ME on MONDAY - today: FROM MY POINT OF 'VIEW'

JUST ME on MONDAY

FROM MY POINT OF 'VIEW'

which is extremely limited, and somewhat wonky and fuzzy.

Eye Tests. I assume that most of us, some time or another, have had at least one eye test. I've had lots. (And lots and lots and lots...)

I hate eye tests. At least, the initial bit where you toddle off with the nurse and they ask you to read down the eye chart. Now, my vision is limited. It gets worse when I get stressed, so I have difficulty after the first few lines.

Most nurses are lovely - most in the Glaucoma clinic in fact. Some in the ordinary eye clinics aren't. It really doesn't help when I'm struggling to read letters in the line and the nurse is standing there tutting impatiently. I wish I had the courage to say outright: 'Stop making it worse for me!"

The first eye tests I endured were when I was about five in 1958. My mother had been told, by the teachers at my infant school, that they thought there was something wrong with my sight. And, oh boy, was there!

It turned out that I was extremely shortsighted. And the 'extremely' is not an exaggeration.

To this day what I cannot understand: my mum was very shortsighted. My sister is very short sighted. So why on earth didn't it occur to Mother that maybe - just maybe - the reason why I kept falling over or tripping up, why I sat so close to the old box TV, why I literally had my nose right into books in order to see the page, why I was so clumsy with dropping things... was because I couldn't bloomin' SEE clearly!

The eye clinic was a square white flat building on the far side of the level crossing at Highams Park (a sort of suburb area of Chingford, North London) I remember the building because the bus stopped on the Chingford side of the railway and we had to walk across the railway line, or wait for a train to pass and the gates to open.

I wonder if this is why I'm still fascinated by trains? I remember standing there, quite a tiny girl - very myopic everything, to me, was shrouded in a thick out-of-focus mist. Then suddenly there would be a whooshing sound and this enormous long monster would hurtle by... Thinking about it, in theory, I should be terrified by trains, but I found them (find them, even now, ) exciting.

Anyway: I don't recall much about those eye tests, but I can remember enjoying a bit of them. The bit where I had to look into a machine and put the lion in the cage. 

Do I also remember having to feed the donkey a carrot? I'm not sure, perhaps this was a different memory from something else?

Apparently, I have astigmatism. My eye-shape is severely 'rugby-balled' and the retina has stretched so it is very thin, (and very vulnerable to tearing.) Absolutely no idea how the lion and the cage helped with anything, though. What was it for? What did it do?  

I hated that heavy thing they put on me to see what lenses I needed for those awful National Health glasses. I hated those as well. Pink. I had to have pink because I'm a girl. I recall I wanted blue...

I had glasses until I left school although I think the first ones I had were rounder and had coiled wire earpieces? Whatever they were, they were always getting broken so most of the time had bits of sticky tape round them.

Me in 1964 in Mr Radcliff's class
(quiz for you - spot me)
(thank you to an old school mate for the pic!)

Oh, and let's dispel something: It is a myth that reading in low light or having your nose right in a book, or sitting very close to the television causes poor sight, or astigmatism or makes it worse. It doesn't. It just means someone can see what they're looking at better. I wish I'd known that when I was a child. Not that I'd have had the courage to say so.

Fast forward to when I was 18. Every day for a week I went into the local optician's to get my glasses straightened. The horse I had at the time (Kaler - you'll meet him in my Jan Christopher cosy mystery novels) was lame and I had to bandage his leg. Every day he'd knock my glasses off with his knee. Come the Friday the optician said to me: "Have you ever thought of contact lens?"

I hadn't but I started to... and despite it taking a while to get the right shape and size to fit my awkward-shaped eyes I eventually changed to contacts - and suddenly I felt confident. The shyness went and I started enjoying life.

Now, I have Glaucoma and other eye issues which have made me visually impaired, but I had my cataracts done about 13 years ago so what little I can see through the Glaucoma and general misting ... well, unless I'm watching TV, I don't need those bloody glasses! 

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