A piece of personal history

Here is another piece of personal history, memories of which will haunt me for the rest of my life :

In nineteen forty eight, when I was just four years old, I had no sight in my right eye. As a consequence, the ophthalmic specialist decided to put a patch over my left eye in the hope that my other eye may just be “lazy” and doing this may have helped to get it working properly.

Needless to say, this patch had the effect of making me completely blind and, as a consequence, I fell down all thirteen steps from the landing outside my bedroom to the ground floor of our home.

The house was a Victorian terraced in Oldham, Lancashire and, as can be imagined in a house of that age, the flight was quite steep.

I fell down these stairs not only once, but on two occasions, until the people who should have known better, removed the patch, allowing me to see again.

Although there would have been many tears, I was, fortunately, uninjured on both occasions, probably helped by my young age and pliable bones.

Ever since this memorable time, I have been extremely careful on stairs and, although I have been registered as blind since nineteen seventy nine, I have, thankfully, never repeated these incidents.