Dear Sir, - Anyone seeing me sitting down would think I am a normal girl, as two well-shaped legs are to be seen. However, when I rise, pickup a couple of black crutches and tuck them under my armpits, people look with surprise to see that I am a cripple in some respect worse off than were I one-legged, for I cannot even hop on my one good leg, as the other - the right one - is permanently locked at right angle to the thigh, due to a bone and muscle affection which assailed me three years ago, close on my twenty-first birthday.
Frankly, I would rather be minus my leg than be hampered by one which is in the way and is no good to me.
As a matter of fact my doctors are trying once more to straighten the limb and if they fail (which they expect to and which I am quite sure they will) they will amputate the leg above the knee.
It was, however, hardly this that I sat down to write about. My main reason is to give the benefit of my experience to your one-legged readers, with whom I naturally take a keen interest, as I expect to be one very soon.
The black-out is the reason for my writing, and I am one of the many girls using crutches who have to attend business daily. I am a typist, and my hours preclude me from leaving the office in the winter before it is dark, and therein lies the danger.
The following experience recently made me think out some kind of a remedy which would help me and one-legged girls during the black-out.
I was hopping along on my crutches, and had been careful to wear light-coloured stockings. My shoes were brown Court ones with my normal height of heel - 3 3/4 inches - and I was using a pair of light-make black crutches.
My right leg, being bent, was projecting behind me, when someone crossed quickly in the rear, caught my leg and gave me a violent twist. Taken by surprise, I was turned partly round, my crutches slipped, and I fell.
Someone picked me up, placed my crutches under my arm, and helped me to a nearby shop, where, after a rest, I was driven home to nurse a badly sprained left ankle.
My enforced lying at home gave me time to think out a remedy, which I find excellent. I obtained some luminous paint and painted my crutches with this - except, of course, the armrests and grips; and for my crippled leg I made a kind of galosh of cloth, treated with the paint. This latter is easily slipped over the shoe, covers the heel, and it is the work of only a moment to put it on when going out in the dark and to take it off on reaching home.
The only disadvantage is that one does not care for one's crutches to be a colour one would not choose; but this is really a minor matter when one is gaining the safety desired, and I assure your readers that crutches so treated definitely show up in the dark and give one a feeling of safety hitherto quite impossible; and in my particular case my right foot, and very definitely my high heel, is bound to be seen as it protrudes from my skirt.
If any of our readers try my suggestion, it will be very nice if they will give their experiences both before and after its adoption.
Yours truly,
High-Heeled Cripple.