FOUR LEGS GOOD – ONE TIP BAD.

I have now been in Epsom since May. I have learned parts of the area – Those I need to know – With a white cane and from an experience mobility instructor from SAVI (Surrey Association for Visual Impairment for which I now do voluntary work when they want me to). I go out alone now and that’s the point – Alone without the four legs and two eyes I used to have.

I shall never see Esme again now and never a day goes by without I either think of or wish I still had her. I have tried to enjoy the clean flat without Labrador sick; slobber; dog hair and the requirement that I leave it and brave the cold which will come when winter does and for a while I loved it but the truth is I love my cane much less than the cold; dog sick; hair and emptiness in this flat and I love dogs more – Especially the freedom they give one when one is blind. I thought of the reading I have done over the years, including “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. In it the pigs (I think) chanted: “Four legs good, two legs bad”. How I agree with the pigs only instead of legs, I substitute the word “tip” – That which you find on the end of white canes. Now a roller, when it’s a car driven by a guy who is loaded or at least wealthy enough to keep it may be rather nice but I bet I’d even tire of that eventually. What I can’t seem to have enough of is a wagging tail and loopy old Labrador such as Esme – The faithful pair of trusted, borrowed eyes I had for so many years and so I rang up the Surrey Guide Dogs team today and applied for guide dog number four.

I worried myself to death about moving in May: “Who will help in the absence of family”? “How will I find a trustworthy cleaner to take the place of Sue”? “How will I manage to get out of the flat in a strange and unfamiliar area”? I felt the fear and did it anyway. Now what I have found to worry about is: “Who will hoover up the hair when my trustworthy home help is away”? “How will I cope when I will have to manage taking the new dog out when I need to sleep in the afternoon”? The shops are so near I can’t possibly go out just once a day as I did in London. These are real problems especially the very real and significant impact my irregular and disorganised circadian rhythms have on my body when they get out of synch with the rest of the country and my future dog’s routine which can’t be played with and made to fit into my altered rhythms. However, lack of exercise and the strain of using a cane is so significant and my love of dogs so strong and the longing I have for a fresh pair of eyes at the opposite end of a wagging old tail is so persistent that I can no longer ignore it so once more it’s feel the fear and do it anyway.

Who knows? There may even be the reinstatement of “waggy games” and the return of a disgusting old bundle of wool at each end of a slobbered-on length of rope! Ugh! Not just after tea please! Do you know something? I’m even missing that I’m so desperate! Now that filthy old toy which Esme had is still a vivid memory, along with its disgusting smell but even that is not enough to make me say: “Four legs bad, one tip good”. A cane can never match up to the loveliness and loyalty of a dog and maybe I’ll lose some of the weight I have put on since moving to Epsom. One thing’s for sure, I will definitely lose some of the fear I feel when going out with a dead bit of metal and rubber once the new dog (if I qualify and it’s always an if) knows the way so let’s be positive and go for it! Wish me luck folks! I’m going to need it.

MY NAME IS LINDA.

I’ve just come in. All these faces look so ordinary – Are so ordinary. Everyone looks nervous. I see there’s an empty chair over there, by the thin woman with the glasses and the sallow complexion. She looks old but I bet she isn’t. I’ve not dared to look in a mirror recently. Still looks aren’t important really are they? In the grand scheme of things they are like passing trains or buses – Here one minute and gone the next.

I’ve just heard the front door close. I keep telling myself he’ll be back. He loves me. He won’t walk out – Not after twenty years. I can’t believe he won’t miss me and then there’s the kids, Laura and Sam. They’re on the verge of adulthood now. They took their exams only last week. Both of them are so talented and so funny. I look at them and think to myself:

“How did someone like you produce two such wonderful examples of humanity”?

I know Grant will be back. I get out of bed – My head thumping and look at the peeling wall paper. I’ve not noticed it till now. I suppose I ought to see that the bedroom gets decorated soon but there never seems to be enough money. My mouth is dry as usual. I stagger downstairs and see the pile of broken china in the hall and the kitchen and then it begins to come back to me. We had a row. I don’t remember throwing anything at anyone. Sam is preparing breakfast. No he isn’t. He’s cleaning up the kitchen. He never complains – Just gets on with it. He’s a quiet boy. He tells me Laura’s gone to a friend’s again. I expect she went to Trisha’s. They’ve been friends since they were toddlers.

“Is there any tea in the pot, Sam”?

“No Mum. Not yet there isn’t. First I had to clear up this mess. Remember! Last night’s frenzy of violence and mayhem. You really do go in for it in a big way once you get started don’t you”?

“Don’t you get started! I have enough to do now that your dad’s gone”.

“Yeah and that’s another thing. How long do you think he’s going to put up with this”?

“He’ll be back. A spell of time at his mother’s while he cools down and he’ll be back”.

Something in Sam’s eyes tells me that this time that’s not so. Maybe I’m seeing the reflected knowledge in my own eyes rather than in his. I rush out. Good job there’s a downstairs loo. I only just get there in time. Retching on an empty stomach is so horrible but I’ve got that I can’t eat much nowadays.

“Put your case down here, love”,

Maisie urges. Grant sits wearily down on his mother’s old familiar settee. He looks careworn and old – Nearly as old as I do but for different reasons and both of us are only in our early forties. Maisie brings him the cup that cheers. He no longer cries like he used to do when he walks out. Instead he sits quiet and sullen like a sulky child who has been sent to bed before he wants to go. He stares unseeingly at the wall. Maisie’s paper needs replacing too but for different reasons. She is now too old to do her own decorating. He promises to do it for her now he has moved back into her spare room and she once more thankfully whispers her gladness to the god that she believes in that he has come home to that room at last and is glad she never sold her house.

“You must stay this time Grant. You can’t keep going back to her. You do realise that now don’t you”?

He nods. While she makes his tea he sits and wonders how you rid yourself of all the accumulated memories and emotions of twenty years. He knows he must start again and so do I.

The room has filled up now. I look at my watch and see everyone turning off their mobile phones. I sold mine. I needed the money. I spent the money as quickly as I had it in my hand. Money’s like water in a sieve to me. I look at the floor. I can’t focus properly on any of these people or this room. I want to get out. I can’t seem to breathe properly but I’m nowhere near the door. My hands are shaking again and I’m sweating all over. I’m sure I smell. I must do.

Grant lies looking at the moon after his mother’s tea. He thinks how nice it is to go to bed in a peaceful house for a change, knowing that he won’t be woken any moment by screaming and shouting; banging about and smashing crockery; knowing he won’t have his face clawed and his hair pulled out for no reason. Bone tired and free at last, sleep eludes him. He stares and stares blindly at the shining moon through the curtains. Soon it will be morning. He’ll have to stagger off to work having had little sleep. He may as well come home, that’s what he tells himself. If there’s to be no difference ‘twixt his mother’s bedroom and ours, he may as well come home but he doesn’t. He holds out. He fights the urge to come back to the painfully familiar. There’s security in the familiar and change is scary even if it is change for the better.

Laura and Sam come home after a night out. They almost trip over me, lying on the stairs. The hallway smells of urine. I’ve been sick. They step over me and carry on up to bed. Each has obtained a place at university. They’re now adults. Grant sends them money but I don’t get any now they’re grown. I’m not entitled to maintenance. They’ll be off in September. It’s August now. I daresay they’ll be glad to go.

There are five minutes to go till the session begins. I feel my throat close up. I know I won’t get a word out. I want to just sit here, anonymous in my drab clothes, obtained from the charity shop nearby. I could have got better ones but don’t think I’m worth it and anyway what’s the good? Nice clothes are for nice people – People who go out with friends and have dinner parties – People who can afford holidays and decent homes – People who have families and children at home.

Grant is cutting his mother’s lawn. That’s what made me fall in love with him – The way he cares for and about his mother. I’ve always maintained that if a son treats his mother properly he will do likewise with his wife. I can’t complain about the way I was treated. Maybe I had too much. It has never struck me that I had any more than other people. He’s finished her bedroom now.

I spent the money which should have been used for the mortgage. I have to be out tomorrow. I expect Sam and Laura will go to their grandmother’s for their holidays. I know they are in touch with their father. I haven’t seen them for weeks. They did come round only there was no food in the house which hadn’t been cleaned for weeks. They look shocked. There’s a momentary expression of disgust on Laura’s face which she can’t hide. Even when they lived here they stopped bringing their friends home.

The woman sitting next to me pats my arm. She gives me a look of reassurance and I feel tears welling up in my eyes. The man on the other side offers me a tissue. It’s a huge one, just right for men but not for the ocean of misery I have inside me which wouldn’t be held in check by one tissue. There’s only two minutes to go now.

It’s cold out here. Winter has come early and with a vengeance. I prefer to walk. I sat in the library this morning but was turned out. I was in a hostel but couldn’t settle there either and besides that I couldn’t quite do as I wanted to there. It was run by the Salvation Army and I’m not religious and they have too many rules. I’ve got this cough. I’ve been counting passing cars instead of imaginary sheep. I wonder where the people are off to and how many are going home to happy marriages and loving children. Probably not as many as I imagine. Lots of our friends used to think we were happy. Grant would explain the scratches on his face by saying he’d cut himself shaving and sometimes, when I was still alert enough, I’d see the knowing looks in the eyes of our dwindling number of guests. I’d almost hear them thinking:

“And the band played ‘believe it if you like’”.

A blind man gave me fifty pence today. I was ashamed. I used to give to Guide Dogs and now, here I am, reduced to begging off the blind. All I’ve had to eat today is a sausage roll and that was out of a litter bin. I thought of Scrap, our Labrador. He used to scavenge in litter bins. He was well fed but then again so was I, once.

Maisie is quiet tonight. She sits thinking of something which she doesn’t discuss with Grant. She’d seen me, you see, when travelling past Park Road. She stared and stared as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. I was transformed from the person she knew, you see. I’ve lost all the weight my doctor once told me to shed. Well you do when you don’t eat. Eating is no longer an activity indulged in at will or when the brain tells the body it needs to. I’m not hungry nowadays but even when I am I can’t stomach much. I’ve just smashed a shop window with a hammer which I found in someone’s garden shed. Not noticing the cuts because of the jagged glass, I push my arm through, grasp the object of my desire and withdraw my hand. The alarm goes off but I’m not bothered – Not now I have what I need.

I’m lying in hospital. They’ve just done my obs again. They offer me tea but I don’t want it. There are visitors for everyone else but not for me even though I’ve been deloused and have had a bath. I’m cleaner than I’ve been for years. The doctor’s just been and given me the once-over. He read me the riot act but didn’t tell me anything I don’t know already.

The letter has just fallen out of my hand for the third time. It’s the shakes. I slopped soup all over the place – Half of it ending up on my table or down my front. It’s unopened as yet but the handwriting looks familiar.

“Dear Linda, Mum saw you the other day and was shocked. I have never stopped loving you – Never will – But I don’t think you love yourself very much. Either that’s because of what you have become or you’ve become what you are because you don’t love yourself. Either way the result is the same. I want us to keep in touch – No promises mind – I’m not saying I’ll come back to you – Nothing like that and if I do it is conditional. You really have got to try this time. This time! There’s never been a previous time has there? All you’ve done is given your word which you have broken. Mother says you can come to us to convalesce when you get out of hospital but any repeat behaviour will mean you will be back where you started. It’s tough love. We want evidence that you really will try this time as I say”.

So the letter went on and I am now staying at Grant’s mother’s. She’s a good woman – Better than I thought actually. Although his letter sounded pompous; priggish and sanctimonious; it wasn’t meant to. He didn’t mean it that way. I don’t know what the future holds but neither do you – Neither does anyone. There are always sharks, swimming near the water’s edge, hoping for suckers to fall in so they can grab their ankles and pull them under so they will drown in the ocean of addiction. I know that now. The funny thing is though, I don’t need Grant’s support – Well of course I do – But not half as much as I need that of those like me – Fellow addicts who have fallen prey to their demons. Grant is out tonight, too. So is Maisie. Like an odd couple they have gone out together but not to a film or for a meal. Oh I see the man who is going to chair the meeting is now on his feet. He is welcoming everyone and telling them that there’s a new person here tonight. Oh god! I feel like a very old person but I’m new to this of course. This is my cue to go on. Here I go, then. Wish me luck.

“My name is Linda. I am an alcoholic”.

(The end).

THE EPSOM CONQUEST.

It’s now thirteen weeks since I moved to Epsom in Surrey. Without my lovely guide dog Esme and back on my feet after plantar fasciitis which believe it or not has still not gone though is much better, I have had to begin learning a new area with a cane as well as learning my way round my new home and remembering where everything is within it.

Because of staff efficiency which far exceeds that of the staff in my last appalling place where I used to live (I now live in supported housing run by Action for Blind People) it wasn’t long before mobility training began. Within three weeks of my arrival in Epsom, I was able to go unaided to Waitrose in order to get my shopping. However it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Though the route is short and relatively uncomplicated, to learn it as someone without sight is hell especially with a cane, having had a dog for almost eight years. Every time the cane hit something I was startled out of my wits and jumped. Also learning has to be done in a completely different way and I hope that the route to Waitrose may be posted on the site, with this article, to show how it’s done. If the road name where I live is blocked out then this may be possible. I’ll leave it to the powers that be to decide.

A route has to be practised and gone through many times before it can be walked without mistakes. The number of times depends on the individual’s ability to learn and willingness to write things down and practise when not with the instructor and the instructor will not sanction doing it alone until (in this case she) is confident it can be done in safety.

Before going, I felt sick and very apprehensive. This, though, is something not to be given into as to do so would result in becoming or remaining housebound.

Before getting another dog it is necessary to learn the area so the dog, which is a pilot, has to be told the way you want to go. If I pass the training again the dog won’t come complete with full knowledge of Epsom and if I want to go to the shopping centre or the bank, the dog won’t know which way I want it to go once I cross the road unless I can direct her.

Now, thirteen weeks on, I am able to get to the post office; Marks and Spencer; bank; HMV store (they don’t call me music lover June for nothing) and Thornton’s; though I’ve resisted the temptation to go in for chocolates.

My mobility instructor refers to me as her star pupil and actually I feel quite proud of myself because for ten months before my move I was housebound because of my feet and the hilly area in which I lived and because I lost my beloved Esme last August. As said before, I “dogged” before coming to Epsom and hadn’t used a cane for eight years and so felt that I was without eyes again once I started to out of necessity.

The local people of Epsom are fabulous. It’s much better than living in London and where I live is lovely too. I’m the nearest I’ve been to amenities and the happiest I’ve been for years.

On Sunday just gone, the wonderful lady who boarded my lovely Esme, brought with her an adorable Labrador Retriever which she is boarding at present and we all went to my local park. Unlike Esme, he stood still long enough for a really long cuddle and scratch behind the ears. Esme would start dancing round and round in circles, wagging and biting her tail and finally bringing her disgusting old toy with her to shove into my face whenever I tried cuddling her. We had a lovely day and I once more had dog hair on my clothes but who cares?

Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future, I’ll have another dog all of my own who will fill the gap in my heart and home, which Esme has left – Another trusted pair of eyes to walk silently at my side and through my altered world and if I do, my “tail” of life in Epsom will end happily and I can put my cane away for another eight years. Whatever the future holds, I know I can go out in safety once more and that’s thanks to the “square” of success I talk of on my blog – Ability, determination, luck and help – All of which must be present for achievement to be realised whether one is blind or sighted.

MY LORD! WHAT A MORNING!

Don’t you just love it when things don’t go to plan! Yes, when someone turns up with an invitation to the ball when you thought you’d be spending the evening with a box of forbidden chocs and some rubbish on the TV because that’s better than sitting in the silence of an empty room – No when your whole morning has been rearranged for you by an oik who should be washing up in some café somewhere and pretending he’s on the radio by chatting into a baked bean tin (clean of course) and making out it’s a microphone!

I was due to do a radio interview, via the phone, for a local station which was probably named after some bimbo nobody’s heard of and I could feel in my bones, the distinct ache of foreboding when they asked to reschedule it. The interview was designed to encourage people to leave legacies to charities through a scheme called Remember a Charity and of course my chosen charity would be Guide Dogs every time!

Having rescheduled my interview, the guy’s watch had obviously stopped – Either that or he was learning what happens when the big hand is on three and the little one is on nine or am I out of date now? Oh yes it’s all digital now isn’t it? I forgot I’m an old curmudgeon who is a fossilised version of twenty-first century woman! Anyway when he did phone he was all smiles, no apology and, just like a first date who thinks the woman is lucky to be taken for a pint of pop and a packet of peanuts, he was most miffed when I expressed my annoyance and ended up hanging up on me. Mind you I dented his ego by calling him arrogant and had the temerity to voice my crossness when an apology was not forthcoming. After much phoning and rearrangement, smoothing of ruffled feathers and waiting to see what would happen next, like a true pro I had the interview in the can within five minutes and, no, I don’t mean the cordless phone landed in the baked bean tin which I use as a microphone because I have dreams of radio stardom when all I’m really fit for is washing up in my Auntie Ethel’s kitchen!

I reminded people how important it is to leave money to charities of their choice and explained how my three guide dogs revolutionised my life; how Guide Dogs gets no state aid; how future money is already “spent” on replacement dogs which cost forty thousand pounds to see through each dog’s lifetime, at todays prices. With almost five thousand dogs in the U.K I’ll leave you to do the maths. Also, the one bit I forgot to say is that someone potentially could go through four or five dogs in a lifetime so each person may well have replacements because the working life of a dog is about eight years on average.

In the afternoon I went on mobility with Val who is teaching me my area. Before I can even think of another dog, I have to learn it with a long cane and boy do I know the difference! It’s like eating in a transport café when once I ate in a five star hotel. It’s the difference between listening to a professionally run, nice big radio station, whose reception is great and whose employees treat contributors with respect and courtesy instead of some cheapjack outfit where the recently promoted teaboy thinks he’s managing director of somewhere as big as the BBC.

Although I was very annoyed at being messed about and although I’m a “nobody” in stardom or celebrity terms, I have enough chutspah to realise that but for the contributors on these programmes, these “teaboys” wouldn’t have jobs! Such is my commitment to Guide Dogs and so high is my opinion of them and my awareness that, but for people like you who generously give of your money and time as well as those who train us and our dogs, I would be housebound or crawling around at a snail’s pace with a lump of metal and rubber in my hand. I’m truly not interested in my profile being raised. What I want is for future generations of blind people to benefit from these magnificent animals as I have done.

When I got home after mobility with Val, I turned on my digital radio and tuned it in to Radio4. Now there’s real class! Rather like having a guide dog really isn’t it?

CHARITY BEGAN AT HOME.

Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what it would be like to open them and find you are blind. For me, this is a familiar reality and has been for all but three months of my life and those are the three I can’t remember because I was a baby when I lost my sight. Imagine how you would cope if you had to move home as I have done recently. How would you know where the shops were? How would you know what local amenities were around you if you couldn’t get out of the house or what equipment you could access to help you live within it?

I recently moved to Surrey, from London in order that I could be near shops, be in a less hilly area and have a better support network which would more effectively meet my needs. Part of that support network includes service provision from SAVI (The Surrey Association for Visually Impaired people). From there it’s possible to obtain aids to daily living such as talking clocks and for those who need them, radios on loan but to me the most valuable and essential service is the mobility training provided by Val who teaches people like me to learn the area with a long cane as either the aid they will continue to use or as a forerunner to acquiring a guide dog because the person needs to know the area before a dog can learn it.

SAVI is a charity which does work whose value is incalculable. Without Val I couldn’t get my shopping unaided and would have to rely on sighted people’s help which would mean going out when they could take me and for some that option may not even exist.

Val is one of a small group of instructors and she has many service users throughout the county - this is why I can only have one lesson per week. A route has to be done many times because my knowledge of my surroundings is fragmentary and nothing is understood as a complete whole. Skill and patience are required by the instructor who learns to think “blind” by going under blindfold when they train to do this work because that is the only way they can even begin to understand how learning in the way I have to is done.

Over the coming months I hope to increase my knowledge of my surroundings, with further help from Val – Help I couldn’t get if she wasn’t there and help she couldn’t give if SAVI wasn’t there and without that help I would have no hope of the independence you have when you open your eyes first thing in the morning right up until you close them again at night.

For this reason I intend to use my time to give back to SAVI and hope you will help me support them too. Who knows? You may see me in Epsom where I now live, either with a cane or guide dog number four who I hope will one day replace my last one, Esme, who retired in January. I shall always remember the day when charity began at home and thanks to you, Val and SAVI’s supporters and volunteers, I won’t have to stay isolated in mine.

WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALMOST HUMAN – A TRIBUTE TO ESME.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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