Standing at the bus stop this morning chatting to a friend I noticed a female and her dog approaching on my left. Despite Sadie being in full working guide dog regalia (white harness with resplendent fluorescent yellow chest flash, two guide dog insignia to the sides of her harness, a not insignificantly sized fluorescent yellow sign at the top of the harness handle which implores “Please do not distract me. I am a working guide dog”, and a sleeve on her lead denoting her working assistance dog status) the lady allowed her dog to come right up to Sadie. I asked Sadie to wait (indicating to her that I didn’t want her to interact with the other dog) with barely a pause in my conversation. Then I heard the lady say something and I somewhat distracted replied “what?” – admittedly my reply should have been “sorry I didn’t hear what you said” – and the woman said “Is that dog not allowed near other dogs?”. I replied “no she’s a guide dog, she’s working” which illicited the response of “All right, I only asked a F-ing question, there’s no F-ing need to look at me like that!” and stormed off with her continued mutterings punctuated with some further expletives. Both my friend and I looked at each other asking ‘what the heck was that about?’ before chuckling to ourselves.
And there it was – the awareness of a right of passage; being able to laugh off today’s rant and swearing by a member of the public. Although I was stunned by her reaction to my answer, I didn’t allow it to upset me, although feeling a little incredulous, or knock me off my stride as the bus arrived moments later. I can, however, still remember the first occasion doing nothing other than standing at a kerb with my guide dog, Waffle, waiting for it to be safe for us to cross the road that apparently warranted a tirade of swearing and anger from a female I’d never seen before, or thankfully since, that reduced me to tears. So as I reflected on today’s female’s behaviour as I journeyed home, I wondered when did I move from being shocked and upset by a stranger’s vehement and vitriolic reaction to my disability (and/or perhaps aid of a guide dog) to accepting it as an almost daily occurrence and one which no longer shocks or unduly upsets me? Why is there an acceptance of that on my part, but with no intended implication of acceptability of such behaviour? Furthermore, why have disabled people in this country come to accept this sort of behaviour as part and parcel of being disabled?
Day and daily disabled people are exposed to what appears to me to be an acceptance of the right of a stranger to commentate on our lives and our disability. On the one hand, we are labelled as scroungers [1] but mocked as faking our disability if we dare be witnessed using an aid to negotiate it [2]. I was raised in a world where manners abounded, my care givers taught me to show respect to others, to say please and thank you, to not interrupt others when they were speaking, to show patience and tolerance to others and acceptance of individuality, regardless of the form that individuality took. And yet in my daily life manners from someone other than a family member or friend surprises me. It’s become a thing of exception, and I do occasionally muse as to how we (ie society) came to that position.
When I entered Waffle into the Guide Dog of the Year Awards I didn’t do so because I fancied a new frock or night out in London with the rich and famous (which was just as well as due to work commitments I got neither), but rather to raise awareness of the services Guide Dogs for the Blind Association can provide, to pay homage to Waffle’s puppy walker and to seek to reassure anyone finding themselves trying to chart the unknown landscape of sight loss and disability status that there is a fulfilling and rewarding life possible, albeit a renegotiated one in my case. I took on all of the interactions with the various media, mainstream and social, with gusto, I overlooked the distortions of my story by those more interested in sales figures than factual accuracy, and answered endless questions about my eye condition ignoring the stereotyping of disability let alone my own and laid myself bare to the temporal loss of anonymity as I sought to educate and awareness raise. Four years on I still patiently tolerate intrusion into my personal life by strangers who feel the need to comment on it, and excuse those who appear to have a metaphoric and literal belief in their right to crash into my personal space, all by virtue of me having a disability, in the hope of reaching those who genuinely seek to learn or be assisted by my experiences.
Two things occurred to me after this morning’s incident. Firstly, I had noticed the woman in the park where Sadie was at play a little earlier (a so called free run in guide dog parlance – free of her lead, harness and guiding work) where I ensured Sadie didn’t go near her dog because it was on lead and secondly, I was more than likely squinting when I replied to the woman at the bus stop. Contrary to what I was taught with my guide dogs, I do not let them do anything they want in the park because in this particular instance it is bad manners to allow your off lead dog to approach an on lead dog (it’s on a lead for a reason, and by virtue of its lead it may not be able to easily communicate to my dog whether it welcomes her attention and thus an orchestrated, by me, breakdown in polite dog to dog interaction may occur), and in general, the laws of dog control apply to a guide dog at play just as they do a pet dog. Had that been the reason behind the woman’s question as she approached me at the bus stop? Although if it was, why allow her dog to come right up to Sadie when she was in ‘working mode’ as her question inferred some level of awareness that I was keeping Sadie away from her dog in the park and/or at the bus stop? And was me squinting in the sunlight because of glare blindness as I sought to locate the woman to reply to her the cause of her disapproval to how I looked when I did so? If so, I refuse to be bad mannered to those who are poorly mannered to me and my dog (it’s at least a daily occurrence and often a multiple occurrence that I have to attempt to block a pet dog owner allowing and often encouraging their dog to approach Sadie when she is actively guiding me), and I’ve no intention of playing tit-for-tat by showing no manners to other dogs being walked in the park because I’m disgruntled by someone’s else’s poor awareness. But what I absolutely refuse to do is in anyway apologise for the nature of my disability and how other’s perceive it. Butting in on my conversation with my friend is annoying and bad mannered, but taking offence at my squinting in bright sunlight, childish and unacceptable.
Waffling Along 