Dear Sir, - This is really a continuation of the letter I wrote to you some time ago, and to congratulate "Single High Heel" on winning a pair of garters for her admirable pen-and-ink sketch of herself and also to thank Rex for his snap of his wife.
I think I left off my last letter at the point at which my wife had fitted her new peg-leg and we were about to start on our second honeymoon.
Well, after a little practice in the house with the peg-leg and one crutch, and then with a stick, she was able to manage quite well on it unaided, but it was soon evident that long walks on her single high heel would be out of the question, as the risk of a turned ankle with the peg-leg and such a high heel was too great to chance.
Then came the question of wearing it in the street. She was too shy to risk doing so in the town in which we were so well known, so it was packed and taken with us, to be donned as soon as we were well on our way.
I bought a good second-hand car, an Army bell-tent, and all the usual camping gear, and off we started, leaving our rooms to the care of the landlady.
It was a small saloon car, and so on the very first morning my darling's troubles started. The roof was too low to permit her to get in whilst using her crutch, and she had to swing herself in with the aid of he, and so on the very first morning my darling's troubles started. The roof as too low to permit her to get in whilst using her crutch, and she had to swing herself in with the aid of her hands.
We had packed all the clothes we possessed, and with the tent, etc., and Hazel's spare crutch - taken in case of accident - we were very cramped, but quite merry.
During the packing I had found that Hazel had religiously preserved all her shoes - I mean the ones she would never use again- right from those she owned before her cripplehood commenced, and when I left these out from the cases she was rather blue for awhile, as it was only then, I think, that she realised that she was to be one-legged for ever.
Our intention was to make for the sea coast in the region of Worthing, and then to run along it as far as we possibly could, and then to run over the Devon Moors.
The first evening we found a secluded spot west of Worthing and, with a farmer's consent, pitched our first camp, I holding the tent erect whilst Hazel slipped the ropes over the pegs. She started to do this on her crutch, but ended by crawling on her knee - she said it was quicker that way.
Having established ourselves and had a meal, we went for a stroll along the country lane, and this was the first occasion on which Hazel used her peg-leg in the open.
AS I have said it was of an old pattern - or at least of a pattern which is not in common use to-day, and up to this time she has always enlisted my aid in adjusting it, and with the fear that I should hurt her, I did not draw the lace tight enough, with the result that it started to slip and to chafe her, so we had to find a retreat and readjust it.
We had selected a soft brown brogue lace-up shoe with a wide and not too high heel for the first experiment, and a rather tight-fitting calf-length skirt, with the result that each step Hazel took was arrested before is completion, and I cannot say how fascinated I was at the sight of the trim black peg-leg, with its shiny rubber tip and her well-turned ankle peeping from beneath her skirt. We went about a quarter of a mile on this first attempt, and it was about all she could manage.
On returning to our camp another problem presented itself to us - the combination of a tight dress, a low chair, and a stiff peg-leg.
My girl had either to sit on the extreme edge of the chair in order to keep her wooden foot on the ground, or sit comfortably and let the leg protrude at right angles to her knee. Eventually she solved the problem in a way of her own. She adopted a wide, full skirt and sat at the side of her chair so that the leg could rest on the ground of its own weight; but when sitting on the ground she was always dependent upon me to help her to her feet, while for kneeling she put the wooden leg in front of her and, with the aid of her full skirt, did not expose too much of her stocking.
I remember at first that I used to tease her by grabbing her peg-leg at the foot when she was sitting and pretended to push her over backwards; but when I found she could deliver quite a good hefty kick with the rubber tip, I left her alone.
We gradually made our way along the South Coast with Hazel managing longer walks on each occasion and overcoming her shyness, so that before very long she wore the leg all day and went everywhere on it. We used to drive to the nearest town or village to do our shopping, and you can only guess at the attention Hazel attracted with her flaming copper hair, vivid lipstick, cream complexion, large horn-rimmed glasses, neat shoe, free swinging dress, and shiny black wooden leg. The only discordant note was the black leg and the brown shoe. She had several black leather shoes, but did not possess what she termed a "gravel crusher" in black, and, quite by accident one morning whilst cleaning the rubber tip and the leg itself, I found that the thin leg portion was detachable from the bucket or corset. This immediately gave me an idea, which was quickly put into execution.
I found that there was an old master carpenter in the village we were near at the time, and I told him what was wanted, and the result was a beautifully turned thin stem which fitted perfectly. I had him make me another, and then went on to complete my idea, with the aid of a fast-dying art - that of the saddler. I had one of the stems covered with thin brown leather, which I speedily polished till it gleamed, and the other I had enamelled white, so that now Hazel had match for three of her shoes - black, brown, and white.
During our stay in this area another problem cropped up - to be as speedily surmounted as the first. At home, of course, the bathing facilities were of the normal kind, and Hazel was able to swing herself into the bath by sitting on the edge and swinging her leg over the edge; but our camping equipment was not on so lavish a scale, and the best I could do was a canvas arrangement which needed gentle handling, so that it was difficult for Hazel to get in and out of the contraption, an on several occasions she split all the water. Also it was not nice for her to have to get me to lift her in and out each time, so that something had to be done which would enable her to enjoy her bath in privacy.
The outcome of this was that I found that she had been a keen swimmer before I married her, and I am also one of those rarities - a sailor who likes swimming.
I had the same old carpenter make her a crutch with a plain unpadded head, and Hazel then needed an extension to a bathing costume she purchased so that it formed a sort of pouch to contain her stump completely, and she walked in the river or pool with her crutch, and when she was in deep enough she jammed the crutch into the bed of the pool and swam along until she was tired, and then got the crutch out of the water and regained the shore. But even this was not so-easy as it sounds. Hazel is so shortsighted that she is almost entirely helpless without her glasses, so that I had to remain with her as a pilot, so to speak.
Her bad sight caused also another spot of bother. On retiring for the night, and after the light is put out, she places her glasses on the ground by her pillow, and one night I had occasion to leave the tent. In the darkness I placed my hands on the glasses and smashed one of the lenses. We were in a very tiny village in Devon at the time, and it was quite impossible to replace the lense at once, so that almost two days elapsed before they were repaired, and in the meantime poor Hazel was practically blind. To make things worse, there was a blazing sun and this made her eyes ache so that she had to wear a pair of old smoked glasses of mine.
We had to go into the shop for food and things, and Hazel was too nervous to remain in the camp alone, so that I took her with me in the car, and as the inhabitants had not seen Hazel before, you can imagine the stir the "poor one-legged blind girl caused". It was certainly no joke for Hazel, as she really was blind with the smoked glasses on, and I had actually to lead her everywhere we went for those two days.
By this time our trip had lasted a month, and we both began to feel that a jaunt to the pictures in a town would be a pleasant change, so one afternoon we changed into our glad rags and went into a large town some twenty or thirty miles away. Hazel was then wearing her poshest evening rig - a backless dress with a (then) very short skirt portion. With it she wore a very high-heeled bronze kid slipper and a pair of her smartest crutches - the type known as the "bow" pattern. This high heel caused her to walk with the shortest of steps; and as the streets were rather hilly, she had to practically lift herself up at each step. I well remember the sensation she caused when we went into a fashionable restaurant for dinner, and then into the pictures. Absolutely everybody stared at her.
These crutches are rather a trouble at times to stow in the car, but I devised a system to rope buckets in the car roof in which to sling them when we moved.
At this time, too, she rather overdid her walks on the peg-leg, and made her stump sore, as all this time it had been shrinking a little and the corset was beginning to get a shade too large, and one afternoon we went so far that it was beyond her powers to walk all the way back, so that I had to find a way to carry her and it is very tiring to carry a well-built girl in the conventional way in the arms, and we found that a pick-a-back was uncomfortable for both of us, so that on the lonely roads the only sensible thing to do for her was to sit astride on my shoulders, and I was able to carry her for quite a distance without a rest; and if somebody else did come along, well, she just got down until they had gone out of sight.
All good things come to an end some time, and the time came for me to rejoin the ship and get to work again. After several years I found that it was no fun for either of us to be separated for such long periods, and I found a shore billet and have now swallowed the anchor for ever. - Actually it was after my third year at sea that I settled down, and after a short holiday we set up house for ourselves.
I was then that I found out who the "interesting friends" were that Hazel had told me of so often, and whom I had never met. It must have been a case of "Like calling to like," as they were all in some way crippled.
I suppose in the last six years we have entertained in our house and have got to knot intimately fifteen girls who were in some way not normally formed. The majority, of course, are one-legged, but the others include a one-armed girl, a girl with a withered arm - withered so much that the hand and arm are no bigger than a five-year-old child's; a blind girl who is the constant companion of the one-armed girl (and to look at her, one would never realise that she was blind - she has the widest and brownest eyes I have ever seen). This girl is able to do all her housework, and gets about the house with a sureness that must be seen to be believed. Another girl has been dumb, as a result of an accident since the age of 12, and is as cheerful as a cricket, and carries on her conversations with us by means of signs and notes.
Another has a club foot which compels her to wear a circular boot, and there are two who are so short legged (one on the right leg, the other on the left), that they have to wear high extensions of some sort constantly, and even then they have each a variety of ways of changing their footwear.
There is, of course, the built-up sole to the boot and shoe (they each have shoes and boots with this device), and also the iron or steel extension, but to enable them to wear a smart shoe on both feet they have each got a sort of sloping block on which the shoe is fixed in such a way that the block is quite thin at the toe (not more than two inches) and 5 inches or so at the heel - this is 5 inches not including the height of the heel of the shoe.
I must say that it is a very smart way of overcoming the disability, but it makes them limp rather a lot. It is also strange that one of the girls wears a peg-leg, and she has her right leg off just below the knee, and wears a circular arrangement which is jointed and hardly hampers her walking at all.
Three of these girls were married and several were engaged, but the two who were crippled by the loss of an arm, and the withered arm, respectively, say they never hope to be married, as apparently the loss of an arm is considered to be more of a handicap than the loss of a leg.
Hazel has found that she can buy her shoes singly, so that she never has the sight of a spare shoe to remind her of the times that used to be, even if she wanted to (and she has often told me that she likes being one-legged, as it secures for her so many things that she never has a biped).
She has even bought a single Wellington boot.
There is one little alteration to the usual peg-leg and crutch end that other one-legged readers may find useful, and which became necessary as the result of a little trouble we met on our camping tour.
All our readers will be familiar with the appearance of the ground end of a crutch or a peg-leg - a small round rubber foot which is designed to lessen the noise as the foot meets the ground.
Well, this small end acts admirably on hard ground, but on an early morning stroll across a field Hazel found that it was not successful along the edge of a brook. I was some way in front and heard her call for help, and on returning found that she had put her wooden leg in a soft patch of mud and she has sunk to the full extent of the leg; and the more she struggled to get out, the more did she sink.
This needed a little thought, and I eventually got over the trouble by fitting a pad to the end of the leg and padding the under side with felt. This pad is about 3 inches across, and prevents the end of the leg sinking in the soft soil. I have also fitted one of her crutches with the device, as we found that Hazel's bad sight made it difficult for her to pick her way in the dark, and the big pad prevents the crutch end from lodging in small ruts, etc.
Even this device gave us some cause for embarrassment on one occasion. We had been walking along the beach in one seaside town near where we camped one night, and on leaving the beach for the promenade we were amazed to hear a dull thump, followed by a tap each time Hazel took a step.
On looking down, I found that the sand had cut the pad away from her leg, with the result that the bare wooden end of her leg was meeting the ground.
Needless to say that there were crowds of people about, and not a conveyance of any sort, and we had nothing with which to pad the end with. So all the way home Hazel was doing her best to put her timber toe down as lightly as possible, with not much success.
It was funny afterwards to think of, but can you imagine the way we felt at the time? Hazel with a billowy summer frock, one smart shoe and stocking, and that unpadded wooden leg doing its best to shatter the pavement.
All these little things are recalled on occasion, and we often have a good laugh over the troubles and trials we had with our first attempts to make a wooden strut to do the work of a flesh-and-blood leg; but now she has got so used to the crutch and leg that it is second nature to her, and the leg is donned in the morning with the same ease that the normal woman dons her frock, and after all these years she has become so nimble on it that at times it is difficult to realise that in place of the two legs she once had there is now only one.
I see that you have published my first letter to you, and hope that you will be able to publish this one too, and also that it will lead to other one-legged ladies writing to you and giving us all the benefit of their experiences.
Yours truly,
Timber Toe.