Those of you who have read this blog may well be wondering how it is possible for a blind person to have achieved writing stories without being able to see the computer screen.
I intend answering this question by paying tribute to the charity which taught me how to use it and to describe what it does too.
Before I could learn anything I had to obtain a computer of course. A kind man from the Guide Dogs Association who heard I wrote stories and was impressed with my ideas, offered to pick up a computer and did so. This was money well spent by me I can tell you. He set it up but in order to save me further expense, he installed what turned out to be a much less versatile piece of software. This was noticed by my computer tutor who came from a small charity which teaches disabled people how to access technology. UCANDOIT then provides ten subsidised lessons to clients and further after care visits. It was from them that I learned to email and listen again on the internet and look things up in Google.
Having uninstalled the inferior software, my tutor also wanted to save me further expense and gave me “Jaws” (the name for this software) as they had a spare copy at UCANDOIT. She asked in return that I use it regularly which I most certainly do and that I publicise the work of the charity which I am more than happy to do.
I received further paid assistance from a blind man who is an expert in the use of jaws (the first two letters stand for something I can’t remember and the last two for windows software I believe) and that means I can now send attachments and stories to people. As a result of this I was able to send an account of my life as a blind person, “I Feel how you See” which gives an open and honest account of how blindness has impacted on me, to someone I met on an internet website. This may have seemed a silly and risky thing to do – Sending a story to someone I didn’t know – But of course a lengthy correspondence took place first and things she told me made me feel I could trust her. Also when I typed in: “Internet radio stations” google came up with one and now after a lot of trial and error I have managed to customise my radio stations and was able to amend my profile which I first made a mess of.
My trustworthy friend C. suggested I create a blog and she has been enormously helpful in this regard since at present I’ve been thwarted in my attempts to gain further help to get my longer stories formatted so that publishers will look at them. However, C. couldn’t have helped without the help I received from UCANDOIT and the blind man and it would have been no good the kind man from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association picking up the computer for me if it couldn’t be made to talk to me so it’s all down to “Jaws”, the little CD which my computer tutor inserted into the machine and gave me, which means you can read this now. Am I glad I stepped into the “Jaws” of freedom and worked very hard to learn not only how to use the machine but to learn the software commands too. I still don’t know everything about it but I do know just how much it has revolutionised and transformed my life, pulling me from the isolating grip that blindness and other disabilities had upon my ankles and planting my feet in the land of freedom and expression – The freedom which was made possible by the invention of “Jaws”.
Monday, September 29, 2008
MY BROTHER’S KEEPER.
Leslie and I have always been close – Well as close as it’s possible to be under the circumstances.
Mother and father never wanted me to be an only child since they’d both been only children and both been lonely. They dreamed of the ideal family with two children and in a way their dream came true. However it was not to be exactly as they’d wished since Leslie was born with Cerebral Palsy. He was so severely affected that his body was a prison which housed his very considerable mental abilities but trapped him within its confines and he wrongly gave others the impression that because of his severe speech impairment and tendency to salivate that he must be mentally handicapped too. Very often the greater the physical disability the more mental deficiency is assumed but often in complete contrast the brighter the person actually is.
Despite a good education at a special school Leslie found it extremely difficult despite all the technology that’s available today and the supposed increased awareness on the part of the public, to gain employment. One can see by his eyes that he has a keen grasp of the world and ashrewd understanding of other people’s attitude towards him. He knows if he is truly accepted or written off as an idiot. Because his body is a minus rather than a plus he is often very frustrated by it and is not the sanguine accepting disabled person who smiles a lot and is thankful for his lot because he has known no other life. His keen intelligence means he knows that he has missed if not exactly what he has missed but that said he is often cheerful and good company and could be deservedly described as courageous. I love him dearly but because I share many of his traits I also find him damnably irritating as no doubt he does me.
After completing my own education I went into teaching. It was assumed that I would conform to the norm when it comes to being the sibling of a handicapped person and go into special needs teaching. I deliberately avoided this. I always felt it would be too close to home and terrible though it may sound I wanted to get away from that. To be identified as Judith rather than the sister of a disabled man, who is teaching “his kind” was important to me. I thought there may be extra pressures on me and that I’d be thought to have extra insight beyond what I had just because of Leslie. In fact few people knew about him where I worked. I wasn’t ashamed of him but just as his disability doesn’t define him neither does it define me and I’d be quickly annoyed by the repeated question: “Why didn’t you go into teaching people like that”? It’s bad enough them being categorised as “people like that” without me suffering that every day. I’ve done well too. It’s bad enough nowadays what with children having little or no respect for authority and teachers having to commence work which should have been carried out by the parents years ago but all the same I’ve climbed to the top of my profession and have just been offered the chance of a headship.
We always loved our parents who fostered in us the importance of family and interdependence – One upon another stemming first from the family and until it encompasses the whole of humanity. But they also engendered in us a sense of our own individuality and stressed the importance of privacy and the need to fulfil our own potential. While they instilled in us consciences which they finely honed they taught us that a continued sense of guilt about things we cannot help and wrongs already apologised for was both valueless and self destructive. When wrong has been done and restitution made where possible, move on and learn from it. They taught us that we have God’s forgiveness if we’re truly sorry. Oh how I miss my father. While mother quite naturally inclined towards Leslie for which I do not blame her I was always Daddy’s girl. He died last year. He always found time for me and made me feel special – As special as Leslie is physically different. Until his death they shared the responsibility for Leslie’s care but now mother has to shoulder it alone. He has never wanted to go and live in some barracks of an institution with itinerant care workers to whom at best he’d be just another of “His own kind” and at worst a number on the door of a room. Too often these people are inadequate people themselves and these inadequacies are evident in the way they do their jobs and the way they see their clients some of whom are far brighter than they are. The outside world doesn’t want to see them as the actually inadequate looking after the supposedly so but that is often the case but not always but rather they prefer to see them as saints doing a job most would run miles from. He is too handicapped to live alone but mother is finding it hard to cope now that father has gone. I live over a hundred miles away and have never married. I’m a real career girl. I’ve never found the prospect of marriage appealing and live alone through choice and can’t understand those who say it’s unnatural. We’re not close geographically because the emotional closeness coupled with a geographical closeness would make it chlostrophobic. Now though I may have to go back – To be drawn into the spider’s web, to be strangled by what used to cocoon, to be smothered by what used to support to share Leslie’s “prison” with him as I sacrifice much of the liberty which I was taught to prize so highly as I am forced to display those caring values we were taught from the cradle. Whatever shall I do?
I have an appointment today with the school governers and I shall have to decide whether I shall accept the headship and have come to this little church to pray. So far God hasn’t jumped from the sky in a blaze of glory with a written tablet of stone with the words: “Judith take it” or “Judith go home to your mother and brother”. My pricking conscience hasn’t pricked so hard that I can just reject the headship without any qualms either. I thought of tossing a coin, heads Leslie mother and home, tails new school and new start but something so important cannot be decided on something so trivial as the toss of a coin. Should I shuffle playing cards – Highest and Leslie wins, lowest I take the job? That would cheapen the two things vying for first place as priority. Last night my Bible fell open at the place where Cain asked the Lord: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” when he asked the question as to his brother’s whereabouts. I find myself asking the question: “What if I can’t share the roll of Leslie’s carer with mother? Finally taking it on entirely when she dies or becomes to ill to share it? What if I have them both to care for as increasing age brings increasing infirmity? What if I crack under the strain”? Then worse still I ask: “What if I finally end up hating Leslie? Resenting and blaming him for my life’s altered course”? What a terrible thing it would be if I saw him less as a brother and more as a burden. I’ve hated it when people use that word to describe him. Without either knowing or intending it he has taught me so much about others’ imperfections and indeed about my own imperfections. He has enriched my life and taught me more about how to respect, treat and regard others – Stuff I’d never learn in any textbook. I don’t want that to be thrown away because I do what I will later regret. His vulnerability has mirrored my own.
I’ve only just managed to catch my train. A blind woman living alone had experienced burst pipes and her home was flooded. I spotted her on the way to keep my appointment and stopped to help as she was in distress. This unknown stranger had to rely on me a total stranger for help because nobody else was around. She was frantic and during my time with her she told me she came from a dysfunctional family whose attitude was that of embarrassment in the face of disability. I’ve missed my appointment and as I sit reading my paper on the way home to Mother and Leslie it occurs to me that God has answered my prayer after all. Is it right that in this society someone like that should rely on someone who could have robbed her or worse? I don’t think so, do you?
Mother and father never wanted me to be an only child since they’d both been only children and both been lonely. They dreamed of the ideal family with two children and in a way their dream came true. However it was not to be exactly as they’d wished since Leslie was born with Cerebral Palsy. He was so severely affected that his body was a prison which housed his very considerable mental abilities but trapped him within its confines and he wrongly gave others the impression that because of his severe speech impairment and tendency to salivate that he must be mentally handicapped too. Very often the greater the physical disability the more mental deficiency is assumed but often in complete contrast the brighter the person actually is.
Despite a good education at a special school Leslie found it extremely difficult despite all the technology that’s available today and the supposed increased awareness on the part of the public, to gain employment. One can see by his eyes that he has a keen grasp of the world and ashrewd understanding of other people’s attitude towards him. He knows if he is truly accepted or written off as an idiot. Because his body is a minus rather than a plus he is often very frustrated by it and is not the sanguine accepting disabled person who smiles a lot and is thankful for his lot because he has known no other life. His keen intelligence means he knows that he has missed if not exactly what he has missed but that said he is often cheerful and good company and could be deservedly described as courageous. I love him dearly but because I share many of his traits I also find him damnably irritating as no doubt he does me.
After completing my own education I went into teaching. It was assumed that I would conform to the norm when it comes to being the sibling of a handicapped person and go into special needs teaching. I deliberately avoided this. I always felt it would be too close to home and terrible though it may sound I wanted to get away from that. To be identified as Judith rather than the sister of a disabled man, who is teaching “his kind” was important to me. I thought there may be extra pressures on me and that I’d be thought to have extra insight beyond what I had just because of Leslie. In fact few people knew about him where I worked. I wasn’t ashamed of him but just as his disability doesn’t define him neither does it define me and I’d be quickly annoyed by the repeated question: “Why didn’t you go into teaching people like that”? It’s bad enough them being categorised as “people like that” without me suffering that every day. I’ve done well too. It’s bad enough nowadays what with children having little or no respect for authority and teachers having to commence work which should have been carried out by the parents years ago but all the same I’ve climbed to the top of my profession and have just been offered the chance of a headship.
We always loved our parents who fostered in us the importance of family and interdependence – One upon another stemming first from the family and until it encompasses the whole of humanity. But they also engendered in us a sense of our own individuality and stressed the importance of privacy and the need to fulfil our own potential. While they instilled in us consciences which they finely honed they taught us that a continued sense of guilt about things we cannot help and wrongs already apologised for was both valueless and self destructive. When wrong has been done and restitution made where possible, move on and learn from it. They taught us that we have God’s forgiveness if we’re truly sorry. Oh how I miss my father. While mother quite naturally inclined towards Leslie for which I do not blame her I was always Daddy’s girl. He died last year. He always found time for me and made me feel special – As special as Leslie is physically different. Until his death they shared the responsibility for Leslie’s care but now mother has to shoulder it alone. He has never wanted to go and live in some barracks of an institution with itinerant care workers to whom at best he’d be just another of “His own kind” and at worst a number on the door of a room. Too often these people are inadequate people themselves and these inadequacies are evident in the way they do their jobs and the way they see their clients some of whom are far brighter than they are. The outside world doesn’t want to see them as the actually inadequate looking after the supposedly so but that is often the case but not always but rather they prefer to see them as saints doing a job most would run miles from. He is too handicapped to live alone but mother is finding it hard to cope now that father has gone. I live over a hundred miles away and have never married. I’m a real career girl. I’ve never found the prospect of marriage appealing and live alone through choice and can’t understand those who say it’s unnatural. We’re not close geographically because the emotional closeness coupled with a geographical closeness would make it chlostrophobic. Now though I may have to go back – To be drawn into the spider’s web, to be strangled by what used to cocoon, to be smothered by what used to support to share Leslie’s “prison” with him as I sacrifice much of the liberty which I was taught to prize so highly as I am forced to display those caring values we were taught from the cradle. Whatever shall I do?
I have an appointment today with the school governers and I shall have to decide whether I shall accept the headship and have come to this little church to pray. So far God hasn’t jumped from the sky in a blaze of glory with a written tablet of stone with the words: “Judith take it” or “Judith go home to your mother and brother”. My pricking conscience hasn’t pricked so hard that I can just reject the headship without any qualms either. I thought of tossing a coin, heads Leslie mother and home, tails new school and new start but something so important cannot be decided on something so trivial as the toss of a coin. Should I shuffle playing cards – Highest and Leslie wins, lowest I take the job? That would cheapen the two things vying for first place as priority. Last night my Bible fell open at the place where Cain asked the Lord: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” when he asked the question as to his brother’s whereabouts. I find myself asking the question: “What if I can’t share the roll of Leslie’s carer with mother? Finally taking it on entirely when she dies or becomes to ill to share it? What if I have them both to care for as increasing age brings increasing infirmity? What if I crack under the strain”? Then worse still I ask: “What if I finally end up hating Leslie? Resenting and blaming him for my life’s altered course”? What a terrible thing it would be if I saw him less as a brother and more as a burden. I’ve hated it when people use that word to describe him. Without either knowing or intending it he has taught me so much about others’ imperfections and indeed about my own imperfections. He has enriched my life and taught me more about how to respect, treat and regard others – Stuff I’d never learn in any textbook. I don’t want that to be thrown away because I do what I will later regret. His vulnerability has mirrored my own.
I’ve only just managed to catch my train. A blind woman living alone had experienced burst pipes and her home was flooded. I spotted her on the way to keep my appointment and stopped to help as she was in distress. This unknown stranger had to rely on me a total stranger for help because nobody else was around. She was frantic and during my time with her she told me she came from a dysfunctional family whose attitude was that of embarrassment in the face of disability. I’ve missed my appointment and as I sit reading my paper on the way home to Mother and Leslie it occurs to me that God has answered my prayer after all. Is it right that in this society someone like that should rely on someone who could have robbed her or worse? I don’t think so, do you?
MOURNING DOVES AND BRANDY MANHATTONS.
I’ve been abroad three times in my life – Once to South Africa with my grandmother as a child. On the trip I learned all kinds of things – That portholes on ships are round; I touched one. That the Engine room is hot (The Captain said I could go all over the ship so I could get some idea of its size); That there are rails round the edges of the tables to stop everything flying off as the ship rolled and that it felt as if I was going up sideways in the cable car when we went up Table Mountain which has a restaurant on the top.
I learned a lot of unpleasant things on that trip too – That black people were treated as servants and lived in corrugated huts, separated from their “masters”, and even at around age twelve felt a sense of injustice that this should be so. One black lady had a little baby which she carried on her back. Perhaps it’s with hindsight that I now remember a sense of guilt that I, a blind white child was taken to the hearts of the South Africans I met where as this black child would be destined for a life of servitude. I’m sure, human nature being what it is I paid far more attention to my feeling of celebrity than theirs of confinement and low status in their own country. Now though I realise that when people say:
“What’s the point of a blind person going abroad? One pavement’s the same as another and so is each room surely”?
I can say:
“A lot of point. Look what I learned from that experience. Far more than reading about apartheid or hearing about it on the news”.
I was heartily thankful when the system ended and never thought I’d live to see it fall.
Then I went to Lourdes. Actually I think I went to Lourdes before South Africa and came back blind of course – A terrible disappointment but there you are. Here I learned another wonderful lesson which was how the different groups of disabled children helped; felt for and looked out for each other. There were two children there who were brother and sister – Both deaf. The boy, Michael, was eleven and the little girl, Tracy was seven. She constantly held my hand and he would run up to me to guide me somewhere. So I’d know it was him he tapped me on the hand with one hand while holding my hand in his. Neither of these children could speak and I devised my own system of communication with them. I put a hand on whose ever head I was talking to if you’re with me and ask questions requiring the answer:
“Yes”,
Or:
“No
If I felt the head nod or go from side to side I knew what they meant. The poor little girl wouldn’t eat anything she didn’t recognise as British food.
The helpers were lovely as far as I can remember especially Miss J, who was mine. I think I used to make her laugh. There were three priests who were brothers as well as Fathers and although I am now a very lapsed Catholic because I’ve endured and seen too many others endure too much suffering to believe in a loving god who has my interests at heart, I do realise we’re more than just eating; sleeping and excreting organisms. We have a vital life force which transcends suffering and wants to go on living despite it in many cases. I learned my morals from my grandmother and the church whose teaching on abortion I agree with though not to the extent that a mother should be allowed to die rather than undergo one and I don’t see anything wrong with the “rhythm” method of contraception as it seems irresponsible to produce children you can’t cope with and morally wrong to have them if you don’t want them. My mother didn’t want them and oh how I suffered as a result of that, along with my sister.
When I went to America about twenty-four years ago I stayed with a blind friend’s Mom. There I learned just how different their terminology is: “Faucet” (tap) “Fall” (Autumn) “Side walk” (Pavement) “Apartment” (flat) “Seeing eye dog” (guide dog) and probably many other terms besides. There I was struck by the different birds there are. This is something I’d not thought of, only hearing British birds and those who migrate here. For the first time I heard mourning doves and immediately asked my host what they were.
This lady was by then elderly and her daughter, my friend who had emigrated to Britain because she loved the Beatles, had been blinded by too much oxygen in a premature baby unit, same as I was. Her Mom worried about her; Wanted the best for her; wondered each time she went back to Britain whether she’d ever see her again and so on – Just like my Nan worried about me except that of course I lived much nearer to her but she was getting old too. Most of all they worried about how we would cope after their deaths. I learned too just how good Peg’s Brandy Manhattans were.
We stayed also with school friends of J’s and they were extremely capable blind people who had children and lived in Madison. I was there a month all told and also what struck me is just how big the States are! You fly everywhere.
I think the most valuable lesson I learned though was that people are the same the world over. We long for people to love us; for people to make us feel good about ourselves and forgive us when we err; we want the best for our children if we’re normal and only those who are not don’t and above all most of us want to live in peace and be happy. Only the generals and power hungry leaders of the world want to take us into wars which they organise for their own ends because they refuse to see that the world belongs to all of us.
Still think a blind person can’t learn anything by going abroad? Think again brother. It ain’t true. I may not be able to tell you about the scenery in any of these places and didn’t come home loaded down with photos except from Lourdes where I obtained photos and a view finder for the sake of my Nan who told me all the disabled children were laid out in the shape of a cross. I may have returned home blind but I came home from all three places having had my eyes opened I can tell you. We can all learn from life if we choose to or go through it with blinkers on and inner sight; foresight and hindsight though not much use when you need to get to the shops or see if your clothes are clean helps in your dealings with others and contributes to an understanding of yourself.
I learned a lot of unpleasant things on that trip too – That black people were treated as servants and lived in corrugated huts, separated from their “masters”, and even at around age twelve felt a sense of injustice that this should be so. One black lady had a little baby which she carried on her back. Perhaps it’s with hindsight that I now remember a sense of guilt that I, a blind white child was taken to the hearts of the South Africans I met where as this black child would be destined for a life of servitude. I’m sure, human nature being what it is I paid far more attention to my feeling of celebrity than theirs of confinement and low status in their own country. Now though I realise that when people say:
“What’s the point of a blind person going abroad? One pavement’s the same as another and so is each room surely”?
I can say:
“A lot of point. Look what I learned from that experience. Far more than reading about apartheid or hearing about it on the news”.
I was heartily thankful when the system ended and never thought I’d live to see it fall.
Then I went to Lourdes. Actually I think I went to Lourdes before South Africa and came back blind of course – A terrible disappointment but there you are. Here I learned another wonderful lesson which was how the different groups of disabled children helped; felt for and looked out for each other. There were two children there who were brother and sister – Both deaf. The boy, Michael, was eleven and the little girl, Tracy was seven. She constantly held my hand and he would run up to me to guide me somewhere. So I’d know it was him he tapped me on the hand with one hand while holding my hand in his. Neither of these children could speak and I devised my own system of communication with them. I put a hand on whose ever head I was talking to if you’re with me and ask questions requiring the answer:
“Yes”,
Or:
“No
If I felt the head nod or go from side to side I knew what they meant. The poor little girl wouldn’t eat anything she didn’t recognise as British food.
The helpers were lovely as far as I can remember especially Miss J, who was mine. I think I used to make her laugh. There were three priests who were brothers as well as Fathers and although I am now a very lapsed Catholic because I’ve endured and seen too many others endure too much suffering to believe in a loving god who has my interests at heart, I do realise we’re more than just eating; sleeping and excreting organisms. We have a vital life force which transcends suffering and wants to go on living despite it in many cases. I learned my morals from my grandmother and the church whose teaching on abortion I agree with though not to the extent that a mother should be allowed to die rather than undergo one and I don’t see anything wrong with the “rhythm” method of contraception as it seems irresponsible to produce children you can’t cope with and morally wrong to have them if you don’t want them. My mother didn’t want them and oh how I suffered as a result of that, along with my sister.
When I went to America about twenty-four years ago I stayed with a blind friend’s Mom. There I learned just how different their terminology is: “Faucet” (tap) “Fall” (Autumn) “Side walk” (Pavement) “Apartment” (flat) “Seeing eye dog” (guide dog) and probably many other terms besides. There I was struck by the different birds there are. This is something I’d not thought of, only hearing British birds and those who migrate here. For the first time I heard mourning doves and immediately asked my host what they were.
This lady was by then elderly and her daughter, my friend who had emigrated to Britain because she loved the Beatles, had been blinded by too much oxygen in a premature baby unit, same as I was. Her Mom worried about her; Wanted the best for her; wondered each time she went back to Britain whether she’d ever see her again and so on – Just like my Nan worried about me except that of course I lived much nearer to her but she was getting old too. Most of all they worried about how we would cope after their deaths. I learned too just how good Peg’s Brandy Manhattans were.
We stayed also with school friends of J’s and they were extremely capable blind people who had children and lived in Madison. I was there a month all told and also what struck me is just how big the States are! You fly everywhere.
I think the most valuable lesson I learned though was that people are the same the world over. We long for people to love us; for people to make us feel good about ourselves and forgive us when we err; we want the best for our children if we’re normal and only those who are not don’t and above all most of us want to live in peace and be happy. Only the generals and power hungry leaders of the world want to take us into wars which they organise for their own ends because they refuse to see that the world belongs to all of us.
Still think a blind person can’t learn anything by going abroad? Think again brother. It ain’t true. I may not be able to tell you about the scenery in any of these places and didn’t come home loaded down with photos except from Lourdes where I obtained photos and a view finder for the sake of my Nan who told me all the disabled children were laid out in the shape of a cross. I may have returned home blind but I came home from all three places having had my eyes opened I can tell you. We can all learn from life if we choose to or go through it with blinkers on and inner sight; foresight and hindsight though not much use when you need to get to the shops or see if your clothes are clean helps in your dealings with others and contributes to an understanding of yourself.
Friday, September 26, 2008
A COMMON MISTAKE.
The common mistake people make when they talk about all the trouble in the world being attributable to one cause is to assume that if that one cause, namely religion, were absent then everything would be fine.
It’s my contention that this is not so. We are a tribal species and there’s a down side to everything – Even the family where, along with all our values and morals, we learn to be tribal. It’s important that we know our roots and distinguish between friends and strangers. For safety reasons parents rightly tell their children not to talk to strangers or go off with those they don’t know and of course, being highly intelligent animals we cannot and do not forsake our animal instincts despite our thin veneer of sophistication. Its important for us to determine who will be our protectors and separate them from our foes who will doubtless hurt us.
The family is a mini version of the world and the world is the family writ large. The trouble is that we can’t imagine large numbers. Even those with vision are unable to do this beyond a certain point so to make us feel safe we need to hive off into small units for this is where we feel most comfortable. I’m sure I’m not telling you something you didn’t know already or couldn’t find out from anthropologists but what you may not agree with is my belief that religion is not the cause of all the wrong in the world but a symptom of it in the same way as a carving knife in a kitchen drawer isn’t in itself harmful but only becomes so in the wrong hands. Often religion leads people to do the right thing even if it’s done out of fear of retribution from an angry god or of not attaining salvation for one’s soul. It is our tribal instincts and inability to embrace difference of any kind which causes trouble.
I was amazed to find that a second generation black person living in the U.K bemoaned the fact that a number of immigrants were still being allowed into the country and that it ought to be stopped. This person had now come to identify herself not with the black settlers with whom her parents would have identified themselves but rather with the indigenous British population to which she felt akin. She didn’t think:
“Come one come all. My parents were given the chance of a better life which is how I came to be born here”.
Instead she had crossed over from the “Thems” to the “Us’s” and felt her position to be threatened just as the white people feel their positions to be threatened by the influx of visibly foreign faces with different customs and language, different diets and values.
Therefore, though not a church goer or an adherent to organised religion, I don’t say “ban it” like many do nor do I, as Richard Dawkins does, imply that without religion there would be less bigotry and harm done to others in the world.
“What about Northern Ireland”?
I hear you chorus. Then there’s the problem between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East. True, religion is the means by which each group recognises and defines the other and probably it marks out how each member of either group identifies itself but it’s not the cause of the problem any more than my eyes are the cause of my blindness. It is an extension of our need to belong which like a cancer in a particular individual gets out of control and religion is the particular identifying factor of difference.
I maintain that if the whole world population were atheists and the only difference between us was the size of our hands, there would still be those with bigger or smaller hands, nicely shaped fingernails or chapped hands, who would seek to maintain that those in any of the other “different hand” groups were either inferior or more able at this or that or less trustworthy than they are. I know this from my own experience. For instance, “the blind” are supposed to be gifted with better hearing – A myth that persists no matter who I speak to. How can a whole range of people extending from a tiny blind baby to an old and tottering blind adult all possess better hearing than any one sighted individual? How many blind people have you spoken to in order to test this theory? Like all myths and assumptions it stems from old wives’ tales and the fact that you don’t know what is possible to glean without vision. You can see how easily then it is to construct other falsehoods. “The Japanese are cruel” “Jews are mean” “Blacks are dishonest and will mug you” “Whites are racist bigots”. It’s our tribalism together with our need to belong, coupled with our inability to imagine and embrace large numbers, together with all the prejudices learned at our mother’s knee (and father’s come to that) which informs or distorts our thinking and our own insecurity which makes us think that the “thems” are dangerous. The only thing it has in common with a supernatural deity and therefore the only tie it has with religion is in my opinion, the fact that the same insecurities make us cling for comfort to a parent-like god who will supposedly mop up our tears and kiss us better and restore the justice which we have been denied either through circumstances or by other people who see us as different and deny it to us so they can maintain their authority and power.
I fear that, instead of banning religion or making us all atheists, in order to eradicate our tendency to depersonalise strangers; fear difference and stay cocooned in our ignorance where many find it most comfortable to be, we’d need to dispense with the family which is an impracticality and what some would even consider to be a monstrous and preposterous suggestion. The answer then? I’m afraid we’ll just have to live with our prejudices and tribal natures but we won’t advance while we blame the wrong things for it and think that to ban religion is to solve the problem any more than we’d have advanced if we’d decided that knives were sharp and could be used to stab and kill people so let’s throw them all away.
It’s my contention that this is not so. We are a tribal species and there’s a down side to everything – Even the family where, along with all our values and morals, we learn to be tribal. It’s important that we know our roots and distinguish between friends and strangers. For safety reasons parents rightly tell their children not to talk to strangers or go off with those they don’t know and of course, being highly intelligent animals we cannot and do not forsake our animal instincts despite our thin veneer of sophistication. Its important for us to determine who will be our protectors and separate them from our foes who will doubtless hurt us.
The family is a mini version of the world and the world is the family writ large. The trouble is that we can’t imagine large numbers. Even those with vision are unable to do this beyond a certain point so to make us feel safe we need to hive off into small units for this is where we feel most comfortable. I’m sure I’m not telling you something you didn’t know already or couldn’t find out from anthropologists but what you may not agree with is my belief that religion is not the cause of all the wrong in the world but a symptom of it in the same way as a carving knife in a kitchen drawer isn’t in itself harmful but only becomes so in the wrong hands. Often religion leads people to do the right thing even if it’s done out of fear of retribution from an angry god or of not attaining salvation for one’s soul. It is our tribal instincts and inability to embrace difference of any kind which causes trouble.
I was amazed to find that a second generation black person living in the U.K bemoaned the fact that a number of immigrants were still being allowed into the country and that it ought to be stopped. This person had now come to identify herself not with the black settlers with whom her parents would have identified themselves but rather with the indigenous British population to which she felt akin. She didn’t think:
“Come one come all. My parents were given the chance of a better life which is how I came to be born here”.
Instead she had crossed over from the “Thems” to the “Us’s” and felt her position to be threatened just as the white people feel their positions to be threatened by the influx of visibly foreign faces with different customs and language, different diets and values.
Therefore, though not a church goer or an adherent to organised religion, I don’t say “ban it” like many do nor do I, as Richard Dawkins does, imply that without religion there would be less bigotry and harm done to others in the world.
“What about Northern Ireland”?
I hear you chorus. Then there’s the problem between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East. True, religion is the means by which each group recognises and defines the other and probably it marks out how each member of either group identifies itself but it’s not the cause of the problem any more than my eyes are the cause of my blindness. It is an extension of our need to belong which like a cancer in a particular individual gets out of control and religion is the particular identifying factor of difference.
I maintain that if the whole world population were atheists and the only difference between us was the size of our hands, there would still be those with bigger or smaller hands, nicely shaped fingernails or chapped hands, who would seek to maintain that those in any of the other “different hand” groups were either inferior or more able at this or that or less trustworthy than they are. I know this from my own experience. For instance, “the blind” are supposed to be gifted with better hearing – A myth that persists no matter who I speak to. How can a whole range of people extending from a tiny blind baby to an old and tottering blind adult all possess better hearing than any one sighted individual? How many blind people have you spoken to in order to test this theory? Like all myths and assumptions it stems from old wives’ tales and the fact that you don’t know what is possible to glean without vision. You can see how easily then it is to construct other falsehoods. “The Japanese are cruel” “Jews are mean” “Blacks are dishonest and will mug you” “Whites are racist bigots”. It’s our tribalism together with our need to belong, coupled with our inability to imagine and embrace large numbers, together with all the prejudices learned at our mother’s knee (and father’s come to that) which informs or distorts our thinking and our own insecurity which makes us think that the “thems” are dangerous. The only thing it has in common with a supernatural deity and therefore the only tie it has with religion is in my opinion, the fact that the same insecurities make us cling for comfort to a parent-like god who will supposedly mop up our tears and kiss us better and restore the justice which we have been denied either through circumstances or by other people who see us as different and deny it to us so they can maintain their authority and power.
I fear that, instead of banning religion or making us all atheists, in order to eradicate our tendency to depersonalise strangers; fear difference and stay cocooned in our ignorance where many find it most comfortable to be, we’d need to dispense with the family which is an impracticality and what some would even consider to be a monstrous and preposterous suggestion. The answer then? I’m afraid we’ll just have to live with our prejudices and tribal natures but we won’t advance while we blame the wrong things for it and think that to ban religion is to solve the problem any more than we’d have advanced if we’d decided that knives were sharp and could be used to stab and kill people so let’s throw them all away.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
SECOND THOUGHTS.
Edward and Rosemary were childhood sweethearts, hand-in-hand since the age of twelve. When adults they intended to marry. When they did everyone said it wouldn’t work. The pessimists were crawling out of the woodwork like death watch beetles. Not one member of either family gave it a cat in hell’s chance of survival. But Edward and Rosemary knew it would work and oh how it worked, producing the strangest and most sinister combination you could imagine. I have asked myself what it was that could have combined from each set of circumstances to produce what it did.
“I’m sorry”, said the doctor to the Blacks, “it would seem you are both going to have to think about something like artificial insemination as a way of having children since you, Mrs. Black are unable to conceive by natural means. Well perhaps unable is a bit strong, let’s just say it’s unlikely.” She knew though that despite the unwelcome periods which served to remind her that she’d not become pregnant, and the miscarriages, she’d not conceive by any other means than natural ones. No way would either of them tamper with nature like that. Only God should decide who should become parents. They were devout Christians and that was their belief. They didn’t even believe in abortion except in the direst of situations where the mother’s life may be in danger. They both told the doctor, a short stout man with glasses who seemed to look right through them, that they were in full agreement with each other. If it’s meant to be it will and if not it won’t. “Maybe it is God’s way of telling us that, either we should consider adopting one of the thousands of children who need a home and parents or that we should direct our attentions elsewhere and focus on other things in our lives.” She and Edward rose to go and as they did so the doctor looked contemptuous of them as they were closing the door behind themselves, thinking them stupid pious people with their silly Christian principles. It was all mumbo jumbo. He was so annoyed with them that he almost forgot to dong his bell so his next patient could enter his plush, posh surgery.
Three years later Rosemary was on pins as she did another pregnancy test. She expected, as usual to see the colour that indicated a negative result but this time it was a positive result. She rang Edward at work, wrenching him from a meeting like a cork from a bottle. Breathless and slightly irked he came to the phone: “What is it, Rosemary”? He barked. “What the deuce is it”? Her words tumbled over themselves as she explained with equal breathlessness that it was at last going to be all right that their dreams were going to come to fruition, that the couple that they were would soon turn into the family that they wanted it to be. At the wonderful news his voice deepened and calmed – All the crossness gone. As well as his favourite newspaper, he carried home that night a bottle of Champagne. He’d at first thought of Rosé “for Rosemary” but then decided that only? Champers would do to mark the special occasion. He was walking on air, walking so fast he almost passed his own house. He even smiled at old Simkin, the crusty old varmint who lived next door. He thought of his mother’s irritating maxim: “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again”. Well they had and it was about to pay off. His mother would have been pleased and it was with the only twinge of sadness he felt that night that he remembered she would never know her grandchildren.
The scans showed that they were going to have twins. They’d have to buy two lots of everything – A double helping of joy to make up for all the crushing disappointment of the past.
Imagine then their consternation when they were told that they were parents of conjoined twins or to use the more familiar term Siamese twins. Dawn and Deborah were joined at the hip and shared some of their bowels and intestines. In a complex operation they were finally separated. What nobody knew or could even guess though was that they were still joined inexorably, linked telepathically, bound for mutual destruction and that they’d take the rest of humanity with them. These girls shared their thoughts. Each battled with the other throughout life to have their individuality recognised and their will fulfilled, speaking in a strange language which they called “twice” which stood for Twins in Communication Exclusively.
At first their strange thought play began as a game. Dawn would will Deborah to draw on the curtains. Deborah would try in vain to resist and then get into trouble for carrying out a destructive act. Her feeble protests to the effect that: “She made me do it” came to nothing since her parents had seen these acts carried out sometimes when Dawn wasn’t even present. Dawn was the dominant one, the destructive one and paradoxically the more innocent looking. She was the one with the original thoughts which Deborah “received” as it were. Only when Dawn was tired did Deborah’s will over ride Dawn’s and of course, having put benevolent magnanimous thoughts into her head, she got the praise for the kind acts she carried out which meant Deborah could never win and Dawn’s sinister side was even less apparent. Again Deborah’s protestations that: “I made her do that”! Were met with derision and ridicule till she gave up trying to explain how she was being manipulated by her sinister sister. She gave up the task of telling people how she was in fact a helpless puppet dangling on Dawn’s destructive mental string. In desperation she once tried to will Dawn to walk under a bus or onto the railway lines. Then, as Dawn successfully resisted, she later gave her sister hell by invading every thought process she had, deciding for her even to the point of what she’d have for tea. This was worse than being bullied in the ordinary way. At least though ordinary bullying is most demoralising and crushing to the spirit, eventually even if you have to wait years you can at last escape your tormentors. Nothing to be done though for the person who can’t even will their tormentor to die or have a single thought to themselves while they are living. Like all bullies Dawn was basically inadequate and insecure, being the less academically bright and sought to exert and gain power over another as inadequate people do. Eventually though she worked out that Deborah’s talents could be used to Dawn’s advantage.
On those rare moments when Dawn was not invading Deborah’s head, they both realised that Deborah had original and interesting thoughts of her own. She was a natural orator. This led Deborah into politics where she truly longed to enhance the lives of the less fortunate. She had a natural affinity with the oppressed. Well she’d been one for long enough hadn’t she? On bended knees she begged Dawn to stop homing in on her mental frequency – To let her thoughts rise like yeast filled dough and not be killed in the heat of Dawn’s destructive mental oven. Amazingly Dawn agreed and henceforth directed her thoughts to acting.
This may have remained the case forever but Dawn met and fell in love with an ex-actor. He had no eyes for her, treating her with contempt and considering her of little talent. His acting career was over, his political one beginning. At another meeting, this time for heads of state, he met and fell in love with Deborah when she became Prime Minister of the U.K and he president of the U.S.A. On hearing of their mutual affection Dawn was white with rage. Deborah could feel Dawn’s evil forces draining her will again, could feel the mental screws tightening until the pips squeaked. In a zombie-like state she was vaguely aware of giving the order to launch a nuclear strike at the Soviet Union, whom we’d had no cause to fear since the end of the cold war. Naturally they retaliated and the resultant devastation laid waste to the civilised world
How have I survived? The answer is simple. I am the designer who has watched the struggle between good and evil, as first played out by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, thus turning the earth into the garden of need. Now this final conflict of good and evil encapsulated in the Edwards twins has meant I have seen humanity in its death throes. However, I am not disheartened for everything is cyclical and circular and there is nothing new under the sun and although the civilised world has been obliterated and humanity blown off the face of the earth, it gives them a clean slate, the chance to try again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a little creating to do. “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again”.
“I’m sorry”, said the doctor to the Blacks, “it would seem you are both going to have to think about something like artificial insemination as a way of having children since you, Mrs. Black are unable to conceive by natural means. Well perhaps unable is a bit strong, let’s just say it’s unlikely.” She knew though that despite the unwelcome periods which served to remind her that she’d not become pregnant, and the miscarriages, she’d not conceive by any other means than natural ones. No way would either of them tamper with nature like that. Only God should decide who should become parents. They were devout Christians and that was their belief. They didn’t even believe in abortion except in the direst of situations where the mother’s life may be in danger. They both told the doctor, a short stout man with glasses who seemed to look right through them, that they were in full agreement with each other. If it’s meant to be it will and if not it won’t. “Maybe it is God’s way of telling us that, either we should consider adopting one of the thousands of children who need a home and parents or that we should direct our attentions elsewhere and focus on other things in our lives.” She and Edward rose to go and as they did so the doctor looked contemptuous of them as they were closing the door behind themselves, thinking them stupid pious people with their silly Christian principles. It was all mumbo jumbo. He was so annoyed with them that he almost forgot to dong his bell so his next patient could enter his plush, posh surgery.
Three years later Rosemary was on pins as she did another pregnancy test. She expected, as usual to see the colour that indicated a negative result but this time it was a positive result. She rang Edward at work, wrenching him from a meeting like a cork from a bottle. Breathless and slightly irked he came to the phone: “What is it, Rosemary”? He barked. “What the deuce is it”? Her words tumbled over themselves as she explained with equal breathlessness that it was at last going to be all right that their dreams were going to come to fruition, that the couple that they were would soon turn into the family that they wanted it to be. At the wonderful news his voice deepened and calmed – All the crossness gone. As well as his favourite newspaper, he carried home that night a bottle of Champagne. He’d at first thought of Rosé “for Rosemary” but then decided that only? Champers would do to mark the special occasion. He was walking on air, walking so fast he almost passed his own house. He even smiled at old Simkin, the crusty old varmint who lived next door. He thought of his mother’s irritating maxim: “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again”. Well they had and it was about to pay off. His mother would have been pleased and it was with the only twinge of sadness he felt that night that he remembered she would never know her grandchildren.
The scans showed that they were going to have twins. They’d have to buy two lots of everything – A double helping of joy to make up for all the crushing disappointment of the past.
Imagine then their consternation when they were told that they were parents of conjoined twins or to use the more familiar term Siamese twins. Dawn and Deborah were joined at the hip and shared some of their bowels and intestines. In a complex operation they were finally separated. What nobody knew or could even guess though was that they were still joined inexorably, linked telepathically, bound for mutual destruction and that they’d take the rest of humanity with them. These girls shared their thoughts. Each battled with the other throughout life to have their individuality recognised and their will fulfilled, speaking in a strange language which they called “twice” which stood for Twins in Communication Exclusively.
At first their strange thought play began as a game. Dawn would will Deborah to draw on the curtains. Deborah would try in vain to resist and then get into trouble for carrying out a destructive act. Her feeble protests to the effect that: “She made me do it” came to nothing since her parents had seen these acts carried out sometimes when Dawn wasn’t even present. Dawn was the dominant one, the destructive one and paradoxically the more innocent looking. She was the one with the original thoughts which Deborah “received” as it were. Only when Dawn was tired did Deborah’s will over ride Dawn’s and of course, having put benevolent magnanimous thoughts into her head, she got the praise for the kind acts she carried out which meant Deborah could never win and Dawn’s sinister side was even less apparent. Again Deborah’s protestations that: “I made her do that”! Were met with derision and ridicule till she gave up trying to explain how she was being manipulated by her sinister sister. She gave up the task of telling people how she was in fact a helpless puppet dangling on Dawn’s destructive mental string. In desperation she once tried to will Dawn to walk under a bus or onto the railway lines. Then, as Dawn successfully resisted, she later gave her sister hell by invading every thought process she had, deciding for her even to the point of what she’d have for tea. This was worse than being bullied in the ordinary way. At least though ordinary bullying is most demoralising and crushing to the spirit, eventually even if you have to wait years you can at last escape your tormentors. Nothing to be done though for the person who can’t even will their tormentor to die or have a single thought to themselves while they are living. Like all bullies Dawn was basically inadequate and insecure, being the less academically bright and sought to exert and gain power over another as inadequate people do. Eventually though she worked out that Deborah’s talents could be used to Dawn’s advantage.
On those rare moments when Dawn was not invading Deborah’s head, they both realised that Deborah had original and interesting thoughts of her own. She was a natural orator. This led Deborah into politics where she truly longed to enhance the lives of the less fortunate. She had a natural affinity with the oppressed. Well she’d been one for long enough hadn’t she? On bended knees she begged Dawn to stop homing in on her mental frequency – To let her thoughts rise like yeast filled dough and not be killed in the heat of Dawn’s destructive mental oven. Amazingly Dawn agreed and henceforth directed her thoughts to acting.
This may have remained the case forever but Dawn met and fell in love with an ex-actor. He had no eyes for her, treating her with contempt and considering her of little talent. His acting career was over, his political one beginning. At another meeting, this time for heads of state, he met and fell in love with Deborah when she became Prime Minister of the U.K and he president of the U.S.A. On hearing of their mutual affection Dawn was white with rage. Deborah could feel Dawn’s evil forces draining her will again, could feel the mental screws tightening until the pips squeaked. In a zombie-like state she was vaguely aware of giving the order to launch a nuclear strike at the Soviet Union, whom we’d had no cause to fear since the end of the cold war. Naturally they retaliated and the resultant devastation laid waste to the civilised world
How have I survived? The answer is simple. I am the designer who has watched the struggle between good and evil, as first played out by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, thus turning the earth into the garden of need. Now this final conflict of good and evil encapsulated in the Edwards twins has meant I have seen humanity in its death throes. However, I am not disheartened for everything is cyclical and circular and there is nothing new under the sun and although the civilised world has been obliterated and humanity blown off the face of the earth, it gives them a clean slate, the chance to try again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a little creating to do. “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try and try again”.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
PROTECTION IS PARAMOUNT.
I’ve just finished listening to a BBC programme concerning the protection of animals and the alleged heavy handed approach followed by a well known British charity set up to investigate cases of animal cruelty and to ensure that animals have a voice to speak for them since, like children in the face of adult authority, they are powerless.
My view is that however sad things are for particular individuals who keep and care for animals, if they are no longer in a position to do so for whatever reason then they should arrange for the animals to be cared for by others. Animals are sentient beings and not inanimate possessions and as such, because they are vulnerable they need protection and to be cared for in accordance with the requirements of their particular species. Failure to do this ought to result in the animal’s removal.
It was suggested that a link exists between child neglect and cruelty and animal cruelty and I feel the charity concerned was unfairly criticised for cross reporting cases where there may well be a link between the two. Common sense would dictate, I feel, that anyone sadistic enough to hurt a helpless defenceless animal or child is unlikely to discriminate between the two – Child and animal – Simply because it’s the feeling of power and the possession of power which plays a large part in abuse cases as well as the thrill obtained from carrying out acts of violence. What human being in their right mind would go into a house where there is found to be cruelty to a dog or cat and, whilst there, notice a child who is bruised and looking neglected and then only follow up on the animal cruelty without bringing to the attention of the appropriate authorities the evidence of suspected child cruelty? Someone suggested that there is no proven link between acts of domestic violence and animal cruelty and cruelty towards children. To assume there is not a link defies logic, flies in the face of human nature when exhibited at its worst and shows a breath taking degree of naïve stupidity on the part of the contributor. Damaged, cruel, sadistic, evil or unbalanced people do not discriminate between groups of vulnerable people or animals. Yes there are people who prefer animals to humans, such as those who find it hard to relate to other adults and find animals more “accepting” of them and, no, they wouldn’t necessarily be unkind to children and kind to animals as probably they would find children more accepting too. However, where empathy and compassion are missing from someone’s character they will beyond doubt indiscriminately harm and abuse both children and animals. Maybe they won’t sexually abuse the children in their care but emotionally and psychologically and physically they may well do.
At present I’m unable to walk my guide dog Esme because of my foot problem. I arranged with the Guide Dogs Association that someone else should take care of her until I return to normal. When I asked if I could have her back when I found someone to walk her during the day but would still need to walk her at night and early morning, they quite rightly refused this request in the kindest possible way, telling me they’d rather see me fit first before I assumed responsibility for her again. This wasn’t an act of callousness on their part nor did it demonstrate a lack of compassion for me, instead it safeguarded Esme’s welfare, ensured that I get the rest I need so I can recover from what is a long term problem and will hopefully ensure that I will have dogs when I can.
We’re so arrogant a species that we think our needs, rights and wants are paramount and come before those of every other species on this planet which is precisely why we’re in the mess we’re in. The fact is that if any animal owner is too ill, frail or old to look after it properly then they need to face up to that and put the animal’s welfare first. My guide dog owning days will one day come to an end just as everything does and, sad though it will be I shall have to accept that for the sake of the dogs which I would be no longer capable of looking after.
Incidentally, the only fault I could find with the conduct of the charity concerned, was its bringing to court the case of a fifteen-year-old girl whose cat had been injured and needed veterinary treatment. After seeking the advice of her father who thought it didn’t need treatment, someone from the charity called, found it did and held the girl as responsible as her father and brought a prosecution against her. She may not have had the money to pay for its treatment and is subject to her parents’ authority and the blame should be and indeed was placed firmly at the father’s door. He admitted being at fault anyway.
In this ever more sadistic, violent and “my rights first and foremost” society, someone has to speak up for those who cannot, either because they literally don’t have a voice as is true of animals, or because they are powerless, as are children and while any of us can be wrong, heavy handed at times and be too zealous when carrying out whatever role we have, it’s important that every effort is made to ensure the vulnerable of whatever species are protected, cared for and not abused and neglected. Otherwise we cannot begin to call ourselves civilised, compassionate and humane.
My view is that however sad things are for particular individuals who keep and care for animals, if they are no longer in a position to do so for whatever reason then they should arrange for the animals to be cared for by others. Animals are sentient beings and not inanimate possessions and as such, because they are vulnerable they need protection and to be cared for in accordance with the requirements of their particular species. Failure to do this ought to result in the animal’s removal.
It was suggested that a link exists between child neglect and cruelty and animal cruelty and I feel the charity concerned was unfairly criticised for cross reporting cases where there may well be a link between the two. Common sense would dictate, I feel, that anyone sadistic enough to hurt a helpless defenceless animal or child is unlikely to discriminate between the two – Child and animal – Simply because it’s the feeling of power and the possession of power which plays a large part in abuse cases as well as the thrill obtained from carrying out acts of violence. What human being in their right mind would go into a house where there is found to be cruelty to a dog or cat and, whilst there, notice a child who is bruised and looking neglected and then only follow up on the animal cruelty without bringing to the attention of the appropriate authorities the evidence of suspected child cruelty? Someone suggested that there is no proven link between acts of domestic violence and animal cruelty and cruelty towards children. To assume there is not a link defies logic, flies in the face of human nature when exhibited at its worst and shows a breath taking degree of naïve stupidity on the part of the contributor. Damaged, cruel, sadistic, evil or unbalanced people do not discriminate between groups of vulnerable people or animals. Yes there are people who prefer animals to humans, such as those who find it hard to relate to other adults and find animals more “accepting” of them and, no, they wouldn’t necessarily be unkind to children and kind to animals as probably they would find children more accepting too. However, where empathy and compassion are missing from someone’s character they will beyond doubt indiscriminately harm and abuse both children and animals. Maybe they won’t sexually abuse the children in their care but emotionally and psychologically and physically they may well do.
At present I’m unable to walk my guide dog Esme because of my foot problem. I arranged with the Guide Dogs Association that someone else should take care of her until I return to normal. When I asked if I could have her back when I found someone to walk her during the day but would still need to walk her at night and early morning, they quite rightly refused this request in the kindest possible way, telling me they’d rather see me fit first before I assumed responsibility for her again. This wasn’t an act of callousness on their part nor did it demonstrate a lack of compassion for me, instead it safeguarded Esme’s welfare, ensured that I get the rest I need so I can recover from what is a long term problem and will hopefully ensure that I will have dogs when I can.
We’re so arrogant a species that we think our needs, rights and wants are paramount and come before those of every other species on this planet which is precisely why we’re in the mess we’re in. The fact is that if any animal owner is too ill, frail or old to look after it properly then they need to face up to that and put the animal’s welfare first. My guide dog owning days will one day come to an end just as everything does and, sad though it will be I shall have to accept that for the sake of the dogs which I would be no longer capable of looking after.
Incidentally, the only fault I could find with the conduct of the charity concerned, was its bringing to court the case of a fifteen-year-old girl whose cat had been injured and needed veterinary treatment. After seeking the advice of her father who thought it didn’t need treatment, someone from the charity called, found it did and held the girl as responsible as her father and brought a prosecution against her. She may not have had the money to pay for its treatment and is subject to her parents’ authority and the blame should be and indeed was placed firmly at the father’s door. He admitted being at fault anyway.
In this ever more sadistic, violent and “my rights first and foremost” society, someone has to speak up for those who cannot, either because they literally don’t have a voice as is true of animals, or because they are powerless, as are children and while any of us can be wrong, heavy handed at times and be too zealous when carrying out whatever role we have, it’s important that every effort is made to ensure the vulnerable of whatever species are protected, cared for and not abused and neglected. Otherwise we cannot begin to call ourselves civilised, compassionate and humane.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
FATAL DREAMING.
There was nothing more in life that Arthur loved better than a good murder. It didn’t matter whether they were fictional murders in crime novels or the real thing. He loved visiting the Tower of London where people had been tortured with gruesome instruments by unsavoury people and he’d muse for hours on the fate of Anne Boleyn etc etc. His wife thought him a harmless eccentric and his children wallowed with him in his sea of unremitting gore. His bureau was full of cuttings relating to Christy, Haig, Jack the Ripper and more recently Fred and Rosemary West. Myra Hindley and Ian Brady starred if that’s the right word in his “celebrity” murder cases. I think it was unhealthy and it eventually led him to his own death.
“Arthur dear”, Ursula called from the kitchen where she was cooking his favourite meal. When she used that tone of voice you could be sure she wanted something. His mouth watered as he cleared the stairs two at a time to get to the table for this culinary delight. “Oh wonderful! Home-made ratatouille and rice. None of that tinned muck the kids go in for nowadays eh!” His wife smiled one of her most fetching smiles as she seated herself beside him.
Their house was comfortable, their lives were comfortable but with Patrick and Nina now about to enter their teens they were anticipating troubled waters. Though so far their boat had been sailing in calm seas which made them think it couldn’t last much longer. They’d been lucky. This was a rare period of quiet in the house too as they were alone, their children being out with friends.
Now for the pay-off for the nice meal: “Darling!” Ursula said as she stroked his knee under the table, “Couldn’t we go to see that new film advertised at the cinema? Paula and Tim are going and I shouldn’t be surprised if there won’t be the odd murder in it since it’s an historical romance”. She never realised just how much she sounded like one of the children when she adopted that pleading whining tone. He needed to work late so he could keep her in the manner to which she’d very quickly become accustomed. Besides he didn’t much like Paula and Tim. “Couldn’t you go with them on your own”? He suggested, knowing as he did so what her reply would be. Ever the one to keep up the old conventions, Ursula vehemently protested that threesomes were “not the done thing”. “Well I hate Tim! He’s so loud and pompous. He’s full of self-importance and self-righteousness. No darling you really will have to go on your own”. “Out of the question. Paula’s bought four tickets.” She went on to explain that Paula can’t stand him undiluted by friends for an evening any more than they’d be able to, finishing by saying: “Beats me why she married him but then again loneliness and insecurity makes people do odd things.” She advised Arthur to tune Tim out and concentrate on the film and as he resignedly agreed, in order to save further conflict he knew exactly why he’d been sweetened up with his favourite meal and thought not for the first time how devious women can be.
Arthur and Ursula had met at school when Arthur was fifteen and she twelve. She thought him a pimply youth with a face like a blind man’s Braille book but he saw her potential even then as someone who could increase his social standing once they’d grown up and made up his mind to reel her in just as a patient angler does with a fish. After school they’d gone their separate ways, not meeting again till Paula had a house-warming party to which both had been invited. His pimples now gone, Ursula saw his potential too and realised that, as a financial wizard just how much money he could make and allowed herself to be “reeled in”. She’d always been grateful to Paula, feeling herself to be in her debt and was determined to support her tomorrow night by being with her and the ghastly Tim at the film come what may. Besides it would get her nicely out of another charity event she was supposed to attend. It’s surprising how “doing good works” enhances your standing in the community but she’d done her stint this year she felt so did not feel guilty about feigning a cold.
Arthur had endured “one of those nights.” He’d slept fitfully after his meal and had a twenty-four quarat gold headache. He felt ragged and stale as he stumbled off to work but knew that nothing short of an earthquake or floods would get him out of this wretched trip to this film. During breakfast he hardly spoke to anyone and stumbled out of the house having slammed the door and forgotten his key. “Dad’s in a mood”, commented Nina. “Sulking I’d say”, her mother commented while explaining that the children would be going round to Sally Armstrong’s after school. Sally loved children but had none of her own. The children loved Sally and to be going there on a week night was something of a treat. Their mother thought as she loaded the dish washer how lucky they were to have such nice neighbours.
The lights had gone down and the music had started. Indeed there were scenes of horror, blood and guts, that Arthur loved so much. However he found it hard to concentrate. His need for sleep making his eye lids heavy. He began to dream, to dream of the scenes of devaastation and destruction, of executions and torture, of cruelty and inhumanity which had been woven into his psyche all his adult life. Spinning, dancing imagery, ever changing and yet the same, was sweeping him up into the maelstrom, making him centre stage in his own weird and twisted plot. He was no longer an onlooker but the main character now. Suddenly an innocent finger touched him on the back of the neck The man in the row behind could no longer stand his snoring. Arthur fell forward- Dead. He clutched the long hair of the woman in front as he died.
The coroner concluded that the massive heart attack which killed Arthur was probably brought on by his dreaming of either a hangman’s noose or a knife blade which separates the dead from the living and that the man’s touch was interpreted by his brain as just such an implement, coming as it must have done in a crucial point in the dream. Be careful what you watch tonight won’t you and about what occupies your thoughts.
“Arthur dear”, Ursula called from the kitchen where she was cooking his favourite meal. When she used that tone of voice you could be sure she wanted something. His mouth watered as he cleared the stairs two at a time to get to the table for this culinary delight. “Oh wonderful! Home-made ratatouille and rice. None of that tinned muck the kids go in for nowadays eh!” His wife smiled one of her most fetching smiles as she seated herself beside him.
Their house was comfortable, their lives were comfortable but with Patrick and Nina now about to enter their teens they were anticipating troubled waters. Though so far their boat had been sailing in calm seas which made them think it couldn’t last much longer. They’d been lucky. This was a rare period of quiet in the house too as they were alone, their children being out with friends.
Now for the pay-off for the nice meal: “Darling!” Ursula said as she stroked his knee under the table, “Couldn’t we go to see that new film advertised at the cinema? Paula and Tim are going and I shouldn’t be surprised if there won’t be the odd murder in it since it’s an historical romance”. She never realised just how much she sounded like one of the children when she adopted that pleading whining tone. He needed to work late so he could keep her in the manner to which she’d very quickly become accustomed. Besides he didn’t much like Paula and Tim. “Couldn’t you go with them on your own”? He suggested, knowing as he did so what her reply would be. Ever the one to keep up the old conventions, Ursula vehemently protested that threesomes were “not the done thing”. “Well I hate Tim! He’s so loud and pompous. He’s full of self-importance and self-righteousness. No darling you really will have to go on your own”. “Out of the question. Paula’s bought four tickets.” She went on to explain that Paula can’t stand him undiluted by friends for an evening any more than they’d be able to, finishing by saying: “Beats me why she married him but then again loneliness and insecurity makes people do odd things.” She advised Arthur to tune Tim out and concentrate on the film and as he resignedly agreed, in order to save further conflict he knew exactly why he’d been sweetened up with his favourite meal and thought not for the first time how devious women can be.
Arthur and Ursula had met at school when Arthur was fifteen and she twelve. She thought him a pimply youth with a face like a blind man’s Braille book but he saw her potential even then as someone who could increase his social standing once they’d grown up and made up his mind to reel her in just as a patient angler does with a fish. After school they’d gone their separate ways, not meeting again till Paula had a house-warming party to which both had been invited. His pimples now gone, Ursula saw his potential too and realised that, as a financial wizard just how much money he could make and allowed herself to be “reeled in”. She’d always been grateful to Paula, feeling herself to be in her debt and was determined to support her tomorrow night by being with her and the ghastly Tim at the film come what may. Besides it would get her nicely out of another charity event she was supposed to attend. It’s surprising how “doing good works” enhances your standing in the community but she’d done her stint this year she felt so did not feel guilty about feigning a cold.
Arthur had endured “one of those nights.” He’d slept fitfully after his meal and had a twenty-four quarat gold headache. He felt ragged and stale as he stumbled off to work but knew that nothing short of an earthquake or floods would get him out of this wretched trip to this film. During breakfast he hardly spoke to anyone and stumbled out of the house having slammed the door and forgotten his key. “Dad’s in a mood”, commented Nina. “Sulking I’d say”, her mother commented while explaining that the children would be going round to Sally Armstrong’s after school. Sally loved children but had none of her own. The children loved Sally and to be going there on a week night was something of a treat. Their mother thought as she loaded the dish washer how lucky they were to have such nice neighbours.
The lights had gone down and the music had started. Indeed there were scenes of horror, blood and guts, that Arthur loved so much. However he found it hard to concentrate. His need for sleep making his eye lids heavy. He began to dream, to dream of the scenes of devaastation and destruction, of executions and torture, of cruelty and inhumanity which had been woven into his psyche all his adult life. Spinning, dancing imagery, ever changing and yet the same, was sweeping him up into the maelstrom, making him centre stage in his own weird and twisted plot. He was no longer an onlooker but the main character now. Suddenly an innocent finger touched him on the back of the neck The man in the row behind could no longer stand his snoring. Arthur fell forward- Dead. He clutched the long hair of the woman in front as he died.
The coroner concluded that the massive heart attack which killed Arthur was probably brought on by his dreaming of either a hangman’s noose or a knife blade which separates the dead from the living and that the man’s touch was interpreted by his brain as just such an implement, coming as it must have done in a crucial point in the dream. Be careful what you watch tonight won’t you and about what occupies your thoughts.
FLOODED.
Mavis got out of bed still feeling groggy. They’d told her she could have a short holiday between treatments and that was what she intended to do. Luckily her sister Angela who owned the best hotel on the sea front had a few vacancies. She wanted to stay as an anonymous guest instead of with Angela in her private rooms. Mavis wanted no special privileges and certainly no fuss. She wanted to be an observer, to watch the other guests and see how they reacted when away from their normal environments. Most of all she didn’t want people keeping on about her cancer – Was she feeling okay, did she need more rest or more of this that or the other thing? The only thing she did allow was for Bob to come and fetch her. She felt too tired to battle with the public transport system. As she knew he would, he arrived on time. He was dependable, kind, reliable and funny. She’d never married, always thinking her job would be enough and anyway the children in her school of which she was now head were quite enough of a commitment thank you very much without adding to it. The horn startled her out of her reverie. She felt too sick to eat so just made do with coffee. Soon she was in Bob’s car and he was battling with the rush-hour traffic. What a lot there was too. She closed her eyes and secretly wondered if she’d ever make this journey again but these were thoughts she didn’t confide to Bob or indeed to anyone that is until she met Sarah.
The filthy waters were coming ever closer. The river was rising at an alarming rate and it was still raining. Sarah felt confident that she had done all she could to protect herself this time. She’d put sand bags up against the doors and covered the carpets with old towels. She’d moved all her valuables upstairs and sent the kids to friends, she’d stock piled bottles of water in case the supply was cut off and hoped to god the electricity held. She had done all she could but she was very annoyed. This was her queendom as she called it – An inviolable place – An extension of her body where nothing and nobody should penetrate unless invited. These stinking flood waters were threatening to break that rule. This after all was not a rule of their making but of hers and they had no regard for human restrictions. They marched on relentlessly like some sinister invading army of a callous and indifferent government of nature. They did their filthy deeds of wanton destruction and then the sun came out to smile on their handiwork. The circular came round that morning, advising everyone to evacuate their homes as the river defences weren’t expected to hold. “I’m damned if I’m going”! Sarah said to the toaster as she prepared her breakfast. “I’m a woman. I’ve been liberated. I will survive. I have survived widowhood, a mugging, the loss of my grandmother, the deaths of my parents, increasing back pain and being told I’m infertile. No bloody river is going to drive me from my home”. Sarah was whistling in the dark. By lunchtime the rain was still pouring. Now people were calling, urging her out. Her neighbours were packing, preparing to leave. The met. Office had got it right and she was going to be engulfed if she stayed. Like the last man standing after the fall of a great city she waited and she was not to wait in vain. Suddenly the defences had been broken and the filth was everywhere. The stink was unimaginable, the waters waist high. Sarah was lucky to get out of it alive as she couldn’t swim. She found herself in a soldier’s arms, being carried to safety. Amazingly she was relatively unscathed but had left her possessions to the mercies of the waters behind her.
Mavis was just unpacking when the ache began again. She spared herself the trauma of looking in her mirror. She knew she was only half what she had been. How had it come to this? She’d rallied her defences she’d exercised, never smoked, ate the recommended portions of fruit and vegetables a day, never been promiscuous and grew her own veg and fruit. She never allowed herself to get burned in strong sunshine and always made sure she had a good night’s sleep yet these filthy cancer cells had grown after dividing in an uncontrollably erratic way. Mavis was now warding them off, or trying to, with the equivalent of sand bags and extra walls in the form of radio therapy and chemo therapy. She couldn’t tell if the rain had stopped, whether the tide was still rising or just levelling out, whether the waters were receding or if the “met. Office” at the hospital were in error. What if they were? How could she stop herself being separated from her valuables – Angela and Bob? She couldn’t put them upstairs or secret them away or stop the flood waters from carrying her to the bottom of their polluted disgusting river. “Cancer” she said aloud. “The word must have something to do with water. With crabs that cling and move and don’t let go”. She shivered. She still felt sick.
When Sarah checked out of the hospital she had to get to a bank. Eventually she arranged for replacement credit facilities. Thank god she didn’t do as many old people do and keep her money under the bed. Every last tenner would be dead as a dodo by now if she had. The winds had reached gale force. The power was off and the waters half way up Sarah’s stairs. Roof tiles had gone and the place was in ruins. It was still raining. There’d been only a short respite since Sarah had left her home which she now felt had turned on and betrayed her. Tired and weary she checked in at the only hotel to still have a vacancy. Everyone had been making for the hotels after the disaster. Wearily Sarah climbed the stairs and as she got to the top, thought she heard the faint sound of sobbing but couldn’t be sure. “That isn’t a child” she thought. “Wonder what’s there to cry about. Whatever it is it won’t beat being flooded out”. She lay down on the bed, still trying to rid herself of the ghastly smell of dirty water.
Lunch was okay but got stuck somewhere in the two women’s throats as they sat opposite to each other in the packed dining-room. They’d gone through the preliminaries – The social niceties that bind us together in an illusory sort of way. Mavis left out the story of the cancer and just explained that the hotel was run by her sister and that rather than stay with them in their private quarters she had chosen to be with the other guests. Sarah thought this a very odd decision but refrained from comment. In normal circumstances she would have noticed how frail and gaunt Mavis looked but the floods had engulfed her emotions by saturating her home. They’d momentarily whisked her empathy and sucked it away in their unforgiving quest to damage and destroy. They’d robbed her of the capacity to care about anything except her mother’s lost photographs, her wedding presents, her damaged record covers, her spoiled bed linen, her lost towels and teacloths and her beloved husband’s pottery and the carpets he’d chosen long ago. Mavis looked at Sarah who could have been transformed into a tailor’s dummy. She looked human, “ummed” and “awed” now and again which meant she heard what Mavis said and this meant her words were not just being spoken and received then ignored and discarded by the empty air. She could have been reciting nursery rhymes for all Sarah cared. Suddenly though amidst all the boring inconsequential rubbish that Mavis was talking, Sarah posed a question without really wanting the answer but hoping to find some common reference point which they could cling to. “Why did you come apart from seeing your sister I mean? Were you flooded out?” “No”. That did it. Sarah knew she had to get away. This shallow boring woman who had everything going for her and who talked nonsense from the time she opened her mouth till the time she closed it was bloody lucky then was she not? “Excuse me I must go”, Sarah said and without explanation was gone.
A bewildered Mavis sat staring into the middle distance, wondering what she might have said to offend the other woman. The next day at breakfast Sarah again sat at Mavis’s table – Hobson’s choice as there was no other. She mumbled an insincere apology and mechanically switched off and tuned herself out as Mavis prattled on. Then one word popped out of the torrent like a child’s arm may through a playground fence. “Cancer”. She’d been telling Sarah that she’d come to rest up a bit while undergoing a regime of treatment for cancer which was now in remission. Sarah dropped her spoon and it landed with a clatter in her cereal bowl. The room went quiet. “What did you say?” She asked. Mavis was on the point of repeating it when she saw Sarah’s eyes fill with tears. Remembering Jack and the abominable suffering that one would not let an animal endure, remembering the filthy flood water that had engulfed her home, suddenly coming alive to this woman’s pain and feeling guilty that last night she’d thought her lucky and quite frankly didn’t care then about anything she said or did, she allowed her own river of emotion to flood out and engulf her surroundings, carrying the diners and the hotel staff up into their vortex. Her salt water which was still polluted by intense anger grief and misery raged and burst from her like an ocean swallowing up the world. Mavis stopped chattering. She leapt from her seat and grabbed the other woman saying “I’ll be your sand bag. I’m not much of a support. Will let you down, am going to die but I’m here now. I thought you were lucky too. Carpets can be replaced and houses repaired and after all they are just bricks and mortar – Extensions of ourselves but not ourselves – The parts we can redesign or change if we have to. I am about to lose all of me. The woman who loves shopping and soap operas, the woman who likes a good nag with the neighbours, the woman who likes a game of bingo or a Saturday doing collections or whatever for charity, the Woman who has puppy walked guide dogs”. In the middle of the dining-room they stood and cried together, each for each other and both for themselves. Eventually Angela appeared and threatened to eject Sarah for causing distress to her sister.
During her final months Mavis paid a visit to Sarah in her new and reconstructed home. She chattered and prattled in a vain attempt to keep death away but in a stunning moment of profundity said something we all should remember. “We should never envy another the half when we don’t know the whole”. When she died Sarah suffered another loss but this time it was the loss of someone she’d never have thought it worth getting to know in normal circumstances. A sort of climate change had taken place in her heart as well as in nature. She realised how foolish it is to judge and write another off and how dangerous it is to depersonalise people, thinking them so much more inferior to and different from oneself. She rather had the same feeling when it came to what we’re doing to the planet – Thinking it ours alone and that what we want is of paramount importance and the others don’t matter because they’re lesser, further away, as yet unborn. It was with a sense of unease that she looked out of the window and noticed it had started raining again.
The filthy waters were coming ever closer. The river was rising at an alarming rate and it was still raining. Sarah felt confident that she had done all she could to protect herself this time. She’d put sand bags up against the doors and covered the carpets with old towels. She’d moved all her valuables upstairs and sent the kids to friends, she’d stock piled bottles of water in case the supply was cut off and hoped to god the electricity held. She had done all she could but she was very annoyed. This was her queendom as she called it – An inviolable place – An extension of her body where nothing and nobody should penetrate unless invited. These stinking flood waters were threatening to break that rule. This after all was not a rule of their making but of hers and they had no regard for human restrictions. They marched on relentlessly like some sinister invading army of a callous and indifferent government of nature. They did their filthy deeds of wanton destruction and then the sun came out to smile on their handiwork. The circular came round that morning, advising everyone to evacuate their homes as the river defences weren’t expected to hold. “I’m damned if I’m going”! Sarah said to the toaster as she prepared her breakfast. “I’m a woman. I’ve been liberated. I will survive. I have survived widowhood, a mugging, the loss of my grandmother, the deaths of my parents, increasing back pain and being told I’m infertile. No bloody river is going to drive me from my home”. Sarah was whistling in the dark. By lunchtime the rain was still pouring. Now people were calling, urging her out. Her neighbours were packing, preparing to leave. The met. Office had got it right and she was going to be engulfed if she stayed. Like the last man standing after the fall of a great city she waited and she was not to wait in vain. Suddenly the defences had been broken and the filth was everywhere. The stink was unimaginable, the waters waist high. Sarah was lucky to get out of it alive as she couldn’t swim. She found herself in a soldier’s arms, being carried to safety. Amazingly she was relatively unscathed but had left her possessions to the mercies of the waters behind her.
Mavis was just unpacking when the ache began again. She spared herself the trauma of looking in her mirror. She knew she was only half what she had been. How had it come to this? She’d rallied her defences she’d exercised, never smoked, ate the recommended portions of fruit and vegetables a day, never been promiscuous and grew her own veg and fruit. She never allowed herself to get burned in strong sunshine and always made sure she had a good night’s sleep yet these filthy cancer cells had grown after dividing in an uncontrollably erratic way. Mavis was now warding them off, or trying to, with the equivalent of sand bags and extra walls in the form of radio therapy and chemo therapy. She couldn’t tell if the rain had stopped, whether the tide was still rising or just levelling out, whether the waters were receding or if the “met. Office” at the hospital were in error. What if they were? How could she stop herself being separated from her valuables – Angela and Bob? She couldn’t put them upstairs or secret them away or stop the flood waters from carrying her to the bottom of their polluted disgusting river. “Cancer” she said aloud. “The word must have something to do with water. With crabs that cling and move and don’t let go”. She shivered. She still felt sick.
When Sarah checked out of the hospital she had to get to a bank. Eventually she arranged for replacement credit facilities. Thank god she didn’t do as many old people do and keep her money under the bed. Every last tenner would be dead as a dodo by now if she had. The winds had reached gale force. The power was off and the waters half way up Sarah’s stairs. Roof tiles had gone and the place was in ruins. It was still raining. There’d been only a short respite since Sarah had left her home which she now felt had turned on and betrayed her. Tired and weary she checked in at the only hotel to still have a vacancy. Everyone had been making for the hotels after the disaster. Wearily Sarah climbed the stairs and as she got to the top, thought she heard the faint sound of sobbing but couldn’t be sure. “That isn’t a child” she thought. “Wonder what’s there to cry about. Whatever it is it won’t beat being flooded out”. She lay down on the bed, still trying to rid herself of the ghastly smell of dirty water.
Lunch was okay but got stuck somewhere in the two women’s throats as they sat opposite to each other in the packed dining-room. They’d gone through the preliminaries – The social niceties that bind us together in an illusory sort of way. Mavis left out the story of the cancer and just explained that the hotel was run by her sister and that rather than stay with them in their private quarters she had chosen to be with the other guests. Sarah thought this a very odd decision but refrained from comment. In normal circumstances she would have noticed how frail and gaunt Mavis looked but the floods had engulfed her emotions by saturating her home. They’d momentarily whisked her empathy and sucked it away in their unforgiving quest to damage and destroy. They’d robbed her of the capacity to care about anything except her mother’s lost photographs, her wedding presents, her damaged record covers, her spoiled bed linen, her lost towels and teacloths and her beloved husband’s pottery and the carpets he’d chosen long ago. Mavis looked at Sarah who could have been transformed into a tailor’s dummy. She looked human, “ummed” and “awed” now and again which meant she heard what Mavis said and this meant her words were not just being spoken and received then ignored and discarded by the empty air. She could have been reciting nursery rhymes for all Sarah cared. Suddenly though amidst all the boring inconsequential rubbish that Mavis was talking, Sarah posed a question without really wanting the answer but hoping to find some common reference point which they could cling to. “Why did you come apart from seeing your sister I mean? Were you flooded out?” “No”. That did it. Sarah knew she had to get away. This shallow boring woman who had everything going for her and who talked nonsense from the time she opened her mouth till the time she closed it was bloody lucky then was she not? “Excuse me I must go”, Sarah said and without explanation was gone.
A bewildered Mavis sat staring into the middle distance, wondering what she might have said to offend the other woman. The next day at breakfast Sarah again sat at Mavis’s table – Hobson’s choice as there was no other. She mumbled an insincere apology and mechanically switched off and tuned herself out as Mavis prattled on. Then one word popped out of the torrent like a child’s arm may through a playground fence. “Cancer”. She’d been telling Sarah that she’d come to rest up a bit while undergoing a regime of treatment for cancer which was now in remission. Sarah dropped her spoon and it landed with a clatter in her cereal bowl. The room went quiet. “What did you say?” She asked. Mavis was on the point of repeating it when she saw Sarah’s eyes fill with tears. Remembering Jack and the abominable suffering that one would not let an animal endure, remembering the filthy flood water that had engulfed her home, suddenly coming alive to this woman’s pain and feeling guilty that last night she’d thought her lucky and quite frankly didn’t care then about anything she said or did, she allowed her own river of emotion to flood out and engulf her surroundings, carrying the diners and the hotel staff up into their vortex. Her salt water which was still polluted by intense anger grief and misery raged and burst from her like an ocean swallowing up the world. Mavis stopped chattering. She leapt from her seat and grabbed the other woman saying “I’ll be your sand bag. I’m not much of a support. Will let you down, am going to die but I’m here now. I thought you were lucky too. Carpets can be replaced and houses repaired and after all they are just bricks and mortar – Extensions of ourselves but not ourselves – The parts we can redesign or change if we have to. I am about to lose all of me. The woman who loves shopping and soap operas, the woman who likes a good nag with the neighbours, the woman who likes a game of bingo or a Saturday doing collections or whatever for charity, the Woman who has puppy walked guide dogs”. In the middle of the dining-room they stood and cried together, each for each other and both for themselves. Eventually Angela appeared and threatened to eject Sarah for causing distress to her sister.
During her final months Mavis paid a visit to Sarah in her new and reconstructed home. She chattered and prattled in a vain attempt to keep death away but in a stunning moment of profundity said something we all should remember. “We should never envy another the half when we don’t know the whole”. When she died Sarah suffered another loss but this time it was the loss of someone she’d never have thought it worth getting to know in normal circumstances. A sort of climate change had taken place in her heart as well as in nature. She realised how foolish it is to judge and write another off and how dangerous it is to depersonalise people, thinking them so much more inferior to and different from oneself. She rather had the same feeling when it came to what we’re doing to the planet – Thinking it ours alone and that what we want is of paramount importance and the others don’t matter because they’re lesser, further away, as yet unborn. It was with a sense of unease that she looked out of the window and noticed it had started raining again.
Monday, September 22, 2008
TOUCH AND GO.
Effy sat in her bed-sitting-room looking out at the rain. “Another wet day”, she said to herself. Another day when it would be pointless to go out. Dimly aware of the movements in the flat next door, she wondered how it was possible to live so close to someone and yet remain so isolated. She once had an old dog with a soppy face, sad eyes which were in direct contrast to its forever wagging happy tail but she had to part with it when she came to her sheltered flat. In many ways the dog had filled the void left by her husband’s death but it couldn’t put arms around her, make her tea when she was ill or soothe her with comforting words when sad. It couldn’t verbally defend her when others seemed not to be on her side in a dispute. She avoided disputes where possible but sometimes they’re unavoidable. That was the thing about being alone, about living alone, you have to bat for yourself and cope with the far reaching consequences of disputes whatever they may be. There’s nobody taking your part, propping you up and who of us doesn’t need a little propping up now and again? It hasn’t always been like this though. Oh no, not always.
Effy was a young woman in her twenties when she met Stan. She was working at the time and though she’d never consciously planned to marry she just let things take their time saying that whatever’s meant to be will be. Well it was meant to be and then not meant if you see what I mean. They were happy. However, after about five years he dropped dead while out playing golf. When the numbness wore off and Effy was able to think she thought wryly: “Five years! My washing machine was guaranteed for five years. I thought marriages were meant to last longer than that”! It would have done – No reason why it shouldn’t have done. They were childless but happy and had enough money to live on. She thought about the Bates family next door, always arguing, living on a shoestring. God had cheated her all right! He’d allowed her to glimpse a wonderful garden, told her she could rent it and tend it, have it and hold it and then contradicted himself, telling her it was really meant for some townie who couldn’t appreciate the beauty of it and that she’d misunderstood the terms of the agreement. Yes marriage was for life but not for all of her life, that was not the deal at all. There had been others since Stan, others who’d loved but not made love to her. One had died, the other was married and the other? Ah yes! He was so special – So very special and so maimed.
So Effy walked and walked the dog. She tried to walk the pain away. She sat alone in cafes, loitered in libraries, strolled through shops and saved rubbish that wasn’t likely to harbour germs – Like egg boxes and old magazines – So it would give her an excuse to run out for a chat with the neighbours on the pretext of discarding them at last. Sometimes a: “Lovely day isn’t it”? Would have to suffice for a day just as a plate of rice has to suffice for a whole collection of refugees. She joined things of course she did. Effy was no hermit at least not by nature. Then it would happen. She’d have a seizure, perhaps just a small one which only meant she switched off for a bit – But more often than not the whole works – Foaming at the mouth, writhing on the floor, soiling her underwear. Then that would be it. The people to whom she’d offered and given her help suddenly found that, though still short-handed, Effy’s hands were hands they could do without. Not quite any port in a storm she realised. There were depths to which people would not stoop and heights to which they’d not let her climb. Effy was not needed.
Now she had come to these sheltered flats. Making her friends among the old who were nearing their sunsets, walking the fine line between loneliness and getting too involved which would inevitably mean further losses yet needing to be needed just the same. The staff would bring tales of their children’s and grandchildren’s antics and though they served as reminders that Effy would never attain that status they did make her laugh and ask for more. Then these itinerant, kindly but impersonal staff would leave, failing to keep their promises to keep in touch and Effy would lose again.
There’d be gatherings round the radiators in the community room rather like those in the draughty houses of long ago. Songs would be sung – Wartime songs which Effy knew of but be unable to recall for she was out of her time here and this was not her era. The queer feeling of being in a time warp swept over Effy who better remembered the sixties and the screams of Beatles fans.
Effy had her creature comforts – Warm flat, visiting G.P, the opportunity of a hot meal at lunchtime if the thought of cooking for herself didn’t appeal. She knew she was luckier than many and luckier than she had once been and that she should count her blessings. Indeed she wasn’t miserable but there was something missing. She needed more than “touch and go” – More than people breezing in and out of her life like passengers at a railway station. “The Lord provides” says her more religious friends. Ah! But what does he provide? To those who have thorns, more thorns, just so you’ll not forget how sharp they are? To those who have honey more honey just so they won’t forget how sweet it tastes? Then she’s told: “It’s all right for you you’re young”. They forget that when they were young though times were undoubtedly hard, they may have had better health and been living their lives in a normal environment. Then there was that which they couldn’t see – The crippling back pain, anaemia due to heavy monthly periods, the epilepsy and the failing eyes due to Retinitis Pigmentosa. Then that would be it. She would lose her temper with them and it would go round the complex that she was difficult, as easily as the winter colds and ‘flu. By the time she gets to their age she’ll have had what they already have but for longer. The growing sense of unfairness and the injustice that she should have been denied most of the tasty vegetables in life’s rich soup bore in upon her like the walls of her tiny flat. Still she had a ready wit which doesn’t always guarantee you friends as a bitter caustic tongue will guarantee you enemies. She sees the humour of the situation – Privately referring to the complex as God’s waiting room.
Effy has watched the world darken to the point where the horizon is the end of the window sill. Strange how adaptable you become. She has learned not to mind slipping her arm into that of one of the staff in order to obtain shopping and tries not to equate payment for her personal allocation of care with that of a man’s payment of a prostitute for sex. She tries not to remember too often that some of the luckier ones are given their care for free by relatives who are constants in their lives and for whom in some cases it may well be a duty but not just a job. The fact that it’s just a job to someone and that she’s just a client to all of them is the galling bit in the end.
Yesterday she heard the children playing in the school opposite and thought how arbitrarily the world is divided – Out there the young, the able and the game, in here, the aged, the halt and the lame. Blissfully unaware of the other group’s existence, each lives its parallel life sometimes meeting but never touching. Then a voice, plaintive and sad calls: “Will someone come and help me to the shop? I can’t get my breath”. Without much hesitation Effy turns her back upon the fast moving world, slows her pace a little and says: “Come on love. Let’s do the light fantastic”! “Oh Effy! You are kind! Thank you dear”, the grateful voice replies. Hold that thought Effy. That’s all you have to do. Hold that thought and touch the other’s hand and do not go.
Effy was a young woman in her twenties when she met Stan. She was working at the time and though she’d never consciously planned to marry she just let things take their time saying that whatever’s meant to be will be. Well it was meant to be and then not meant if you see what I mean. They were happy. However, after about five years he dropped dead while out playing golf. When the numbness wore off and Effy was able to think she thought wryly: “Five years! My washing machine was guaranteed for five years. I thought marriages were meant to last longer than that”! It would have done – No reason why it shouldn’t have done. They were childless but happy and had enough money to live on. She thought about the Bates family next door, always arguing, living on a shoestring. God had cheated her all right! He’d allowed her to glimpse a wonderful garden, told her she could rent it and tend it, have it and hold it and then contradicted himself, telling her it was really meant for some townie who couldn’t appreciate the beauty of it and that she’d misunderstood the terms of the agreement. Yes marriage was for life but not for all of her life, that was not the deal at all. There had been others since Stan, others who’d loved but not made love to her. One had died, the other was married and the other? Ah yes! He was so special – So very special and so maimed.
So Effy walked and walked the dog. She tried to walk the pain away. She sat alone in cafes, loitered in libraries, strolled through shops and saved rubbish that wasn’t likely to harbour germs – Like egg boxes and old magazines – So it would give her an excuse to run out for a chat with the neighbours on the pretext of discarding them at last. Sometimes a: “Lovely day isn’t it”? Would have to suffice for a day just as a plate of rice has to suffice for a whole collection of refugees. She joined things of course she did. Effy was no hermit at least not by nature. Then it would happen. She’d have a seizure, perhaps just a small one which only meant she switched off for a bit – But more often than not the whole works – Foaming at the mouth, writhing on the floor, soiling her underwear. Then that would be it. The people to whom she’d offered and given her help suddenly found that, though still short-handed, Effy’s hands were hands they could do without. Not quite any port in a storm she realised. There were depths to which people would not stoop and heights to which they’d not let her climb. Effy was not needed.
Now she had come to these sheltered flats. Making her friends among the old who were nearing their sunsets, walking the fine line between loneliness and getting too involved which would inevitably mean further losses yet needing to be needed just the same. The staff would bring tales of their children’s and grandchildren’s antics and though they served as reminders that Effy would never attain that status they did make her laugh and ask for more. Then these itinerant, kindly but impersonal staff would leave, failing to keep their promises to keep in touch and Effy would lose again.
There’d be gatherings round the radiators in the community room rather like those in the draughty houses of long ago. Songs would be sung – Wartime songs which Effy knew of but be unable to recall for she was out of her time here and this was not her era. The queer feeling of being in a time warp swept over Effy who better remembered the sixties and the screams of Beatles fans.
Effy had her creature comforts – Warm flat, visiting G.P, the opportunity of a hot meal at lunchtime if the thought of cooking for herself didn’t appeal. She knew she was luckier than many and luckier than she had once been and that she should count her blessings. Indeed she wasn’t miserable but there was something missing. She needed more than “touch and go” – More than people breezing in and out of her life like passengers at a railway station. “The Lord provides” says her more religious friends. Ah! But what does he provide? To those who have thorns, more thorns, just so you’ll not forget how sharp they are? To those who have honey more honey just so they won’t forget how sweet it tastes? Then she’s told: “It’s all right for you you’re young”. They forget that when they were young though times were undoubtedly hard, they may have had better health and been living their lives in a normal environment. Then there was that which they couldn’t see – The crippling back pain, anaemia due to heavy monthly periods, the epilepsy and the failing eyes due to Retinitis Pigmentosa. Then that would be it. She would lose her temper with them and it would go round the complex that she was difficult, as easily as the winter colds and ‘flu. By the time she gets to their age she’ll have had what they already have but for longer. The growing sense of unfairness and the injustice that she should have been denied most of the tasty vegetables in life’s rich soup bore in upon her like the walls of her tiny flat. Still she had a ready wit which doesn’t always guarantee you friends as a bitter caustic tongue will guarantee you enemies. She sees the humour of the situation – Privately referring to the complex as God’s waiting room.
Effy has watched the world darken to the point where the horizon is the end of the window sill. Strange how adaptable you become. She has learned not to mind slipping her arm into that of one of the staff in order to obtain shopping and tries not to equate payment for her personal allocation of care with that of a man’s payment of a prostitute for sex. She tries not to remember too often that some of the luckier ones are given their care for free by relatives who are constants in their lives and for whom in some cases it may well be a duty but not just a job. The fact that it’s just a job to someone and that she’s just a client to all of them is the galling bit in the end.
Yesterday she heard the children playing in the school opposite and thought how arbitrarily the world is divided – Out there the young, the able and the game, in here, the aged, the halt and the lame. Blissfully unaware of the other group’s existence, each lives its parallel life sometimes meeting but never touching. Then a voice, plaintive and sad calls: “Will someone come and help me to the shop? I can’t get my breath”. Without much hesitation Effy turns her back upon the fast moving world, slows her pace a little and says: “Come on love. Let’s do the light fantastic”! “Oh Effy! You are kind! Thank you dear”, the grateful voice replies. Hold that thought Effy. That’s all you have to do. Hold that thought and touch the other’s hand and do not go.
Friday, September 19, 2008
NORMAN AND NINA.
“Sit down now girls and not too much noise now. My Bobby’s trying to sleep”.
“We promise”,
Norma said as she and Nina sat down to tea together and then went off to bed. It’d been a sad day but now Mrs. Carter said they could stay with her at least for the foreseable future they were less unhappy.
“Did you know Nina he told me all about his life at sea? I bet he didn’t tell you all his secrets”.
“Of course he did! He went out with me long after he had finished with you. He had lots of girls not just us. He always said so but he never married any of them. Said it’d take more than a woman to lure him from the sea”.
“Ah that’s my girl! Budge up will you Nina. Let the dog see the rabbit. D’ya know I’ve been all over the world. When I went into the Irish pubs and those in Kilburn (County Kilburn they call it because there’s so many Irish there) I used to have ‘em rollin’ in the aisles! Not that you get any aisles in a pub. Ah b’Jesus I always said that if you could get a port into a girl you could get a girl in every port and I did. Take little Angie now! God she was a real stunner. She played hard to get but I conquered her in the end.
Sure it was a great life at sea Nina. There was real friendship between the lads. Some of ‘em got thereselves spliced silly buggers! You’re in trouble then me gal. For one t’ing you never know while you’re away whether the women are playin’ away. Stands to sense. They have needs too you know and you’d know all about that. Didn’t you be going’ with Rex now Nina? Ah I know you’ve remained tight lipped about it but I know! Then my Norma, she was a real hot shot! She was a real lady in many ways but a real temptress to a fella! Back to me days at sea now. Where was I? Ah yes now! Svetlana! Sailing round the Baltic I was when I met her. She had muscles on her like any man’s. Now she could have made a great sailor, Nina. You know I told you about Elsie don’t you? She copped me for maintenance but by god she was the only one who did. She sent me a photo of her. Prettiest little Coleen you ever did see and truth to tell that’s all I know of her. We weren’t on the best of terms, me and Elsie. She called me a cad. Brought the wee one up alone so she did. I’d love to see her. My time is short now. Brought up on a farm so I was but that wasn’t my life, tied to the land and waiting on the weather. Crops can take no battering from the rain and wind whereas a ship now well that can to a large extent. If a farmer’s crops fail he’s out of pocket.
There’s nothing like the sea, Nina for testing a man’s strength and skill. Once you stop feeling sick and learn to roll with the ship you’re fine so you are. You see the world too Nina and meet all sorts. It’s hard to remain narrow minded and prejudiced when you meet so many men from all over the world – Men who miss their kids and have pictures of their mothers in their wallets; Men who want a bit but who have to go without till they get to port and get drunk and fight each other for a date with the nearest girl; Men who love music and poetry which sits awkwardly with their macho image and calloused hands and muscular frames; Men who are afraid of dying when the ship is in trouble and men who couldn’t give a damn. Ah sure! We’re the same but different.
Let me get meself another drink and I’ll tell you more”.
“Did he tell you more then Nina”?
“Of course. Only by then you’d gone off to bed because you were tired. I was the one who watched him fall asleep – Drunk again – The whisky spilling down his trousers; His mouth open and his eyes too. He looked old, haggard and sad as if he was a weary traveller who longed for rest and repose but couldn’t reach the inn yet but didn’t have the strength to continue”.
It was Mrs. Carter who spotted the milk piling up on the doorstep. Michael Murphy was a proud man – An independent man. He’d fallen asleep while telling Nina about how she and Norma had been the best girls he’d ever had – The only ones in fact to lure him from the sea. His need for them meant he could never go back to the ocean he loved so much. She peered in at the side window and saw him then with his arm round Nina, glass empty and broken on the floor and she realised at once that he would tell his girls no more stories. With tears in her eyes she rang the doctor and after his visit only one thought possessed her. Would she be allowed to give a home to Norma and Nina? His girls – Ever faithful; Ever reliable; Always there. Just what would become of Norma and Nina? Michael Murphy’s working and retired guide dogs.
“We promise”,
Norma said as she and Nina sat down to tea together and then went off to bed. It’d been a sad day but now Mrs. Carter said they could stay with her at least for the foreseable future they were less unhappy.
“Did you know Nina he told me all about his life at sea? I bet he didn’t tell you all his secrets”.
“Of course he did! He went out with me long after he had finished with you. He had lots of girls not just us. He always said so but he never married any of them. Said it’d take more than a woman to lure him from the sea”.
“Ah that’s my girl! Budge up will you Nina. Let the dog see the rabbit. D’ya know I’ve been all over the world. When I went into the Irish pubs and those in Kilburn (County Kilburn they call it because there’s so many Irish there) I used to have ‘em rollin’ in the aisles! Not that you get any aisles in a pub. Ah b’Jesus I always said that if you could get a port into a girl you could get a girl in every port and I did. Take little Angie now! God she was a real stunner. She played hard to get but I conquered her in the end.
Sure it was a great life at sea Nina. There was real friendship between the lads. Some of ‘em got thereselves spliced silly buggers! You’re in trouble then me gal. For one t’ing you never know while you’re away whether the women are playin’ away. Stands to sense. They have needs too you know and you’d know all about that. Didn’t you be going’ with Rex now Nina? Ah I know you’ve remained tight lipped about it but I know! Then my Norma, she was a real hot shot! She was a real lady in many ways but a real temptress to a fella! Back to me days at sea now. Where was I? Ah yes now! Svetlana! Sailing round the Baltic I was when I met her. She had muscles on her like any man’s. Now she could have made a great sailor, Nina. You know I told you about Elsie don’t you? She copped me for maintenance but by god she was the only one who did. She sent me a photo of her. Prettiest little Coleen you ever did see and truth to tell that’s all I know of her. We weren’t on the best of terms, me and Elsie. She called me a cad. Brought the wee one up alone so she did. I’d love to see her. My time is short now. Brought up on a farm so I was but that wasn’t my life, tied to the land and waiting on the weather. Crops can take no battering from the rain and wind whereas a ship now well that can to a large extent. If a farmer’s crops fail he’s out of pocket.
There’s nothing like the sea, Nina for testing a man’s strength and skill. Once you stop feeling sick and learn to roll with the ship you’re fine so you are. You see the world too Nina and meet all sorts. It’s hard to remain narrow minded and prejudiced when you meet so many men from all over the world – Men who miss their kids and have pictures of their mothers in their wallets; Men who want a bit but who have to go without till they get to port and get drunk and fight each other for a date with the nearest girl; Men who love music and poetry which sits awkwardly with their macho image and calloused hands and muscular frames; Men who are afraid of dying when the ship is in trouble and men who couldn’t give a damn. Ah sure! We’re the same but different.
Let me get meself another drink and I’ll tell you more”.
“Did he tell you more then Nina”?
“Of course. Only by then you’d gone off to bed because you were tired. I was the one who watched him fall asleep – Drunk again – The whisky spilling down his trousers; His mouth open and his eyes too. He looked old, haggard and sad as if he was a weary traveller who longed for rest and repose but couldn’t reach the inn yet but didn’t have the strength to continue”.
It was Mrs. Carter who spotted the milk piling up on the doorstep. Michael Murphy was a proud man – An independent man. He’d fallen asleep while telling Nina about how she and Norma had been the best girls he’d ever had – The only ones in fact to lure him from the sea. His need for them meant he could never go back to the ocean he loved so much. She peered in at the side window and saw him then with his arm round Nina, glass empty and broken on the floor and she realised at once that he would tell his girls no more stories. With tears in her eyes she rang the doctor and after his visit only one thought possessed her. Would she be allowed to give a home to Norma and Nina? His girls – Ever faithful; Ever reliable; Always there. Just what would become of Norma and Nina? Michael Murphy’s working and retired guide dogs.
PRAYER AFTER BIRTH.
Now that I am here give me a candle to light my way,
A peaceful night and a fruitful day,
A friend to walk with and things to do,
A hand to hold and a heart that’s true.
Now that I am here,
Give me courage to carry on,
A rock to cling to when hope is gone,
A sure foot and an easy path,
A welcome smile and a bright warm hearth,
Now that I am here give me an ear for another’s despair,
A willingness to give, to care and share,
A mouth that holds back an angry word,
Humour to laugh at the absurd,
Eyes to cry at another’s plight,
A desire to continue through my endless night,
Till I get to the place where perhaps there is dawn,
Give me compassion now that I’ve been born,
Promise me nothing you cannot give,
Just you walk with me while we both live,
Then when you leave me I’ll understand,
The significance of your being, the feel of your hand,
Give me a memory of all that is good,
Justice and shelter, clothing and food,
Now I am here keep me safe from my foes,
Let me value my life as so quickly it goes,
Let me value yours too, respecting your space,
Caring not for your colour, religion or race,
Or whether you’re disabled, ugly or blind,
Let my epitaph be
“She was tolerant, kind.”
A peaceful night and a fruitful day,
A friend to walk with and things to do,
A hand to hold and a heart that’s true.
Now that I am here,
Give me courage to carry on,
A rock to cling to when hope is gone,
A sure foot and an easy path,
A welcome smile and a bright warm hearth,
Now that I am here give me an ear for another’s despair,
A willingness to give, to care and share,
A mouth that holds back an angry word,
Humour to laugh at the absurd,
Eyes to cry at another’s plight,
A desire to continue through my endless night,
Till I get to the place where perhaps there is dawn,
Give me compassion now that I’ve been born,
Promise me nothing you cannot give,
Just you walk with me while we both live,
Then when you leave me I’ll understand,
The significance of your being, the feel of your hand,
Give me a memory of all that is good,
Justice and shelter, clothing and food,
Now I am here keep me safe from my foes,
Let me value my life as so quickly it goes,
Let me value yours too, respecting your space,
Caring not for your colour, religion or race,
Or whether you’re disabled, ugly or blind,
Let my epitaph be
“She was tolerant, kind.”
Thursday, September 18, 2008
A PRIVILEGE NOT A RIGHT.
I have some strong views on people’s right to become parents. It’s my belief that in fact parenthood isn’t a right but a privilege which should be withdrawn from damaged people who have committed gross acts of child abuse or who have been negligent when it comes to caring for their children.
These days nobody need have children if they so choose. Contraception has never been more readily available and those who have children have the responsibility to ensure that they grow up in a safe and loving environment, where they can be taught to become useful and productive citizens when they reach adulthood.
Yesterday I heard on the news yet one more appalling case of gross and monstrous child cruelty perpetrated against a small and vulnerable baby who had his back broken and was paralysed as a result. He suffered rib fractures and mercifully, given the circumstances, died as a result but he shouldn’t have had his life cut short in this way and he had the right which in my opinion takes preference over his parents’ right to have produced him, to have been able to grow up without being violated.
Doubtless there will be some do Gooding crackpot who may read this who will bleat about how these poor people need to be understood as they must have been badly treated themselves to have even thought of doing this to another. Possibly, you may say definitely, this is likely to be true. That being the case, as soon as he was known to be at risk these people should have been offered the choice of being given corrective treatment or having their child removed. Refusal in my view should result in them being compulsorily sterilised or imprisoned for life as Myra Hindley was without the prospect of their being released except into their coffins and thus bound either for the grave yard or crematorium. Society should send out the strongest message possible to these people who barely deserve the term human, to the effect that gross acts of abuse against children will not be tolerated.
It’s unfashionable these days to speak of evil but if good exists and few would dispute that it does, its opposite – Namely evil must also. There are some, and I have met them, who enjoy exercising power over weaker individuals be they children, disabled people or those with mental health problems. If the people who do these things have themselves got mental health problems as a result of their own childhood experiences and it cannot be established that they can be fully cured or successfully treated then we should err on the side of caution for the sake of their offspring. In my “not everything is meant for everybody” philosophy I’m afraid I do subscribe to the view that some should forego their so-called right to reproduce. We don’t have the right to refuse to wear a seat belt or drive on the wrong side of the road. Neither do we have the right to smoke in a public place any longer on the grounds that our actions damage other people’s health besides our own. We do have duties though – Another dirty word in this liberal society – A duty to those we bring into the world who haven’t asked to come.
All my life I have been sickened by the never ending catalogue of cases of child abuse, ranging from that of Maria Caldwell to Jasmine Beckford and Victoria Climbie. In her case her aunt who didn’t in fact give birth to her most definitely should remain imprisoned for life. Most people know whether their experiences have damaged them and those whose judgement in such matters is damaged too so that they don’t know should have the choice made for them by society if it wishes to call itself civilised. It’s obvious to me when some idiot stands up, orders an enquiry, wastes public money on yet another report which further damages the rain forests and then some other fool from Social Services can’t decide just how much the child is at risk and whether the parents’ human rights need protecting, and then says:
“We must make sure this never happens again”
that nobody can actually ensure it will not happen again and it’s a dead certainty that it will. After every shocking case which sickens me to my stomach and I hear these words trotted out once more I always mumble:
“Till the next time”
Under my breath and guess what! I’m sadly proved right time and again.
If you disagree with me which of course you have the right to do, tell me then what was your attitude to the lifetime imprisonment of Myra Hindley who hurt other people’s children? Shouldn’t we be as zealous with regard to people who hurt their own? Yes. Yes and Yes again. Anyone prepared to abuse another in this way, leading either to permanent disability or death for their victim foregoes their claim to human rights in the matter of being able to reproduce and you know what? I don’t give a stuff about whether they are deprived of this right or not, what I do care about is the appalling and needless suffering undergone by a blameless little individual who couldn’t choose to forego his or her right not to be lumbered with monstrous parents.
These days nobody need have children if they so choose. Contraception has never been more readily available and those who have children have the responsibility to ensure that they grow up in a safe and loving environment, where they can be taught to become useful and productive citizens when they reach adulthood.
Yesterday I heard on the news yet one more appalling case of gross and monstrous child cruelty perpetrated against a small and vulnerable baby who had his back broken and was paralysed as a result. He suffered rib fractures and mercifully, given the circumstances, died as a result but he shouldn’t have had his life cut short in this way and he had the right which in my opinion takes preference over his parents’ right to have produced him, to have been able to grow up without being violated.
Doubtless there will be some do Gooding crackpot who may read this who will bleat about how these poor people need to be understood as they must have been badly treated themselves to have even thought of doing this to another. Possibly, you may say definitely, this is likely to be true. That being the case, as soon as he was known to be at risk these people should have been offered the choice of being given corrective treatment or having their child removed. Refusal in my view should result in them being compulsorily sterilised or imprisoned for life as Myra Hindley was without the prospect of their being released except into their coffins and thus bound either for the grave yard or crematorium. Society should send out the strongest message possible to these people who barely deserve the term human, to the effect that gross acts of abuse against children will not be tolerated.
It’s unfashionable these days to speak of evil but if good exists and few would dispute that it does, its opposite – Namely evil must also. There are some, and I have met them, who enjoy exercising power over weaker individuals be they children, disabled people or those with mental health problems. If the people who do these things have themselves got mental health problems as a result of their own childhood experiences and it cannot be established that they can be fully cured or successfully treated then we should err on the side of caution for the sake of their offspring. In my “not everything is meant for everybody” philosophy I’m afraid I do subscribe to the view that some should forego their so-called right to reproduce. We don’t have the right to refuse to wear a seat belt or drive on the wrong side of the road. Neither do we have the right to smoke in a public place any longer on the grounds that our actions damage other people’s health besides our own. We do have duties though – Another dirty word in this liberal society – A duty to those we bring into the world who haven’t asked to come.
All my life I have been sickened by the never ending catalogue of cases of child abuse, ranging from that of Maria Caldwell to Jasmine Beckford and Victoria Climbie. In her case her aunt who didn’t in fact give birth to her most definitely should remain imprisoned for life. Most people know whether their experiences have damaged them and those whose judgement in such matters is damaged too so that they don’t know should have the choice made for them by society if it wishes to call itself civilised. It’s obvious to me when some idiot stands up, orders an enquiry, wastes public money on yet another report which further damages the rain forests and then some other fool from Social Services can’t decide just how much the child is at risk and whether the parents’ human rights need protecting, and then says:
“We must make sure this never happens again”
that nobody can actually ensure it will not happen again and it’s a dead certainty that it will. After every shocking case which sickens me to my stomach and I hear these words trotted out once more I always mumble:
“Till the next time”
Under my breath and guess what! I’m sadly proved right time and again.
If you disagree with me which of course you have the right to do, tell me then what was your attitude to the lifetime imprisonment of Myra Hindley who hurt other people’s children? Shouldn’t we be as zealous with regard to people who hurt their own? Yes. Yes and Yes again. Anyone prepared to abuse another in this way, leading either to permanent disability or death for their victim foregoes their claim to human rights in the matter of being able to reproduce and you know what? I don’t give a stuff about whether they are deprived of this right or not, what I do care about is the appalling and needless suffering undergone by a blameless little individual who couldn’t choose to forego his or her right not to be lumbered with monstrous parents.
LINKED.
We are linked, you and I,
Under the same ever changing yet expansive sky,
You on a vast continent far from mine,
I on the British mainland surrounded by sea,
I in a writer’s solitude which has no end,
You whom I’ve never met but still call friend,
Technology introduced us, let you see
Into the mind and heart of me,
It said: “Shake hands that you may find
You have a common humanity which will bind,
Keeping you linked though in your separate state,
Though you have differences in age and cards dealt out by fate”,
And as I sit here in the quiet of the night,
I think: “wouldn’t it be great if men did not fight?
Wouldn’t it be good if they did not war?
But instead realised what their time was for,
Namely to learn and understand that the world is small,
That we are all linked, yes one and all,
Linked not just by technology’s clever tricks,
Linked by our need for love
The cement between the bricks
Which are the structure of this life,
And that to keep on warring causes strife,
Bloodshed achieves nought but hopeless tears,
Shed because we cling to all our fears,
Fears of the different, we’re all to blame,
For not understanding that we’re all the same,
For not realising that each is like you and me,
Linked by our very commonality”,
All of us born and soon enough we’ll die,
Buried we’ll be beneath the same immense sky,
And I bless technology on which I now depend,
For it has allowed me to meet you, to call you friend.
Under the same ever changing yet expansive sky,
You on a vast continent far from mine,
I on the British mainland surrounded by sea,
I in a writer’s solitude which has no end,
You whom I’ve never met but still call friend,
Technology introduced us, let you see
Into the mind and heart of me,
It said: “Shake hands that you may find
You have a common humanity which will bind,
Keeping you linked though in your separate state,
Though you have differences in age and cards dealt out by fate”,
And as I sit here in the quiet of the night,
I think: “wouldn’t it be great if men did not fight?
Wouldn’t it be good if they did not war?
But instead realised what their time was for,
Namely to learn and understand that the world is small,
That we are all linked, yes one and all,
Linked not just by technology’s clever tricks,
Linked by our need for love
The cement between the bricks
Which are the structure of this life,
And that to keep on warring causes strife,
Bloodshed achieves nought but hopeless tears,
Shed because we cling to all our fears,
Fears of the different, we’re all to blame,
For not understanding that we’re all the same,
For not realising that each is like you and me,
Linked by our very commonality”,
All of us born and soon enough we’ll die,
Buried we’ll be beneath the same immense sky,
And I bless technology on which I now depend,
For it has allowed me to meet you, to call you friend.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
MORE PHYSIOTERROR!
Well we’re now into what the Americans refer to as “The Fall” and to be honest that’s what I wanted to do when I came home from the hospital today – Fall into a chair and go into a deep, deep coma! Not one of those terrible life threatening things which come after trauma or accident but a coma induced by exhaustion but I’m afraid food doesn’t get itself and neither do freezers defrost themselves and both needed my attention badly.
I looked suitably apprehensive as the physio whose strength could uproot trees, electricity pylons and houses and that’s just with his right hand! Said in his calm voice:
“Now let’s loosen this back up shall we”?
He rightly said to me:
“I know you don’t like this bit”,
To which I could do nothing but heartily agree. I was imagining people dancing up and down in their hobnail boots all over my vertebrae while someone put on the disco music while others went to the bar for drinks and nibbles. After the “physio foxtrot” performed with great skill and pain he started the physiokey cokey
“He pushed my left foot in, my left foot out then the right, then the left and shook them all about” by which time the only bit able to move with ease was my tongue but that doesn’t change not even when under a general anaesthetic! Then he asked:
“Have you got your dog back yet”?
“No”,
I replied weakly.
“She’s living it up somewhere being spoiled rotten while I’m being retuned, restructured and disassembled. She’s wagging her tail while you’re waggling my toes. However, she’s on all fours and so am I now”.
“We can’t have that now can we? Well if you get her back again soon do bring her in with you. I love Labradors”.
He said with real enthusiasm.
By now my wits had dulled. Had they not I may have suggested that, since she does the seeing for me maybe she’d like the physio too. He could have tug-of-war with Ragga the second – A nice new toy bought to replace her old one or, with four legs he’s got some more lower limbs he could play with while I sit there saying:
“You know this is really doing me good. I can feel it”!
I’m pleased to say that there is a slight improvement in that my heels weren’t so painful when he pressed and tweaked. Just for good measure and in case I become gored at home he sneaked in another exercise and said I should get on the bottle. Now this is where I pricked up my ears and produced a twisted smile of satisfaction till he told me that: “Getting on the bottle” in this case meant filling a milk bottle with water and putting it in the freezer and then rolling it beneath my feet in it’s chillblain producing state for fifteen minutes! Yes I do know it shouldn’t go directly onto the skin.
I could never have contemplated defrosting the freezer two weeks ago because it’s low down and to kneel would have been very painful as the position my heels would have had to assume would have really hurt but although I am still in a degree of discomfort it does seem to be easing a little. I can’t quite hear the sound of Esme’s bell in my mind as she comes wagging and jumping all over me again; threatening to floor me and have me in intensive care but there is light at the end of the tunnel which makes all this “ooing” and “ouching” worthwhile
My freezer is now defrosted and when I mopped up with the towels I wasn’t sure if the large puddle that had accumulated resulted from the melted ice or the outpourings of tears of agony resulting from the morning’s torture! I’ll leave you to decide while I limp off to get lunch!.
I looked suitably apprehensive as the physio whose strength could uproot trees, electricity pylons and houses and that’s just with his right hand! Said in his calm voice:
“Now let’s loosen this back up shall we”?
He rightly said to me:
“I know you don’t like this bit”,
To which I could do nothing but heartily agree. I was imagining people dancing up and down in their hobnail boots all over my vertebrae while someone put on the disco music while others went to the bar for drinks and nibbles. After the “physio foxtrot” performed with great skill and pain he started the physiokey cokey
“He pushed my left foot in, my left foot out then the right, then the left and shook them all about” by which time the only bit able to move with ease was my tongue but that doesn’t change not even when under a general anaesthetic! Then he asked:
“Have you got your dog back yet”?
“No”,
I replied weakly.
“She’s living it up somewhere being spoiled rotten while I’m being retuned, restructured and disassembled. She’s wagging her tail while you’re waggling my toes. However, she’s on all fours and so am I now”.
“We can’t have that now can we? Well if you get her back again soon do bring her in with you. I love Labradors”.
He said with real enthusiasm.
By now my wits had dulled. Had they not I may have suggested that, since she does the seeing for me maybe she’d like the physio too. He could have tug-of-war with Ragga the second – A nice new toy bought to replace her old one or, with four legs he’s got some more lower limbs he could play with while I sit there saying:
“You know this is really doing me good. I can feel it”!
I’m pleased to say that there is a slight improvement in that my heels weren’t so painful when he pressed and tweaked. Just for good measure and in case I become gored at home he sneaked in another exercise and said I should get on the bottle. Now this is where I pricked up my ears and produced a twisted smile of satisfaction till he told me that: “Getting on the bottle” in this case meant filling a milk bottle with water and putting it in the freezer and then rolling it beneath my feet in it’s chillblain producing state for fifteen minutes! Yes I do know it shouldn’t go directly onto the skin.
I could never have contemplated defrosting the freezer two weeks ago because it’s low down and to kneel would have been very painful as the position my heels would have had to assume would have really hurt but although I am still in a degree of discomfort it does seem to be easing a little. I can’t quite hear the sound of Esme’s bell in my mind as she comes wagging and jumping all over me again; threatening to floor me and have me in intensive care but there is light at the end of the tunnel which makes all this “ooing” and “ouching” worthwhile
My freezer is now defrosted and when I mopped up with the towels I wasn’t sure if the large puddle that had accumulated resulted from the melted ice or the outpourings of tears of agony resulting from the morning’s torture! I’ll leave you to decide while I limp off to get lunch!.
PHYSIOTERRORISM!
At present I’m parted from my latest hairy horror Esme. This is because of something called plantar fasciitis. You know what they say folks:
“To those who have more shall be given”!
What it doesn’t say on the tin is that you’ll get more of what you already have – Great if it’s holidays in sunny climes or as much naughty but nice food to eat – Not so great if it’s more things to cope with from the disability department. Still cope we must and eventually after doing a long walk for charity I found I could hardly walk at all!
I’d had pain under my heels for quite a while so it was foolhardy to go on a long walk but I wanted to do something useful and at the same time get out amongst other people in a different environment. However afterwards I needed to see my doctor who promptly recommended me for physiotherapy.
The man, (George not his real name) said:
“I’ll set up this exercise programme for you”.
That wiped the smile off my face because, having parted with my Labrador who is now living it up in another part of town, I thought I’d have even more time to listen to music and read and above all write (perhaps my greatest love of all).
Anyone who knows me well realises that exercise apart from walking is like spinach to a child – Ugh! Apart of course from when it comes to the exercising of both tongue and hands. People can’t afford to phone me unless they have two jobs and have won the lotto and my hands get plenty of exercise on this keyboard here in the gnome office.
However, worse was to come. He invited me to lie down on this couch (shades of the trick cyclist asking me what sort of childhood I had). Then he twiddled, tapped, flexed, knelt on and pummelled my back and feet. (he knelt on one leg while he almost broke the other)! In a breathless and crumpled heap I staggered to my feet afterwards as he breezily asked in a cheerful and educated voice:
“How’s the pain? What would you give it on a score of one to ten”?
“A thousand and one”,
I cried, remembering then that that was an advert for a carpet cleaner of long ago! Of course the pain in my feet was a bit better because everywhere else was agonisingly painful!
I began to resent my Labrador who is having a great time chewing up her ragga, playing with neighbour’s children and visiting her carer’s work place and generally being adored by all and sundry while I am here being taken asunder by one!
As I left I couldn’t help thinking:
“How can a person want to do this for a living? Manipulating people’s feet (some of whom probably possess smelly ones) and jumping all over unsuspecting victims all day leaving them bruised and battered and only fit for bed afterwards. What a way to earn a crust! However he redeemed himself yesterday by thinking I’m partially sighted! Will I go back next week? Might as well because the intense pain of plantar fasciitis which resembles having broken glass ground up into your heels and the loss of my beloved Labrador will make the physioterrorism worth bearing if only so I can rid myself of the first and reunite myself with the second. So George, you’ve got a blind date for next week, where will it be? The pictures! The beach or the disco! What with these feet and these eyes! No. Perhaps I’ll settle for a nice lie down on your couch. I’ll just lie back and think of Esme!
“To those who have more shall be given”!
What it doesn’t say on the tin is that you’ll get more of what you already have – Great if it’s holidays in sunny climes or as much naughty but nice food to eat – Not so great if it’s more things to cope with from the disability department. Still cope we must and eventually after doing a long walk for charity I found I could hardly walk at all!
I’d had pain under my heels for quite a while so it was foolhardy to go on a long walk but I wanted to do something useful and at the same time get out amongst other people in a different environment. However afterwards I needed to see my doctor who promptly recommended me for physiotherapy.
The man, (George not his real name) said:
“I’ll set up this exercise programme for you”.
That wiped the smile off my face because, having parted with my Labrador who is now living it up in another part of town, I thought I’d have even more time to listen to music and read and above all write (perhaps my greatest love of all).
Anyone who knows me well realises that exercise apart from walking is like spinach to a child – Ugh! Apart of course from when it comes to the exercising of both tongue and hands. People can’t afford to phone me unless they have two jobs and have won the lotto and my hands get plenty of exercise on this keyboard here in the gnome office.
However, worse was to come. He invited me to lie down on this couch (shades of the trick cyclist asking me what sort of childhood I had). Then he twiddled, tapped, flexed, knelt on and pummelled my back and feet. (he knelt on one leg while he almost broke the other)! In a breathless and crumpled heap I staggered to my feet afterwards as he breezily asked in a cheerful and educated voice:
“How’s the pain? What would you give it on a score of one to ten”?
“A thousand and one”,
I cried, remembering then that that was an advert for a carpet cleaner of long ago! Of course the pain in my feet was a bit better because everywhere else was agonisingly painful!
I began to resent my Labrador who is having a great time chewing up her ragga, playing with neighbour’s children and visiting her carer’s work place and generally being adored by all and sundry while I am here being taken asunder by one!
As I left I couldn’t help thinking:
“How can a person want to do this for a living? Manipulating people’s feet (some of whom probably possess smelly ones) and jumping all over unsuspecting victims all day leaving them bruised and battered and only fit for bed afterwards. What a way to earn a crust! However he redeemed himself yesterday by thinking I’m partially sighted! Will I go back next week? Might as well because the intense pain of plantar fasciitis which resembles having broken glass ground up into your heels and the loss of my beloved Labrador will make the physioterrorism worth bearing if only so I can rid myself of the first and reunite myself with the second. So George, you’ve got a blind date for next week, where will it be? The pictures! The beach or the disco! What with these feet and these eyes! No. Perhaps I’ll settle for a nice lie down on your couch. I’ll just lie back and think of Esme!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
THE DOG WHO RAN AWAY. A Short Story.
Mr. Trundle had a shop called:
“Mr. Trundle’s carpet bundles”. In there were all the lovely soft, hairy, smooth and beautiful carpets from all over the world and in there too was a naughty dog who thought she’d pretend to be one so she could get extra crumbs and dropped morsels of food.
Esme already had a very important job for Esme is a guide dog. This means that when she goes out she has to make sure that her owner, Sally from Labrador Alley, doesn’t walk into things on the pavement and can cross the road safely. Sally needs Esme because Sally is blind. This means that for Esme to run away from home meant that she had been very naughty indeed.
Mr. Trundle saw Esme and greeted her with a big smile. Mr. Trundle had a long beard made of candy floss, fruit and not bar feet, chocolate fingers which melted when he went out into the sun, wagon wheel ears (big chocolate biscuits they are) and was a friend to all sorts of spiders; Flies; Ants and other creepy things which lived in his beard which was now so long he had to hold it out in front of him with one hand so he wouldn’t fall over it.
Esme loved his pork pie hat which she longed to eat but couldn’t reach up to it because each time she tried jumping high enough she fell down to the floor again. Mr. Trundle was many metres tall.
While he was having his lunch of salad and cake (all mixed up on the same plate) Esme crept into his shop because he’d forgotten to lock it as Suzie the spider was tickling his beard so much. She curled herself up amongst the carpets and fell asleep.
Suddenly in the middle of the afternoon she felt herself being carried into a lady’s car and put into the back of it. She heard the lady saying what a fine carpet she was and how she would fit nicely underneath her dining room table:
“Great”,
Said Esme to herself in Woofle, a kind of dog’s language only understood by small children and dogs.
“I’ll have lots of lovely stuff to eat especially if there are messy children in the house”.
There were children in the house but they were the cleanest children that ever lived! After three days of having nothing much to eat Esme was so very hungry. She missed Sally from Labrador Alley so much and Sally missed her. She hated having muddy cold shoes rested on her as well. At home Sally always wiped the mud off her but now there was lots of it on her side which sometimes she licked off because she was so hungry but she had to wait till nobody could see her do it or else they’d realise she was a dog.
Then one day the postman called with a big heavy parcel the size of a truck! Esme was so excited, thinking it may be dog food that she barked.
“Mummy, our carpet just barked”,
One of the children said. She was a lovely little girl of about five years old who still understood Woofle. Esme then owned up to being a dog and running away from home. The lady took her back to Mr. Trundle’s shop at once and got her money back. He scolded Esme for being so bad and said that Sally missed her and had been wondering where she’d gone. He took her home in his van which too smelled of lovely new carpets and took care to make sure his pork pie hat which was made of pastry, meat and jelly, was high up out of her reach.
When Esme came home she wagged her tail, ran round, sniffed Sally’s computer and said:
“Good evening”
To it, (she usually ignored it because she and it weren’t friends) and then had the biggest meal in all the length of Labrador Alley! She decided that being a guide dog was quite nice really and never ran away again.
“Mr. Trundle’s carpet bundles”. In there were all the lovely soft, hairy, smooth and beautiful carpets from all over the world and in there too was a naughty dog who thought she’d pretend to be one so she could get extra crumbs and dropped morsels of food.
Esme already had a very important job for Esme is a guide dog. This means that when she goes out she has to make sure that her owner, Sally from Labrador Alley, doesn’t walk into things on the pavement and can cross the road safely. Sally needs Esme because Sally is blind. This means that for Esme to run away from home meant that she had been very naughty indeed.
Mr. Trundle saw Esme and greeted her with a big smile. Mr. Trundle had a long beard made of candy floss, fruit and not bar feet, chocolate fingers which melted when he went out into the sun, wagon wheel ears (big chocolate biscuits they are) and was a friend to all sorts of spiders; Flies; Ants and other creepy things which lived in his beard which was now so long he had to hold it out in front of him with one hand so he wouldn’t fall over it.
Esme loved his pork pie hat which she longed to eat but couldn’t reach up to it because each time she tried jumping high enough she fell down to the floor again. Mr. Trundle was many metres tall.
While he was having his lunch of salad and cake (all mixed up on the same plate) Esme crept into his shop because he’d forgotten to lock it as Suzie the spider was tickling his beard so much. She curled herself up amongst the carpets and fell asleep.
Suddenly in the middle of the afternoon she felt herself being carried into a lady’s car and put into the back of it. She heard the lady saying what a fine carpet she was and how she would fit nicely underneath her dining room table:
“Great”,
Said Esme to herself in Woofle, a kind of dog’s language only understood by small children and dogs.
“I’ll have lots of lovely stuff to eat especially if there are messy children in the house”.
There were children in the house but they were the cleanest children that ever lived! After three days of having nothing much to eat Esme was so very hungry. She missed Sally from Labrador Alley so much and Sally missed her. She hated having muddy cold shoes rested on her as well. At home Sally always wiped the mud off her but now there was lots of it on her side which sometimes she licked off because she was so hungry but she had to wait till nobody could see her do it or else they’d realise she was a dog.
Then one day the postman called with a big heavy parcel the size of a truck! Esme was so excited, thinking it may be dog food that she barked.
“Mummy, our carpet just barked”,
One of the children said. She was a lovely little girl of about five years old who still understood Woofle. Esme then owned up to being a dog and running away from home. The lady took her back to Mr. Trundle’s shop at once and got her money back. He scolded Esme for being so bad and said that Sally missed her and had been wondering where she’d gone. He took her home in his van which too smelled of lovely new carpets and took care to make sure his pork pie hat which was made of pastry, meat and jelly, was high up out of her reach.
When Esme came home she wagged her tail, ran round, sniffed Sally’s computer and said:
“Good evening”
To it, (she usually ignored it because she and it weren’t friends) and then had the biggest meal in all the length of Labrador Alley! She decided that being a guide dog was quite nice really and never ran away again.
WALKING IN YOUR SHOES
Just as I have longed for sighted people to put themselves in my shoes when they make throw-away comments like:
“You should do this”
and
“You ought to do that”,
regarding everything from learning computer skills to getting my writing published or going on holiday unaided, so I in my turn have tried to put myself in the shoes of a sighted person who encounters a blind person for the first time:
“What do I say?”
“How do I offer help”?
“How do I know what kind of help is needed and when and what if I get rebuffed”?
Obviously these dilemmas paralyse some people into inaction, making it impossible to do anything other than freeze to the spot.
Because I am normal to myself it’s easy to forget that some people regard me as abnormal if only in that I’m unusual – A rare occurrence in their every-day lives and sadly they have been rebuffed, sometimes rudely by those to whom they’ve offered assistance. Even if a person refuses politely because they feel it would be wrong to put someone out when they can manage perfectly this can be taken as a slight especially if you’ve spent half-an-hour plucking up courage to open your mouth.
It may help if however much someone hurts you, you do your best to see the person as just one individual out of many and to try as hard as possible to wipe the slate clean when you next see another blind person whose response may well be different. It’ll certainly help me if you approach and speak first rather than grabbing me by an arm without uttering a word. This is hard if not impossible if you see me hurtling towards a hole in the pavement but should in most cases be easy to do. Let me take your arm because then, like my lovely Esme, you will then be in front. Remember the saying: “The blind leading the blind”? Leading is the operative word. If you try pushing from behind with hands on shoulders then your attempts at help will be clumsy and I’ll be likely to become awkward to guide as I try to anticipate what you want me to do. Guiding with you in front will mean that I can follow your movements as I do with the dog. If you’re trying to show me to a chair, take me up to it and put a hand on either the arm, back or seat. Then I can manoeuvre myself into it in safety. I never sit till I feel the edge of the seat against the backs of my legs. Please don’t change your terminology for me at least. I use visual terminology all the time. I feel more self-conscious if you say:
“Did you hear that tv programme last night”,
“feel this”, as opposed to:
“look at this”.
This is an individual thing and there are some blind people – Mainly those who mourn their lost sight which has deserted them later in life, who don’t like visual words being used in this way. Unfortunately there are also those who seek to embarrass and elicit sympathy who deliberately want to draw the other person’s attention to their disadvantage and rub it into them just how lucky they are not to be afflicted in the same way. Also those who have lost their sight clearly draw a big distinction between looking at things and feeling things. For me this has been the only way I have ever been able to:
“Look”
at things so to me they are one and the same. I was taught that to fit in it would be unhelpful to use different terminology in a predominantly sighted world.
I have given much thought to the lack of eye contact, so important to communication between two sighted people, and how this affects the interplay between blind and sighted people. Perhaps it’s a bit like getting a lack of signal back on a phone and some people really do find it disconcerting to find blank eyes staring back at them. I was thoroughly taught and had it drummed into me just how important it is to face people when I speak to them and they to me and to keep my head up instead of hanging it down. Unfortunately, apart from smiling at you and really paying attention to you there’s nothing I can do to compensate for the lack of eye contact. I loathe to grab your hand while we talk because in this culture this isn’t done. I’d have no problem with this but you may. By nature I’m quite open and tactile which probably explains my great affection for and deep love of children who readily engage in this form of communication.
Finally for me, it’s all in the voice. If you sound serious but are smiling and are joking with me I may well misinterpret this and could take offence where none was intended. I believe I have done this so it’s best to make amends quickly rather than walk away hurt and that goes for me too. Also if nobody is near and I’m sitting with you in a crowded waiting room I may well look unfriendly or wooden faced because there’s no outside stimulous such as looking up at the pictures on the wall and there’s no magazine to hide behind as Braille is very heavy to carry and if I took a portable cd player in I may not hear my name called.
There’s just one more thing, many of us, me included suffer from irregular sleep patterns as a result of the erratic release of melatonin which governs our need to sleep. This is because I no longer see light. I do admit to being fairly irritable when I’ve had no sleep all night and an appointment during the day when I need to sleep till the pattern rights itself again, makes it necessary for me to forego sleep for even longer. During these times I’m desperately tired and am not best able to cope with people. This isn’t an excuse for rudeness but rather a reason for my usual cheerfulness to slip. Also, while I may be the only blind person you’ve met, the chances are that I’ve answered the questions and explained all you want to know over and over again during the whole of my adult life and just like a famous person, there are times when I just want to melt into the background but can’t. I’m genuinely sorry if I lose my temper or cause hurt. All I ask is that if you ask me what it’s like to do this or that you will accept what I say even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. I take it that if you’ve asked it’s because you really want to know and though things are not identical for all blind people, much of what we go through is and it’s important that just because someone else did or didn’t, could or couldn’t do something it doesn’t mean we all can or have had the help we need to do so. I shall always need help from you and just as I can’t turn my back on the next sighted person who offers it because the last one may have let me down, taken advantage of me, been insensitive with or without meaning to, I implore you to see us as individuals first and pluck up the courage and talk to me. We are in one world, all of us in one race – The human race and need each other to enrich each other’s lives and help us understand things and grow. Without you, my life is the poorer, duller and emptier, without me you may think you can cope and most certainly you can and will, more than I will ever be able to do without you but I have ears and may well be able to help you in unexpected ways for as Donne said:
“No man is an island, entire unto itself”.
“You should do this”
and
“You ought to do that”,
regarding everything from learning computer skills to getting my writing published or going on holiday unaided, so I in my turn have tried to put myself in the shoes of a sighted person who encounters a blind person for the first time:
“What do I say?”
“How do I offer help”?
“How do I know what kind of help is needed and when and what if I get rebuffed”?
Obviously these dilemmas paralyse some people into inaction, making it impossible to do anything other than freeze to the spot.
Because I am normal to myself it’s easy to forget that some people regard me as abnormal if only in that I’m unusual – A rare occurrence in their every-day lives and sadly they have been rebuffed, sometimes rudely by those to whom they’ve offered assistance. Even if a person refuses politely because they feel it would be wrong to put someone out when they can manage perfectly this can be taken as a slight especially if you’ve spent half-an-hour plucking up courage to open your mouth.
It may help if however much someone hurts you, you do your best to see the person as just one individual out of many and to try as hard as possible to wipe the slate clean when you next see another blind person whose response may well be different. It’ll certainly help me if you approach and speak first rather than grabbing me by an arm without uttering a word. This is hard if not impossible if you see me hurtling towards a hole in the pavement but should in most cases be easy to do. Let me take your arm because then, like my lovely Esme, you will then be in front. Remember the saying: “The blind leading the blind”? Leading is the operative word. If you try pushing from behind with hands on shoulders then your attempts at help will be clumsy and I’ll be likely to become awkward to guide as I try to anticipate what you want me to do. Guiding with you in front will mean that I can follow your movements as I do with the dog. If you’re trying to show me to a chair, take me up to it and put a hand on either the arm, back or seat. Then I can manoeuvre myself into it in safety. I never sit till I feel the edge of the seat against the backs of my legs. Please don’t change your terminology for me at least. I use visual terminology all the time. I feel more self-conscious if you say:
“Did you hear that tv programme last night”,
“feel this”, as opposed to:
“look at this”.
This is an individual thing and there are some blind people – Mainly those who mourn their lost sight which has deserted them later in life, who don’t like visual words being used in this way. Unfortunately there are also those who seek to embarrass and elicit sympathy who deliberately want to draw the other person’s attention to their disadvantage and rub it into them just how lucky they are not to be afflicted in the same way. Also those who have lost their sight clearly draw a big distinction between looking at things and feeling things. For me this has been the only way I have ever been able to:
“Look”
at things so to me they are one and the same. I was taught that to fit in it would be unhelpful to use different terminology in a predominantly sighted world.
I have given much thought to the lack of eye contact, so important to communication between two sighted people, and how this affects the interplay between blind and sighted people. Perhaps it’s a bit like getting a lack of signal back on a phone and some people really do find it disconcerting to find blank eyes staring back at them. I was thoroughly taught and had it drummed into me just how important it is to face people when I speak to them and they to me and to keep my head up instead of hanging it down. Unfortunately, apart from smiling at you and really paying attention to you there’s nothing I can do to compensate for the lack of eye contact. I loathe to grab your hand while we talk because in this culture this isn’t done. I’d have no problem with this but you may. By nature I’m quite open and tactile which probably explains my great affection for and deep love of children who readily engage in this form of communication.
Finally for me, it’s all in the voice. If you sound serious but are smiling and are joking with me I may well misinterpret this and could take offence where none was intended. I believe I have done this so it’s best to make amends quickly rather than walk away hurt and that goes for me too. Also if nobody is near and I’m sitting with you in a crowded waiting room I may well look unfriendly or wooden faced because there’s no outside stimulous such as looking up at the pictures on the wall and there’s no magazine to hide behind as Braille is very heavy to carry and if I took a portable cd player in I may not hear my name called.
There’s just one more thing, many of us, me included suffer from irregular sleep patterns as a result of the erratic release of melatonin which governs our need to sleep. This is because I no longer see light. I do admit to being fairly irritable when I’ve had no sleep all night and an appointment during the day when I need to sleep till the pattern rights itself again, makes it necessary for me to forego sleep for even longer. During these times I’m desperately tired and am not best able to cope with people. This isn’t an excuse for rudeness but rather a reason for my usual cheerfulness to slip. Also, while I may be the only blind person you’ve met, the chances are that I’ve answered the questions and explained all you want to know over and over again during the whole of my adult life and just like a famous person, there are times when I just want to melt into the background but can’t. I’m genuinely sorry if I lose my temper or cause hurt. All I ask is that if you ask me what it’s like to do this or that you will accept what I say even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. I take it that if you’ve asked it’s because you really want to know and though things are not identical for all blind people, much of what we go through is and it’s important that just because someone else did or didn’t, could or couldn’t do something it doesn’t mean we all can or have had the help we need to do so. I shall always need help from you and just as I can’t turn my back on the next sighted person who offers it because the last one may have let me down, taken advantage of me, been insensitive with or without meaning to, I implore you to see us as individuals first and pluck up the courage and talk to me. We are in one world, all of us in one race – The human race and need each other to enrich each other’s lives and help us understand things and grow. Without you, my life is the poorer, duller and emptier, without me you may think you can cope and most certainly you can and will, more than I will ever be able to do without you but I have ears and may well be able to help you in unexpected ways for as Donne said:
“No man is an island, entire unto itself”.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
CRUMBS! CHOPS AGAIN!
I used to live on a large housing estate which contained an assortment of batty individuals, one of whom insisted on feeding the birds in summer when there are plenty of little worms about for them to eat.
What she used to do (someone told me it was a woman) was buy a loaf especially for the purpose and then scatter the broken pieces throughout the path which my old Wheat and I had to walk in order to get home.
I started walking in all these crumbs and would feel [my guide dog] Wheat’s head go up and down with monotonous regularity.
“Is she nodding her ‘good mornings’ to strangers”?
I wondered. Well I know they’re well trained but that’s surely stretching it a bit. Eventually I found out that she was depriving the “little tweeties” of their “little treaties” and putting weight on at the same time. I had one hell of a job getting her up and down that path without her nicking all the grub she could find and then, obligingly she was given a little variation in the form of an old chop bone with a considerable amount of meat on it!
I realised she’d picked something up and immediately examined her mouth and found it was all greasy.
“Perhaps the old fool has started buttering the bread for the birds”
I thought but no. Butter doesn’t smell meaty and there was a distinct butcher’s pong off the old girl – Wheat you understand not the bread dropper. I felt everywhere for this meaty morsel but do you think I could find it? Then as we moved on (by this time I concluded that she must have known the game was up) and found Wheat was going at the speed of sound (long before the Coldplay song was a twinkle at the end of Chris Martin’s pencil (now now no mucky sniggers at that one)). Then I heard one crunch as the tail wagged against the harness handle:
“You little madam”
I thought to myself.
“You’ve still got it haven’t you? Well not for much longer matey! Give it to Mummy immediately”!
I started my search – Round the mouth, round the path, round the grass beside the path until lumbago seized me in it’s iron grip and I thought we’d both be walking home on all fours and I’d need “physioterrorism” again. Then my darling old dog collapsed in full harness, on duty, in front of me, on the deck!
“Wheat! Wheat! Oh you poor animal! Was there cyanide in those crumbs? Was something nasty in the loaf wrapper pre GM food”?
Was there heck as like! I felt the rib cage going up and down like Tower Bridge or the lift at the Barbican and do you think I could budge her? No. I could see I’d need a block and tackle or a crane at the very least. Eventually a large crowd of about two – Well they made enough noise for dozens let me say, gathered at my side so the shouting was in stereo but not synchronised:
“I say dear is that doggy o.k”? There was I, blind as a bat, crawling all over the floor looking for her illicit bone and here were these two animal maniacs worrying over the dog.
“Yes she’s just resting. We’ve been on a long walk”.
“Oh that’s o.k. then”,
they said and trotted off while I carried on trying to haul her up. I didn’t want them to report me to Guide Dogs for cruelty.
Eventually I got her up and found that her side was all greasy. She’d been lying on her prize and fully intended to get it home. Once more my frantic search began. Eventually the smelly morsel was located under her front paw. I grabbed it, chucked it as far as I could and heard someone say: “Ow”!
All she had when we got home was a good leathering! Calm down dear! I never laid a hand on her but had to wash her with the leather provided by Guide Dogs and in a sulk she went off to bed till grub time.
“And what about the bread”?
I hear you ask. Well I’m afraid she got one over on me and remained a nodding dog right up till the day she retired. Well maybe I had the last laugh. When I suspected her of stealing by finding I cut down on her food a bit. You never know what they’ll pick up and I live in fear of one day finding that one of my dogs has been made ill by what people chuck out in the wrong places. The dogs, like thoughtless people, don’t discriminate. Like the famous mountain climber they’ll eat the food for the same reason he climbed the mountain “because it’s there”.
What she used to do (someone told me it was a woman) was buy a loaf especially for the purpose and then scatter the broken pieces throughout the path which my old Wheat and I had to walk in order to get home.
I started walking in all these crumbs and would feel [my guide dog] Wheat’s head go up and down with monotonous regularity.
“Is she nodding her ‘good mornings’ to strangers”?
I wondered. Well I know they’re well trained but that’s surely stretching it a bit. Eventually I found out that she was depriving the “little tweeties” of their “little treaties” and putting weight on at the same time. I had one hell of a job getting her up and down that path without her nicking all the grub she could find and then, obligingly she was given a little variation in the form of an old chop bone with a considerable amount of meat on it!
I realised she’d picked something up and immediately examined her mouth and found it was all greasy.
“Perhaps the old fool has started buttering the bread for the birds”
I thought but no. Butter doesn’t smell meaty and there was a distinct butcher’s pong off the old girl – Wheat you understand not the bread dropper. I felt everywhere for this meaty morsel but do you think I could find it? Then as we moved on (by this time I concluded that she must have known the game was up) and found Wheat was going at the speed of sound (long before the Coldplay song was a twinkle at the end of Chris Martin’s pencil (now now no mucky sniggers at that one)). Then I heard one crunch as the tail wagged against the harness handle:
“You little madam”
I thought to myself.
“You’ve still got it haven’t you? Well not for much longer matey! Give it to Mummy immediately”!
I started my search – Round the mouth, round the path, round the grass beside the path until lumbago seized me in it’s iron grip and I thought we’d both be walking home on all fours and I’d need “physioterrorism” again. Then my darling old dog collapsed in full harness, on duty, in front of me, on the deck!
“Wheat! Wheat! Oh you poor animal! Was there cyanide in those crumbs? Was something nasty in the loaf wrapper pre GM food”?
Was there heck as like! I felt the rib cage going up and down like Tower Bridge or the lift at the Barbican and do you think I could budge her? No. I could see I’d need a block and tackle or a crane at the very least. Eventually a large crowd of about two – Well they made enough noise for dozens let me say, gathered at my side so the shouting was in stereo but not synchronised:
“I say dear is that doggy o.k”? There was I, blind as a bat, crawling all over the floor looking for her illicit bone and here were these two animal maniacs worrying over the dog.
“Yes she’s just resting. We’ve been on a long walk”.
“Oh that’s o.k. then”,
they said and trotted off while I carried on trying to haul her up. I didn’t want them to report me to Guide Dogs for cruelty.
Eventually I got her up and found that her side was all greasy. She’d been lying on her prize and fully intended to get it home. Once more my frantic search began. Eventually the smelly morsel was located under her front paw. I grabbed it, chucked it as far as I could and heard someone say: “Ow”!
All she had when we got home was a good leathering! Calm down dear! I never laid a hand on her but had to wash her with the leather provided by Guide Dogs and in a sulk she went off to bed till grub time.
“And what about the bread”?
I hear you ask. Well I’m afraid she got one over on me and remained a nodding dog right up till the day she retired. Well maybe I had the last laugh. When I suspected her of stealing by finding I cut down on her food a bit. You never know what they’ll pick up and I live in fear of one day finding that one of my dogs has been made ill by what people chuck out in the wrong places. The dogs, like thoughtless people, don’t discriminate. Like the famous mountain climber they’ll eat the food for the same reason he climbed the mountain “because it’s there”.
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