe you can enlighten me. Anyway I’m glad you have somewhere to go. I feel very mean kicking you out and all that.

Kind Regards and don’t forget your toothbrush,

“The ‘big O’”

“Hi again ‘O’,

Well now I’m so excitable. I wonder if Barbie and I might stay on for a little while. We won’t ‘interseed’ with you nor nothing. It’s just that there are some people in my proposed homestead which are refusin’ to budge. They told me they like it there. Who can blame them! I liked it there when I had a peep through my sunglasses just before Christmas! Anyway, I reckon a stick of dynamice will move ‘em. By the way, the place is called: BUSH HOUSE. You get that, ‘Big O’? BUSH HOUSE I reckon it’ll do just fine.

Yours as always, Georgie Porgy. (And don’t call me Ken again”.

“Hi Ken,

Hell I know that place. They broadcast the World Service programmes from there and some of Radio4. They let the world know just what a mess you made in Iraq and they tell them about all the other little S.O.B’s who run the world! You can not hole up in there. I shall stop it. I shall write to Gordon at once and express my concern at your proposal. I’d say you could stay here and play with the kids but who knows what you’d teach ‘em. I don’t want you strutting about the place in your cowboy boots, giving ‘em bad ideas and a bad role model. I wanna raise my kids properly. I know what it is to be down-trodden. I’m sorry Ken, you’ll just have to go live somewhere else. Emigrate, yes by all means, but not to Bush House which, by the way, was called that long before you were a disaster in your mummy’s tummy.

Yours horrified,

‘The Big O’.

“Hi Obama,

You ain’t no ‘Big O’! Everyone knows that was the singer with the glasses – Roy Orbiting, that was him. I’ve already talked with Gordy. He told me he can’t do nothin’ ‘cos he ran the Tamla Mowtown label. I don’t like that stuff. I’d rather have Johnny Cash and Tammy Dinette. Why she sings real good! Anyway, I’m sure I can get into BUSH HOUSE if I wanna. There’s just two ladies holdin’ out on me. They’s reasonable gals I think. When they meet Barbie and me and see I’m twice as stupified as they thought I was they’ll take pity on me I know they will! Why I may even get a job as a security man. They’ll value my expandees which I gained while I was Presidivying over the good old USA. Anyway, my eyes is getting’ tired now. I’s a little short sighted so I’m gonna go now. Good luck Obama. I know’s you’ll be far too tied up to write back. I had the boys arrange that. Told ‘em to use the best Italian spaghetti. There’s no way you’ll excapee from that tangible I know. See you on the ice,

George”.

THE SQUARE OF SUCCESS.

Often I’ve heard it said that if you want something badly enough then you can achieve it. Not quite true.

I don’t often think in visual terms because, being blind, it doesn’t come naturally to me. However, in this instance I do. Success to me is like a square which, like any other square, has to have four sides of equal length to make it so. If a side is missing or of unequal length, the “square” of success cannot be drawn on the map of achievement.

First of all when a successful outcome is desired, ability has to be present. Without sounding immodest, I know I have writing ability which goes beyond just putting down any old word in any old order down on a piece of paper. It’s something I was told at school and numerous times since by people from all walks of life, some of whom work in the media and who have been the recipients of funny emails and snippets which I hoped would draw their attention to me. However, though necessary, ability alone is not enough though without it you’re sunk. An avid music lover, I could never be Georgina Shearing, or Stephanie Wonder. Therefore I’ve never tried because I can only really pick out a tune one-handed on a little keyboard and can’t co-ordinate my hands.

The second side of the square is the perseverance. How many people waste their talents because they don’t persevere or can’t manage the consequences of having their dreams realised? My old blind school was harsh and the discipline rigid as I’ve said before and this has given me the staying power I’ve needed. Writing, to me is like breatheing. I love it so much that I can’t imagine life without doing it. Reading is equally important. Such wonderful authors as Daphne Du Maurier, Ruth Rendell and the psychologist Dorothy Rowe have helped me cope with the bad times and while I can never claim to be anywhere near as good as any of them, I believe I could give as much pleasure to blind and sighted readers alike – People whose lives seem empty and hopeless and who need an escape from the drudgery and daily grind of life. Apart from a nagging desire to stick two fingers up at all the people in my life who said I was fit only for making cane baskets or being guided around like a helpless beggar, I long to give that sort of pleasure to others and have voiced that longing for many years to many people.

The third side of the square is practical help. This was a very long time coming. To begin with I had to find the right people – The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association employee who encouraged me to get a computer and went further than he need have done by offering to pick one up for me if I trusted him with the money. I did and he did. He brought it home, set it up and arranged for the training I’d need to use it. Technically this help was beyond his job description but as he said:

“You can always find excuses for not doing things”.

Had he stuck rigidly to the rules as so many do then he’d have joined the ever-growing band of people who wished me luck without helping me or knowing who could. I told him some of the ideas I had in my head and it was obvious to him that I needed help. He also sees his job as that of alleviating the terrible isolation which many of his clients feel. Other reasons for difficulty in obtaining help include too few trained people spread among too many clients over too wide a catchment area and, an even more pertinent reason in these hard times of recession, lack of funds as people tighten their belts and giving is less of a priority as spare cash is unavailable. Many charities including Guide Dogs get no state funding and smaller ones get no publicity or public support. I never heard of UCANDOIT before I had their support. This is the charity which trained me to use the computer and provided me with the talking software. I also had further help, costing much more, from a blind man whom I paid privately. Then the greatest stroke of luck of all happened. I started corresponding with someone whom I met on a social internet site. I sent her a story, far too long for the blog as many of them are, describing how blindness has impacted on me and how I cope with it. She suggested I start a blog. Because of health problems and the need for hospital visits due to my feet problems and the need for a new guide dog soon, I explained I didn’t know how to do this. She offered to put the entries up for me until I can do so myself. Reliable as the days of the week and trustworthy as all the professionals who have helped me in my quest, she has faithfully done what she promised. Luck has really come into its own here since at least had the others let me down I could have complained to their superiors or the Charity Commission but I’d have had to put it down to bitter experience had my friend let me down and you’d have not read any of my work which I have so desperately wanted to share for so long with whoever wants to read it.

So there you have them – The four sides of the square: Ability; perseverance; practical help and luck. How I would like to see more blind people reach their full potential and they could do, for we all have talents whether blind or sighted, but for the want of practical help and luck. Sadly instead I have seen all too many become despondent, lose their will to persevere and watch their abilities rust and be corroded by bitterness and despair. Some turn to drink, don’t eat properly or eat too much, others hate sighted people for seeing and successful blind people for being luckier than they and one or two have tried and indeed succeeded in taking their own lives. Of course sighted people are prey to all these things too but it’s the degree which differs and the fact that we have to work twice as hard to get half as far, knowing all the time we could get further but for the helping hands we need.

This is why I’ve written this piece, in the hope of inspiring not only the blind people whose courage is failing but you who are not blind so that one day you may reach out your hand containing the pencil light of hope which can help draw the square of success on another’s map of achievement. If you, and indeed I,don’t hold out that pencil light of hope, then vital and sometimes vibrant chapters will be missing not necessarily from my story and stories, but from the whole human story and I think that would be not only a waste but a shame since we’re all pages in the book of humanity and what a varied book that is!