by Emma
to meet Don, and at the same time I thought, if it were not for
Emma, none of this would be possible.
Don had said he would pick us up at a point on the
Mansfield Road, for a reason which brought the only cloud
of the evening, and the only cloud surrounding our whole
relationship. Don was still married and it was difficult to
choose a time and place to meet. Friends had already told me
that he and his wife no longer got on together, that the
marriage did not work, and, in the way friends have of giving
gratuitous advice, said I was foolish to become involved with
a married man. Yet they had also told me that he was not the
kind of man who would have casual affairs, so I knew that in
order to ask me out, he must have thought seriously about the
implications, and (this was a fond hope as much as a conclusion
that I hardly dared think about) he must also have
thought a great deal of me. For my part, I had no wish to
encourage anyone to leave his wife. I felt strongly about this,
and it was only because of what I learned about Don and the
state of his marriage from my ffiends that my conscience was
satisfied.
He took me that first evening to a little pub called The
Three Wheatsheaves on the outskirts of Nottingham, near the
university. I can remember few of the details, except it all
seemed magical. The pub had a cosy, welcoming smell and
DON
79
atmosphere. Emma curled up under the table as we talked,
and at one point Don tentatively took my hand. He was
fifteen years older than I, and had this tremendous gift of
making me, at twenty-one, feel I was the one person of
importance in the entire universe. It seemed that we had
been in the pub only a few minutes (although we must have
been there for almost two hours) before I heard the landlord
calling 'Time'. He had an extraordinarily deep voice, and
sounded very jolly. In fact, whenever we went to his pub
after that we never said, 'Let's go the The Three Wheatsheaves.'
We always called it The Gruff Man's Voice, and it
became our private name for the very special place where we
had our first evening together.
In the days that followed, I knew I was in love with Don.
But did he love me? Somehow I thought it slightly unfair of
me to expect such a thing. Yet Don never gave a hint that my
being unable to see was of any importance. His complete
acceptance, in fact, provided my greatest encouragement to
get on and be like everyone else, and to cover the frustrations
of being blind. Therefore when someone said to me, 'It must
be nice for you going out with Don. He must be a great help
to you,' I used to become rather irritated. I hated the idea
that a sighted person was a sort of spare limb to do things for
me. Whatever else happened, I wanted to keep my
independence.
But the doubts remained. The notion of a sighted person
and particularly a handsome one, being in love with me was
so far from what I had ever expected that it made me feel my
~vhole world had been turned on its side. The logic seemed
inescapable. Don could see. I was blind. Therefore he could
not possibly be in love with me. At the same time I was
certain, yet sceptical, of my own love for him. Love was somethin,
cy I had read about in braille paperbacks, and invariably
concerned sighted people. How could it happen to me?
One evening Don rang me and said that the car had broken
down, and he would not be able to meet me. I hardly heard
him say, 'I've rung the garage, and they're coming along, and
I
8o
I'll ring you if they can put it right.' All I thought was: this is
it. He's decided he doesn't want to see me any more. This is
the excuse; he doesn't want to be involved with someone who's
blind.
'Yes,' I said, 'all right.' I put the phone down and paced
up and down the flat, willing myself not to cry. Emma came
up to me when at last I made some coffee and sat down. She
rested her nose on my knee. We sat like that for hours. She
understands, I thought.
The phone rang, and my heart turned over. It was Don
again. 'I'm sorry, Sheila, they've had a look at it, and the
alternator's gone; they can't get a new one till tomorrow. I
am sorry . . . ' It was just as well that Anita happened to be
away. I did not want to talk to anyone. I know I did not go to
bed. I simply sat in a waking nightmare.
The next day I went about my work like an automaton,
until just after ten o'clock I took an incoming call and heard
the familiar voice. Don. As if nothing had happened, he said
the car had been fixed, and what about meeting that evening
instead? How could he have known what I had been through,
or that my anxieties, rooted and fostered by my blindness, were
all too quick to flourish? From then on I never doubted how
much I loved Don. About a week later we were sitting in Don's
car with the rain pouring down outside-somehow that made
us feel more together. Don suddenly turned to me and said,
'It won't always be like this, you know.'
I didn't know what to say. I think I made some noncommittal
remark, yet knew the situation was changing,
melting into something else.
Don went on, 'Will you wait till I'm free?'
I felt like opening the car door there and then, getting out
and doing a dance with Emma on the pavement despite the
pouring, freezing, December rain.
Would I wait? Of course I would!
EMMA AND I
CHAPTER SEVEN
INDEPENDENCE
S 0 MY LIFE became centred around Don: snatching meetings
whenever possible and experiencing a terrible emptiness
whenever we were apart. At about this time I began to feel
that my working life was in need of a change. Industrial
Pumps had been taken over by another firm, and although
I was perfectly able to carry on working there, the long
journey back and forth to work was beginning to pall. It
took Emma and me the best part of an hour. So when new
management moved in, I decided to start looking for another
job. If I had known then what frustration and misery this
would entail, I suppose I might never have taken the decision.
As it was it took me months to find somewhere else to work.
Before then I had never fully realized how terribly handicapped
a blind man or woman is in the world, and the main
difficulty, which began to become an obsession, was that
others would not accept me. Don accepted me without
question, so did Anita; yet their enlightened attitudes had
possibly cushioned me against the indifference and outright
rejection of so many of the rest of the human race.
I had nearly eight years' experience of working a busy
switchboard and was as efficient as the next telephonist. But
despite this, I was not good enough, apparently, for most
employers. I used to take the ivottingham Evening Pos
t home
every night, and when Anita was back, she read down the
I
82 EMMA AND I
'Sits Vac' column for me, while I made a note in braille of
the numbers. When I rang the firms concerned the dialogue
went along these lines:
'I'm enquiring about the vacancy you've advertised for a
telephonist.'
'Ah yes, could you give us some details of your experience.
I would then tell them about my job, and how I was used
to working a PABX Number Two type switchboard.
'Good, that sounds fine.'
Then I would drop the bombshell: 'There's something else
I must tell you. I'm a blind person, but that doesn't make any
difference to my ability to operate the switchboard, and I
have a guide-dog.'
I needn't have bothered. I could almost hear the waning of
interest over the phone, like a balloon deflating.
'Ah yes, well thank you for calling. We'll keep you in mind,
but we have had quite a few applicants already.'
This, at least, was some attempt to cushion the blow. But
from time to time, the reception was brutally insensitive:
'Oh, I'm sorry, we couldn't possibly consider employing
anyone who's blind. The office you'd have to work in is
upstairs.'
'But my dog and I go up and down stairs every day of our
lives.'
'I'm sorry, we couldn't possibly consider you. I'm afraid
you'd be too much of a risk.'
When I tried to argue the point with the boss of one firm,
he actually put the phone down on me.
Worst of all, perhaps, was the way that vacancies magically
became filled as soon as I mentioned that I was blind. The
utter dishonesty and hypocrisy made me want to scream.
Eventually I decided that there was only one way round the
problem. If I was to be considered ineligiblejust because I was
blind, I simply would not mention the fact. I would give my
qualifications and if asked to go for an interview, confront my
prospective employers. It was desperation, but I had nothing
to lose.
INDEPENDENCE
83
So that is what I did. As a result, I had two firms interested
immediately, and both wanted to interview me on the same
day. At the first firm I went to ' some lace manufacturers, of
which there are several in Nottingham, dating from the days
the Huguenots settled there, I sensed that they were surprised
when I turned up with a guide-dog. But Emma settled down at
once and curled up beside me as I sat opposite the man asking
the questions. Everything went offwithout a hitch. The office
manager was then called in, and took me down to where the
switchboard was. I felt it to see if it was the same type that I
was used to, and it was. 'But,' he said, 'how do you operate it ?
It's not adapted for a blind person.' So I explained about the
Post Office converting them free, and the job was offered to
me on the spot.
It was a marvellous feeling to be able to go to the second
interview knowing that whatever happened I would be
taking a new job. The next vacancy was at Whytecliffe's, a
big garage not far from the middle of Nottingham. Once
again they were surprised at Emma, but having been presented
on their doorstep with the prospect of a blind employee,
they made no bones about going through the usual procedure.
Emma again curled up quietly, this time under my chair. But
although she just lay there, she played an important part in
the interview. The Personnel Manager who asked me the
questions was, it turned out, a breeder of Springer spaniels.
His enquiries concerned Emma almost as much as my
expertise with a switchboard, and I quickly formed the
impression that he had become besotted at first sight with the
chocolate-coloured creature under my chair. When I told him
all the incredible things that Emma did for me, it was, I am
sure, a deciding factor. I was offered the job, and I took it in
preference to the other partly because the money was better,
and also because Whytecliffe's was only a fifteen minute walk
from the flat.
I started as soon as I had worked out my notice at Industrial
Pumps, during which time the Post Office engineers had been
into Whytecliffe's Garage and converted the switchboard
84
EMMA AND I
a praiseworthy service for which the Post Office should get
full credit. The other girls in the office were surprised when I
arrived on the first morning with a big Labrador. Most of them
realized that Emma was a guide-dog, but one girl came up to
me and said, 'How is it you can bring your dog to work? It's
not fair. I'd like to bring mine.' She was taken aback when I
explained why Emma was there.
One or two of the girls began to doubt that I was really
blind at all. They had looked out of the office windows and
watched Emma and me coming down the street, crossing the
zebra crossing, and coming straight to the door of the office,
and could not believe that it was Emma who was responsible.
In addition, Emma was so good at taking me anywhere I
wanted to go inside the office, that I soon learned how to get
about on my own. Despite the fact that they had seen me
operating the switchboard by touch, taking messages in
braille, and feeling my notebook for numbers, they began to
think there was some catch. They thought that somehowfor
what reason I was supposed to be doing it I have never
fathomed-I was perpetrating an enormous hoax.
So they decided they would settle the matter. I worked at
the top end of a long office that had desks on either side, and
a narrow gangway in between. At the opposite end was the
canteen. After Emma had taken me there for the first few
days at tea break, I didn't bother to put her on harness for
this little walk; I knew the direction and feel of the way well
enough myself: straight down the passageway between the
desks, turn right, through the door into the canteen. Emma
came too, but she always raced well ahead of me, because she
knew there would be a bowl of milk waiting for her in the
canteen.
What happened on the morning the girls decided to find
out about my blindness may sound mean, even cruel; it was
certainly thoughtless, but I am sure it arose from quite genuine,
though stupid, suspicions. What they did was to leave the
chairs and other objects in my way. So when the moment came
for morning tea, Emma charged off in front of me, and I
INDEPENDENCE
85
immediately crashed from obstacle to obstacle, finally knocking
over and smashing a pair of steps. The silence after these
had gone down, and I had let off steam, was a silence of deep
embarrassment. One girl later came and said she was sorry,
but they really did think I could see. My own reaction, once
I had got over the whole business, was of even greater pride in
Emma, that she could convince them that I was not blind at
/>
all.
Living as we did in Peel Street, and working at Whytecliffe'
s, Emma became very familiar with the centre of
Nottingham. She learned the names of all the shops and bus
stations I used. We did a lot of shopping at the big Co-op in
Parliament Street. I only had to put her harness on, say
'Find the Co-op, Emma', and off we would go, her tail
wagging furiously. She adored shopping. One of the reasons
she liked it so much was because she made the rules. Rule
One was that we could go shopping anywhere we liked,
anywhere at all, but the first shop visited had to be a pet
shop. Wherever we went, the route had to be planned to take
in one of these vital stores. We would go in, buy bone-shaped
biscuits, chews, vitamin chocolate drops, or a rubber toy, and
after that the rest of the operation could proceed. However, on
the way to the Co-op we had to pass a second pet shop,
although 'pass' is not strictly accurate. We would reach it,
Emma would stop, and with her front paws on the step,
imply: 'Well, here we are at another pet shop, just in case
you've forgotten anything at the usual one.' I would say,
'No, no, come on Emma, find the Co-op.' And she was very
good-natured in accepting that her suggestion had been
turned down.
Rule Two about shopping was that we should never, what
ever else was happening, and no matter how many of them
lay along the route, miss an opportunity of visiting a butcher's
shop. It was a terrible weakness of Emma's, and we became
known in every butcher's within a five-mile radius of the
middle of Nottingham. We would be going along, and I
might, as well as concentrating on Emma, be thinking what
86 EMMA AND I INDEPENDENCE 87
Anita and I were going to have for supper, when suddenly,
with no warning whatsoever, I would find myself in a shop
with sawdust under my feet, and an unmistakable smell, and
with no intention of buying so much as an ounce of mincemeat.
Very embarrassing. But the butchers took it all in
good part and got to know Emma so well that occasionally
she got a bone for her initiative, and, of course, her good looks.