My gran had many wise proverbs which she used to quote to me, one of which being: “As the twig is bent so the tree shall grow”. This was what she used to say to me when she needed to discipline me for something or when a public scandal or horrific story, such as that concerning Venables and Thompson and little James Bulger was in the news.
While there can be no doubt that what these children did was horrific, there can also be no doubt in my mind that their parents should bear an equal if not greater responsibility for their crime. Yes it is undeniable that ten-year-old children know the difference between right and wrong but only if they have been socialised. I know the difference between pepper and sault when they are in identical pots, and sugar and salt but only because I’ve been told the names, introduced to the sweetness of sugar and the saltiness of salt. The point I make is that these children’s consciences were not honed or even allowed to form.
I remember from my own childhood how one of my siblings (the older one) was not encouraged to be loving and considerate to me. To be loving and considerate; caring and kind to the blind sibling was considered sissy and not particularly macho. As a result the sibling concerned thought it great fun to laugh at me; to tell me my eyes are ugly; to ridicule me as my mother did and to this day has nothing to do with me. What is puzzling though is that my other sibling, younger and more sensitive than the older surviving one, was caring; looked out for me and was protective and kind and I have fond memories of him though we grew apart; he took to drink and is now dead as a result.
What all this tells me is that each of us has a greater or lesser capacity for good and evil within us. My dead brother defied his upbringing to the extent that for much of his childhood he did not adhere to the practise of ridiculing and shunning the disabled one whereas our older sibling did despite having a supposed increased maturity and what should have been an ability to know better. Had we all come from a less dysfunctional family, doubtless we would have all been close and now the final surviving two of us would have been able to take solace in each other’s company and shared past and support one-another into our future.
Had Venables and Thompson, who have carried their own genetic make-up and nature with them, for good or for ill, from childhood into adulthood, been given the stability they needed then it may be that they wouldn’t now need false identities and a poor little boy wouldn’t be dead, leaving behind forever grieving parents.
All those who are quite rightly angry and outraged that these people are now free to possibly do the same again or commit other crimes of equal magnitude should surely, as I am, be outraged that the adults who gave birth to them are not themselves being made to undergo rehabilitation and are not also being subject to intense scrutiny. If they have had other children what has become of them? Have social workers been involved in keeping an eye on their other children and if not why not? How much have they been asked to financially contribute to their offspring’s upkeep and rehabilitation? Most pertinent of all though is, in my view at any rate, why is everyone not equally disgusted and appalled at what their parents have done in terms of damaging these people so much as to make them capable of doing what they did to little James?
When you have a child who is bad at maths or English, he has to work harder and you have to work harder to make him as good at it as he can be. When my older sibling showed an unkindness greater than the sum of their kindness, harder work needed to go in to minimise and frown upon that unkindness and teach that it was unacceptable. Had that happened to Venables and Thompson at the age they needed it – When the twigs they were started to grow the wrong way, maybe the trees they grew into wouldn’t now be so poisonous. I fear that now at least one of them is far too damaged to ever live outside in ordinary society but I hang onto the hope that Robert’s kinder self, if he has one, proves to be like my brother’s was and he becomes able to overcome his damaged past. What I know for certain is that if these children had been parented properly, James would now be the adult he was born to be and Denise and Ralph, his loving parents wouldn’t be forever mourning his loss as they are now forced to. While our sympathies and thoughts should always be with them, our anger and revulsion should maybe begin with Thompson and Venables but shouldn’t end there but instead should end with the apologies for parents that these children were saddled with.
(The end).
Monday, March 8, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
DEADLY DENIAL.
I don’t know how many children will have to be cruelly treated before we accept that evil exists and that some people are personifications of it. Here we have yet again the tragic story of a poor little girl of seven who was starved to death in her own home. She was one of five children who were cruelly treated by walking organisms who hardly deserve the title “people”.
I find it very odd that however many do-gooders make excuses for these apologies for humanity, nobody ever asks the question: “Why is it that despite being depressed their equipment below their waists works very well”? It works so well in fact that they can turn out child after child and not be the slightest bit adequate or humane when it comes to treating any or all of them properly.
When these individuals are sentenced I sincerely hope, though I fear I hope in vain, that they will be imprisoned for life and that life means what it says. Under no circumstances should they ever be in a position to reproduce again and neither should they be allowed ever to care for their remaining children or stepchildren.
If animals had been treated like this poor child was there would be an outcry audible from one end of the UK to the other. Neighbours must have had their suspicions so if they didn’t speak out why didn’t they? Maybe they thought nobody would listen to them and I daresay they are right. With society’s emphasis and sympathy being on and for the perpetrators of crime and wickedness instead of the poor souls who are survivors and victims of it, probably they thought it was better to turn two blind eyes since it’s likely that everyone else would turn deaf ears.
If it wasn’t so tragic I’d laugh – Not at the little girl’s appalling suffering but the emptiness of the hollow words: “We must see that this never happens again and must learn lessons from it”.
Until we acknowledge that there is pure evil in some people just as there is an overwhelming amount of good in others, we will carry on misdiagnosing their wrongs, thereby leaving the field clear for others of their ilk to do as they did.
I’ve known people with depression and suffered it myself. What I know of it is that I didn’t want people near me. Banging out child after child whom I was going then to abuse didn’t figure in my thinking. Ill treating any of my lovely guide dogs didn’t either. Walking around in tears; drinking too much; worrying when I hurt other people by accidentally opening doors into their faces because I couldn’t see that they were on the other side of them did and so did acknowledging that I needed help and going alone to my doctors to get it, carrying a white cane. It must be in you to do what these monsters did to this child. It’s all about the abuse of power, being thick and inadequate and unable to make a success of the life you’ve been given and seeking to get your kicks by causing another’s suffering. If these walking examples of pure evil and wickedness ever get the chance to reproduce again, we’ll be hearing about them on the news once more when more of their poor unfortunate children have been murdered at their ruthless and barbaric hands. Mark my words, what you do you’ve always done and what you’ve done you’ll do again. Surely I can’t be the only person intelligent enough to understand this. If I really am, then God help the children of the future because it seems very clear to me that human beings in what passes for authority in this ramshackle society most certainly won’t. There’s a string of names in my memory, going back to Maria Colwell; Jasmine Beckford and many more to prove that. No wonder Pete Seger asked the question “When will they ever learn”?
I find it very odd that however many do-gooders make excuses for these apologies for humanity, nobody ever asks the question: “Why is it that despite being depressed their equipment below their waists works very well”? It works so well in fact that they can turn out child after child and not be the slightest bit adequate or humane when it comes to treating any or all of them properly.
When these individuals are sentenced I sincerely hope, though I fear I hope in vain, that they will be imprisoned for life and that life means what it says. Under no circumstances should they ever be in a position to reproduce again and neither should they be allowed ever to care for their remaining children or stepchildren.
If animals had been treated like this poor child was there would be an outcry audible from one end of the UK to the other. Neighbours must have had their suspicions so if they didn’t speak out why didn’t they? Maybe they thought nobody would listen to them and I daresay they are right. With society’s emphasis and sympathy being on and for the perpetrators of crime and wickedness instead of the poor souls who are survivors and victims of it, probably they thought it was better to turn two blind eyes since it’s likely that everyone else would turn deaf ears.
If it wasn’t so tragic I’d laugh – Not at the little girl’s appalling suffering but the emptiness of the hollow words: “We must see that this never happens again and must learn lessons from it”.
Until we acknowledge that there is pure evil in some people just as there is an overwhelming amount of good in others, we will carry on misdiagnosing their wrongs, thereby leaving the field clear for others of their ilk to do as they did.
I’ve known people with depression and suffered it myself. What I know of it is that I didn’t want people near me. Banging out child after child whom I was going then to abuse didn’t figure in my thinking. Ill treating any of my lovely guide dogs didn’t either. Walking around in tears; drinking too much; worrying when I hurt other people by accidentally opening doors into their faces because I couldn’t see that they were on the other side of them did and so did acknowledging that I needed help and going alone to my doctors to get it, carrying a white cane. It must be in you to do what these monsters did to this child. It’s all about the abuse of power, being thick and inadequate and unable to make a success of the life you’ve been given and seeking to get your kicks by causing another’s suffering. If these walking examples of pure evil and wickedness ever get the chance to reproduce again, we’ll be hearing about them on the news once more when more of their poor unfortunate children have been murdered at their ruthless and barbaric hands. Mark my words, what you do you’ve always done and what you’ve done you’ll do again. Surely I can’t be the only person intelligent enough to understand this. If I really am, then God help the children of the future because it seems very clear to me that human beings in what passes for authority in this ramshackle society most certainly won’t. There’s a string of names in my memory, going back to Maria Colwell; Jasmine Beckford and many more to prove that. No wonder Pete Seger asked the question “When will they ever learn”?
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Thursday, November 26, 2009
SHARED FEATS.
I have just found a programme about the world famous blind savant Derek Paravacini who is, by anyone’s standards, a musical genius. How I’d love to be able to play half as well and more interesting still, would be to have a private audience with Derek. I know he couldn’t have an intellectual conversation with me about what motivates him and how music makes him feel or what thrills him most about playing to large audiences or small groups of friends. I also know that he couldn’t understand my written stories and articles and yet Derek and I share something not only with each other in terms of blindness and its cause because in our case we were both prem babies placed in too much oxygen which ruins the retinas but we share a deep and lasting love of that at which we’re good and the burning desire which drives us to want to communicate with others and share our abilities.
In no way do I see myself as the literary equivalent of Derek. However, the sheer joy and enthusiasm I get regarding writing and knowing someone has read and enjoyed that which I have written never wanes and remains the driving force which makes me want to write more, share more and interest myself in the written work of others.
A lover of music since I could first hear it and a pop music enthusiast who knows the words to loads of songs but can only pick out a tune one-handed on a keyboard, I can only marvel at Derek’s special abilities. When I’m not writing I’m listening to music for pleasure and sometimes wonder if the writer and musician are drawn to one-another because they recognise the creativity in their fellow artist. I can remember when I was a pupil at the same school as Derek. Another really good musician called Stephen, played his guitar and I sat in silence (a rare thing for me) at his feet as an eleven-year-old, begging him to play Beatles records on his guitar. Years later and not long before his tragic death, I sat with him again and he played James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” to which we both sang the words.
I am sure that Derek’s extraordinary abilities, Stephen’s abilities and my own writing ability does something very special both to us and for those with whom we share our work. I am equally sure that, were I to meet Derek, sit with him and sing the songs with him or just listen to him play, I would come home feeling better, more fulfilled and on a greater high than anyone drinking or drug taking.
Derek’s life is a life which is giving pleasure to millions. It answers the question as to whether people with his tremendous problems and enormous disabilities have a place in our world with a resounding “yes”. There was also a wonderful moment of serendipity when Adam Ockelford came into Derek’s life. Once more, this theory of mine that you need luck, ability, determination and help, comes to the fore since without Adam, so the programme presenter said, Derek’s talents would not have been realised. You would wonder perhaps where the luck was in a life so badly affected by the damage to Derek’s eyes and brain. The answer surely has to be that it was present in the meeting between Adam and Derek – A meeting which may never have happened. Just like Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, Adam and Derek have pooled their abilities – Adam’s as a teacher and Derek’s as a musician and brought forth the extraordinary musician that he has become into a world which otherwise wouldn’t have given him a second’s thought.
I make no secret of the fact that I am waiting for my “Annie” or “Adam” but for now I am pleased that I have come far enough along the path of success to have been able to share my writing with those kind enough to log onto the Guide Dogs volunteer site in order to read it and am thrilled to get feedback from those who do. It’s hard and probably unwise to contemplate what others may be learning from me as a blind writer but I know what Derek can teach us as a society and me as an individual and hope that what he can teach you is that our lives are worthwhile, that we do have abilities and that we need help to succeed. My personal lesson, derived from this talented yet damaged man is that I must keep going and not give up and not for the first time I realise that the human mind is mysterious and that the workings of the brain are complex. Derek may never be able to explain how he does what he does but in one sense perhaps that doesn’t matter except to scientists. What is important and very real to me is that he knows why he does what he does and it’s for the same reason that I do what I do – Because he loves it. I hope that if you get to hear him or have done so, you love it too and likewise with my writing when you read that. That is good enough for me, even if I never meet my “Annie” or my “Adam”.
In no way do I see myself as the literary equivalent of Derek. However, the sheer joy and enthusiasm I get regarding writing and knowing someone has read and enjoyed that which I have written never wanes and remains the driving force which makes me want to write more, share more and interest myself in the written work of others.
A lover of music since I could first hear it and a pop music enthusiast who knows the words to loads of songs but can only pick out a tune one-handed on a keyboard, I can only marvel at Derek’s special abilities. When I’m not writing I’m listening to music for pleasure and sometimes wonder if the writer and musician are drawn to one-another because they recognise the creativity in their fellow artist. I can remember when I was a pupil at the same school as Derek. Another really good musician called Stephen, played his guitar and I sat in silence (a rare thing for me) at his feet as an eleven-year-old, begging him to play Beatles records on his guitar. Years later and not long before his tragic death, I sat with him again and he played James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” to which we both sang the words.
I am sure that Derek’s extraordinary abilities, Stephen’s abilities and my own writing ability does something very special both to us and for those with whom we share our work. I am equally sure that, were I to meet Derek, sit with him and sing the songs with him or just listen to him play, I would come home feeling better, more fulfilled and on a greater high than anyone drinking or drug taking.
Derek’s life is a life which is giving pleasure to millions. It answers the question as to whether people with his tremendous problems and enormous disabilities have a place in our world with a resounding “yes”. There was also a wonderful moment of serendipity when Adam Ockelford came into Derek’s life. Once more, this theory of mine that you need luck, ability, determination and help, comes to the fore since without Adam, so the programme presenter said, Derek’s talents would not have been realised. You would wonder perhaps where the luck was in a life so badly affected by the damage to Derek’s eyes and brain. The answer surely has to be that it was present in the meeting between Adam and Derek – A meeting which may never have happened. Just like Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, Adam and Derek have pooled their abilities – Adam’s as a teacher and Derek’s as a musician and brought forth the extraordinary musician that he has become into a world which otherwise wouldn’t have given him a second’s thought.
I make no secret of the fact that I am waiting for my “Annie” or “Adam” but for now I am pleased that I have come far enough along the path of success to have been able to share my writing with those kind enough to log onto the Guide Dogs volunteer site in order to read it and am thrilled to get feedback from those who do. It’s hard and probably unwise to contemplate what others may be learning from me as a blind writer but I know what Derek can teach us as a society and me as an individual and hope that what he can teach you is that our lives are worthwhile, that we do have abilities and that we need help to succeed. My personal lesson, derived from this talented yet damaged man is that I must keep going and not give up and not for the first time I realise that the human mind is mysterious and that the workings of the brain are complex. Derek may never be able to explain how he does what he does but in one sense perhaps that doesn’t matter except to scientists. What is important and very real to me is that he knows why he does what he does and it’s for the same reason that I do what I do – Because he loves it. I hope that if you get to hear him or have done so, you love it too and likewise with my writing when you read that. That is good enough for me, even if I never meet my “Annie” or my “Adam”.
Monday, October 26, 2009
THE SYMPHONY OF LIFE.
“So here I am with it all before me. Screeching like a discordant cello in my own symphony. I took my cue too soon, making my entrance in a fumbled, flailing flurry which meant I lost the picture which now is not my privilege to reclaim.
‘Cindy oh Cindy’ Shane Fenton sang and so did I. By then I knew that I was different but not how or why. I liked the name so much that I got everyone to call me it and then, just like Mary Mary, quite contrary, insisted that my own name be used by all again. I was a pain!
School started to ‘Jailhouse Rock’. How apt for I felt I was in prison. The food was bad but discipline was good. ‘Johnnie Remember me’. I bet he doesn’t. We used to call him ‘melon’. We were cruel. One decade and three years had been lived by the time Radio1 replaced the pirate ships in the North Sea. I’d screamed to the Beatles. Ah! But that was ‘Yesterday’ and I still could not go out alone. I was getting the ‘Moody Blues’ and had met them too.
My college days were spent with Elton and not Elvis. I never thought for one second that mine were the sweetest eyes he’d ever seen or that ‘Your Song’ was or would ever be meant for me. I wanted to be Free – Free and ‘’All Right Now’ – To walk with both hands empty – Unencumbered. I didn’t want to be someone else’s ‘Stairway to heaven’ or their good deed for the day.
Work and widowhood came very close together and there were indeed Tears for Fears and tears and fears that I would be alone. Even the Police couldn’t rescue me and ‘Every Breath you take’ was one more than I wanted to back then. However, like bread, I was, with Gabrielle to ‘Rise Again’ and dance in my clumsy, maladroit fashion with all my dogs – Two Labradors and a Retriever, to Ce Ce Peniston and others who have almost made me feel as if I’m the ‘Lark Ascending’ instead of being in my own personal Spandau. I’d learned to do my very own Spandau Ballet and not to bump against the bars.
Now the fifties are back! That’s not quite ‘True’. That’s just where I’ve got to in my symphony of life. A fan of Coldplay and the Fray; modern jazz and folk, I now walk with “Nimrod” and find that life is indeed an enigma with many variations. My Nimrod – My metal rod that’s bound with rubber – Is painted white. Will another Labrador help me dance to the music of time?
And ‘Finally’ as Cece sang, when my ‘Surrey with the fringe on top’ has thinned (it is already grey you know) and my steps have slowed right down, I shall walk sedately to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings but until then, I hope I will still have enough optimism and hope to say to the someone who may be special and whom I could be special too, ‘I just haven’t met you yet’ and hope that I am in the hands of Michael who is gentle as he rows my boat ashore.
They have been choppy seas. I’ve been disorientated and lost in turbulent waters but still have enjoyed my symphony of life. ‘Me and my Shadows’ were my dogs who stopped me falling from life’s Cliff. They say the pictures were good and are better on radio. Although I’m sure that’s true, and although I cannot play a note, ‘music is my first love’ if you discount my friends, writing and dogs ‘and it will be my last’. What a shame I won’t get to do an encore! Or will I”?
‘Cindy oh Cindy’ Shane Fenton sang and so did I. By then I knew that I was different but not how or why. I liked the name so much that I got everyone to call me it and then, just like Mary Mary, quite contrary, insisted that my own name be used by all again. I was a pain!
School started to ‘Jailhouse Rock’. How apt for I felt I was in prison. The food was bad but discipline was good. ‘Johnnie Remember me’. I bet he doesn’t. We used to call him ‘melon’. We were cruel. One decade and three years had been lived by the time Radio1 replaced the pirate ships in the North Sea. I’d screamed to the Beatles. Ah! But that was ‘Yesterday’ and I still could not go out alone. I was getting the ‘Moody Blues’ and had met them too.
My college days were spent with Elton and not Elvis. I never thought for one second that mine were the sweetest eyes he’d ever seen or that ‘Your Song’ was or would ever be meant for me. I wanted to be Free – Free and ‘’All Right Now’ – To walk with both hands empty – Unencumbered. I didn’t want to be someone else’s ‘Stairway to heaven’ or their good deed for the day.
Work and widowhood came very close together and there were indeed Tears for Fears and tears and fears that I would be alone. Even the Police couldn’t rescue me and ‘Every Breath you take’ was one more than I wanted to back then. However, like bread, I was, with Gabrielle to ‘Rise Again’ and dance in my clumsy, maladroit fashion with all my dogs – Two Labradors and a Retriever, to Ce Ce Peniston and others who have almost made me feel as if I’m the ‘Lark Ascending’ instead of being in my own personal Spandau. I’d learned to do my very own Spandau Ballet and not to bump against the bars.
Now the fifties are back! That’s not quite ‘True’. That’s just where I’ve got to in my symphony of life. A fan of Coldplay and the Fray; modern jazz and folk, I now walk with “Nimrod” and find that life is indeed an enigma with many variations. My Nimrod – My metal rod that’s bound with rubber – Is painted white. Will another Labrador help me dance to the music of time?
And ‘Finally’ as Cece sang, when my ‘Surrey with the fringe on top’ has thinned (it is already grey you know) and my steps have slowed right down, I shall walk sedately to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings but until then, I hope I will still have enough optimism and hope to say to the someone who may be special and whom I could be special too, ‘I just haven’t met you yet’ and hope that I am in the hands of Michael who is gentle as he rows my boat ashore.
They have been choppy seas. I’ve been disorientated and lost in turbulent waters but still have enjoyed my symphony of life. ‘Me and my Shadows’ were my dogs who stopped me falling from life’s Cliff. They say the pictures were good and are better on radio. Although I’m sure that’s true, and although I cannot play a note, ‘music is my first love’ if you discount my friends, writing and dogs ‘and it will be my last’. What a shame I won’t get to do an encore! Or will I”?
Friday, October 23, 2009
THE COLOUR PROBLEM.
I could wade in up to my neck about the rightness of the leader of the BNP’s appearance on Question Time. I could but I won’t – Well not now anyway. Instead I want to draw your attention to another colour problem. I, as a blind person, do not understand the confusion surrounding colours. For one thing they obviously blend into one-another so that on each colour’s border, they become or are seen to become another one. Baige being referred to as “off-white” or even biscuit coloured.
I have reached the grand old age of fifty-five and until the other week I did not know that bluetits are not blue! They may have bits of blue in their feathers or even they may be half blue. If so I don’t know what other colour is mixed in with the blue. I found out about this because of my SAVI volunteer who has a blind boyfriend who asked her once: “Are bluetits blue”? She replied: “No” and I once more opened my blind eyes wide and said: “Oh god no! Don’t tell me there are yet more things in the visual world I still don’t get”! I’m afraid that there are. Long ago I learned that black people aren’t black, white people are pink, I’ve not yet dared asked about those with almond-shaped eyes. Are the Chinese yellow and was Esme really yellow with a pink nose or was she really green with an indigo hooter! More pressing now is this question: Will my washing come out of the machine the same colour as it went in? Unless I go and do it I’ll never know and it’ll be a very long time till I find out afterwards anyway. What is for certain is that I’d much rather stay and chat to you via my blog. However, needs must and I don’t want to go about in smelly clothes and sleep in smelly sheets so the colour problem will have to wait. If you leave a comment in the comment’s section, you can ask me if I knew about some other weird and wonderful aspect of the visual world of which I remain blissfully ignorant and painfully curious and you know something? I won’t mind if you’re black, brown, pink, yellow or opaque. It’s all the same to me and so are you which makes my excuse for prejudice absolutely invalid as it ought to yours for at the end of the day, we’re all the same under the skin so there.
I have reached the grand old age of fifty-five and until the other week I did not know that bluetits are not blue! They may have bits of blue in their feathers or even they may be half blue. If so I don’t know what other colour is mixed in with the blue. I found out about this because of my SAVI volunteer who has a blind boyfriend who asked her once: “Are bluetits blue”? She replied: “No” and I once more opened my blind eyes wide and said: “Oh god no! Don’t tell me there are yet more things in the visual world I still don’t get”! I’m afraid that there are. Long ago I learned that black people aren’t black, white people are pink, I’ve not yet dared asked about those with almond-shaped eyes. Are the Chinese yellow and was Esme really yellow with a pink nose or was she really green with an indigo hooter! More pressing now is this question: Will my washing come out of the machine the same colour as it went in? Unless I go and do it I’ll never know and it’ll be a very long time till I find out afterwards anyway. What is for certain is that I’d much rather stay and chat to you via my blog. However, needs must and I don’t want to go about in smelly clothes and sleep in smelly sheets so the colour problem will have to wait. If you leave a comment in the comment’s section, you can ask me if I knew about some other weird and wonderful aspect of the visual world of which I remain blissfully ignorant and painfully curious and you know something? I won’t mind if you’re black, brown, pink, yellow or opaque. It’s all the same to me and so are you which makes my excuse for prejudice absolutely invalid as it ought to yours for at the end of the day, we’re all the same under the skin so there.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A DOG IN THE DISTANCE?
This will be my one-hundredth piece for the blog. A lot has happened since I started it. I’ve retired my lovely old Esme; had physio for plantar fasciitis which has all but gone; I’ve moved home (thank goodness for that); learned my way in a new area (but not the whole area just where I’ll need to go); started giving talks on behalf of the Surrey Association for Visual Impairment (SA-vi); got a short story regarding the help I’ve had to find my way without a dog placed on the BBC website; lost the ability to access the music site where I started to correspond with my friend in the States who puts up these blog entries for me and who told me that ninety-nine were now up; taken photos with her camera, which she sent me and now there’s the possibility of having a new guide dog. Someone from Guide Dogs for the Blind in England, will come and see me this coming Friday.
The change in the last five months has been phenomenal and all for the good. I’ve made new friends and new contacts and somehow I still find the time to write. Soon we’ll be at the end of another year and I don’t know where the time has gone. I’ve also written for the Guide Dogs extranet volunteer site: http://www.guidedogsvolunteers.org.uk though they still have a lot of pieces to put up there, which I sent them.
My old dog, Esme, is still enjoying her retirement with her new owners, Dennis and Val, in the New Forest. I’ve rung them to check and all without tears though I’m not sure what it would have been like if I’d heard her bark or shake her collar. She will be eleven on 20th December and is still fit and walking approximately three miles a day. She knows now that she is no longer required to work and has settled down well, ignoring the ponies and traffic in the Forest.
Last Wednesday I gave my first talk for SA-vi and loved every minute of it – Well you do if you’re a bit of a poser! I went to a church in Guildford and found the audience warm and interested in all I said about how blindness affects me and how SA-vi has helped me. I’m so glad now that I went on living after Andrew, my husband died after only five years married to me, in 1986. There were times when I desperately wanted to join him and thought seriously about helping myself on the way to the oblivion of death in order to free myself of the burden of blindness which is very tedious if it is carried alone. One day, after a talk with a Samaritan (I was so desperate I rang them just for someone to talk to) I was asked: “Do you feel like committing suicide”? I said: “Yes often but if I did that I wouldn’t be able to come back to see if things would get better if I had stayed”. “What a lovely outlook”, he said. At the time (1986/7 and for many almost intolerable years since) they didn’t get better but now, mercifully, they have. Of course they’re not perfect and there’s a lot I’d like to see change. I am still on my own and though I’d not particularly like to marry again I wouldn’t mind a few friends to go out with who can see because I feel that we could all enhance each others’ lives but things are much, much better than they were and better than I ever hoped for or could have imagined them to get. Each day I spare a thought for the people who feel as hopeless, unhappy and despairing as I did and wonder how many of them will take the decision to end their unhappiness by ending their lives. I know nothing lasts and my present period of happiness will not go on indefinitely. At some time I will be overtaken by greater disability or old age and finally the death for which I once longed. I can only hope that, as I have spent so long in misery, I’ll be allowed to spend a fair amount of time in the happiness which is now mine and I hope the same for those I don’t know and those I do, some of whom are blind and engaged in destructive practices like self harm, that they will find the determination, courage and help they need to make them want to go on living.
I forgot one final thing which I have managed to do since I started this blog. I’ve put on a bit of weight through not exercising without my wonderful Esme. Well perhaps the dog which may be in the distance and which I may be destined to meet soon, will alter that state of affairs. I do hope so or my new doctor will be telling me a story of her own – “These are the consequences of becoming overweight”! Personally I think the consequences of deep unhappiness and blindness endured without support are far more destructive than a few extra pounds but funnily enough, nobody wants to discuss those, choosing to close their eyes to them and wanting only to hear the good things. That’s precisely why I’ve told you about all the good things that have happened to me since I started this blog. I hope they happen to you too. Here’s to the next hundred pieces and I shall ask my friend to put the link to those photos either on the blog itself somewhere or in this piece so you can see them.
The change in the last five months has been phenomenal and all for the good. I’ve made new friends and new contacts and somehow I still find the time to write. Soon we’ll be at the end of another year and I don’t know where the time has gone. I’ve also written for the Guide Dogs extranet volunteer site: http://www.guidedogsvolunteers.org.uk though they still have a lot of pieces to put up there, which I sent them.
My old dog, Esme, is still enjoying her retirement with her new owners, Dennis and Val, in the New Forest. I’ve rung them to check and all without tears though I’m not sure what it would have been like if I’d heard her bark or shake her collar. She will be eleven on 20th December and is still fit and walking approximately three miles a day. She knows now that she is no longer required to work and has settled down well, ignoring the ponies and traffic in the Forest.
Last Wednesday I gave my first talk for SA-vi and loved every minute of it – Well you do if you’re a bit of a poser! I went to a church in Guildford and found the audience warm and interested in all I said about how blindness affects me and how SA-vi has helped me. I’m so glad now that I went on living after Andrew, my husband died after only five years married to me, in 1986. There were times when I desperately wanted to join him and thought seriously about helping myself on the way to the oblivion of death in order to free myself of the burden of blindness which is very tedious if it is carried alone. One day, after a talk with a Samaritan (I was so desperate I rang them just for someone to talk to) I was asked: “Do you feel like committing suicide”? I said: “Yes often but if I did that I wouldn’t be able to come back to see if things would get better if I had stayed”. “What a lovely outlook”, he said. At the time (1986/7 and for many almost intolerable years since) they didn’t get better but now, mercifully, they have. Of course they’re not perfect and there’s a lot I’d like to see change. I am still on my own and though I’d not particularly like to marry again I wouldn’t mind a few friends to go out with who can see because I feel that we could all enhance each others’ lives but things are much, much better than they were and better than I ever hoped for or could have imagined them to get. Each day I spare a thought for the people who feel as hopeless, unhappy and despairing as I did and wonder how many of them will take the decision to end their unhappiness by ending their lives. I know nothing lasts and my present period of happiness will not go on indefinitely. At some time I will be overtaken by greater disability or old age and finally the death for which I once longed. I can only hope that, as I have spent so long in misery, I’ll be allowed to spend a fair amount of time in the happiness which is now mine and I hope the same for those I don’t know and those I do, some of whom are blind and engaged in destructive practices like self harm, that they will find the determination, courage and help they need to make them want to go on living.
I forgot one final thing which I have managed to do since I started this blog. I’ve put on a bit of weight through not exercising without my wonderful Esme. Well perhaps the dog which may be in the distance and which I may be destined to meet soon, will alter that state of affairs. I do hope so or my new doctor will be telling me a story of her own – “These are the consequences of becoming overweight”! Personally I think the consequences of deep unhappiness and blindness endured without support are far more destructive than a few extra pounds but funnily enough, nobody wants to discuss those, choosing to close their eyes to them and wanting only to hear the good things. That’s precisely why I’ve told you about all the good things that have happened to me since I started this blog. I hope they happen to you too. Here’s to the next hundred pieces and I shall ask my friend to put the link to those photos either on the blog itself somewhere or in this piece so you can see them.
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