Dear Sir, - There have been several letters in your paper in the past year from one-legged ladies, all of which I find difficult to believe.
I can truly say I am one-legged from choice, as I was born with a terrible deformity of my left foot - a huge club foot, which made it impossible for me to walk without the aid of one crutch, and I was also troubled with a wasting complaint which attacked my left leg.
I was told in time my leg would be quite powerless, but without pain; as my club foot was so hideous and useless, I asked if I could rely on the removal of the lower leg curing the wasting disease and permit me to wear a false leg.
No guarantee was given and I decided that one good leg and crutches and no unsightly foot was more attractive than one good and one helpless leg, plus one crutch and a huge foot, and I asked for the leg to be taken off, and after a great deal of trouble in finding a surgeon to do it, the leg was removed at the hip, leaving me not a vestige of a stump. That was ten years ago.
I have never known what it is to walk unaided, but I do know that is infinitely easier to walk without the cumbersome foot I had to drag about, and because I have no stump.
As some of your readers can testify, the most peculiar part about a missing leg is the absence of its weight. Until one is thoroughly used to it, at least.
I have several friends who have lost legs. I went to a cripples' school. It was amusing to us all to see the weird way they used to walk whilst learning to use a false leg, as the leg is so much lighter than the real one, and the tendency is to use as much force in moving the false one as they did the real one, with the result that the false leg went forward to the full extent of the hip-joint.
I used a heel 2 inches high and one crutch for outdoors, and indoors I can wear a 3« inch and a 4 inch heel without any fear of falling, and I never use two crutches.
I have kept in touch with many of my old school friends, and some of our talks would provide Mr. Wallace Stort with much material for his stories.
I have said that I find it hard to believe all your writers - I should have said two of them. It is quite impossible to walk on one 6 inch heel and one crutch. I have given up trying.
One word of advice. If any of your readers - male or female have recently lost a leg, do not experiment with a peg leg until the artificial leg is ready, as it causes one to walk with a very stiff action which is never got rid of.
May we have some more stories like "The Confessions of a One-Legged Bride?" There was nothing really impossible in that at all.
Yours truly
Once A Cripple