Several years ago – far more than it actually feels, to be honest – I had a dog, and like all good dog-owners I would walk him twice-daily on a nearby park. Although a relatively modest green space compared to some of the more expansive oases the bigger cities can boast, fellow dog-walkers were nevertheless in abundance; long-lasting friendships were formed with some, whilst others only existed as genial acquaintances within the context of that small albeit largely friendly community. One of these was a blind girl who I routinely used to encounter on there as she strolled around the circuit with her guide dog. Initially, as with many confronted by a sightless person when not necessarily accustomed to them, I tended to be very conscious of her condition and tried not to put my foot in it. Of course, the more one attempts to do so, the more the likelihood of ‘mentioning the War’. I can remember walking round with her on one early occasion and the subject of a TV show came up; I aired my opinion of it and she said she hadn’t seen it yet. I then thought, ‘Shit – obviously, you haven’t seen it; you’re blind’. As my stupid head was trying to work out how someone deprived of vision ‘watches’ a television programme, my mouth did its best to change the subject.
A little later on, when I’d changed my address, I discovered the same girl was now a neighbour of mine and we’d often bump into each other – not literally, I must stress – when venturing outdoors. By this time, the fact she was blind had lost its ‘novelty value’ (for want of a better description) and it wasn’t an awkward obstacle to being at ease in her company anymore. I got used to announcing myself whenever our paths crossed and then we’d simply converse. So used had I become to seeing her with her guide dog, the first time I saw her on her own without her canine companion, I naturally inquired where the dog was; she informed me he’d been retired. This was something I’d never even considered. Yes, it may appear to be obvious that a guide dog can’t retain its sharpness as it ages and will eventually have to call it a day for fear that its diminishing ability to do its job may pose a danger to its owner, for whom it acts as surrogate eyes. But it’s one of those factors that distinguish working dogs from mere pets that ordinary pet-owners tend not to think about; most of us have our dogs until they pass away, and that kind of parting is hard enough; we don’t even think about guide dogs that retire and leave their owners whilst still in the land of the living.
During its golden age, ‘Blue Peter’ would regularly provide an introduction to the world of the guide dog by following the progress of a chosen puppy that – in time-honoured tradition – viewers were invited to name. Said pup would be shown receiving training from one of the programme’s presenters (usually Peter Purves) and the climax of this ongoing narrative spread over several months would be the eventual placing of the dog with someone in need of its acquired skills. I guess unless we have a friend or a family member who happens to be sightless, most of us only ever come across guide dogs on streets or in supermarkets and rarely take time out to ponder on what a invaluable lifeline they are to their human companions – and how their working status means the years doing the job is something they can’t simply forget when they’re too old to keep doing it; retirement is thrust upon them and there has to be a parting of the ways within the partnership that must be upsetting for both.
I was reminded of this when hearing a story of the blind BBC correspondent Sean Dilley, who appeared on the ‘Today’ programme describing his feelings about his 10-year-old guide dog Sammy, whose dreaded day of retirement after eight years’ sterling service had arrived. Dilley invited a film crew to record the pair’s last working walk together in order to illustrate the hard reality of having to say goodbye to his most vital companion. Dilley described a farewell unique to guide dog-owners and spoke from the heart. ‘We (the blind) lose our dogs twice,’ he said. ‘We lose them when they hang up the harness and we lose them when they pass on. And we know that’s the reality, and so when we sign up to train with our dogs we know that one day, this day is coming.’ Sean Dilley was born with congenital blindness and the poor partial sight he had was gone by the time he reached the age of 14; what he describes as his ‘guide dog journey’ began when he was 16. Sammy had predecessors, though emotional bonds have deep roots after eight years, and Dilley clearly felt the pain of this latest parting as acutely as he no doubt felt about the others. ‘The last walk anybody does with their guide dog is poignant,’ he said, ‘and a thousand emotions of sadness really go through your mind. Like the rest of us, a dog has a working life and they would come to a point where they slow down…I don’t think the words actually exist to express the gratitude I have for Sammy and my mobility…when Sammy leaves me it will leave a huge hole in my heart.’
However, like hundreds of other guide dog-owners having to retire their dogs in the UK, Sean Dilley now faces up to two years of getting by without a replacement. Thanks to Covid, guide dog partnerships have dropped from 5,000 to 4,000, leaving those in need of the service somewhat in the lurch. As with so many necessities for so many people during a period when all resources were diverted into tackling the coronavirus (or were diverted into the pockets of the despicable opportunists who profited from the pandemic), puppy breeding of future guide dogs was placed on ice in 2020 and ’21 as a means of ensuring ‘volunteer and staff safety’. Sean Dilley is currently receiving training in becoming more adept at walking about with just a cane as a guide. ‘A dog is not for everybody,’ he said, ‘but for me it means I can live the life I want to live and have the independence I need to have. I trust Sammy with my life and he trusts his with mine, and what we have is a partnership beyond any words that exist.’
Interestingly, this sad story isn’t the first time the non-working life of Sean Dilley has ended up as a news item. Sammy the dependable dog had been alongside the BBC correspondent when his body-cam captured the moment just six months ago when the pair of them strolled into two London Tesco stores and were informed dogs were not allowed in the shop. At the time Dilley commented, ‘For somebody to say that I cannot come into a shop, or that I have to leave because of a guide dog in 2022, it just feels the north side of unacceptable to me.’ Tesco swiftly issued a grovelling apology when their ignorance of the law was publicised, though research by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association revealed 75% of guide dog-owners have endured a similar experience, with 20% of these coming in supermarkets. Those of us for whom guide dogs have always been a familiar sight in shops – indeed for many years it has been a perceived privilege unique to them – will be surprised at these findings as well as the fact there is no specific law in the UK that prevents dogs, working or otherwise, from entering shops. However, guide dogs are exempt from rules by businesses banning dogs, something one would imagine Mr Tesco would’ve informed his staff about.
A friend of mine who happens to be the sole survivor of those twice-daily visits to the aforementioned park that I’m still in touch with had a dog of her own at the time; this dog was gifted with remarkable road sense and was generally an exemplary model of good behaviour. The one curious exception was the dog’s dislike of guide dogs, which she would always bark at. We used to joke that the dog imagined working breeds were somehow letting the side down by being so bloody perfect and setting an example that the humble canine pets could never compete with – like a dog’s equivalent of the character criticised and envied in The Undertones’ ‘My Perfect Cousin’. Whether or not that was the case, it’s undeniable that the service guide dogs provide is indeed a special one and one that it’s so easy to take for granted by those with the gift of sight.
© The Editor
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A rare visit to the house I grew up in over the weekend was crystallised in the wee small hours of Sunday morning by me accessing buried treasure and rifling through yellowing copies of the first ever comic I purchased week in-week out half-a-century ago, ‘The Mighty World of Marvel’ (from October 1972 onwards). This inaugural outing for the British branch of the Marvel Corporation was an exciting introduction to that now-overexposed universe for a kid eager for visual stimulation 50 years ago; the fantastic imaginations of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were exactly what I needed then, however much the thought of their creations as rendered by Hollywood fills me with indifference today. Anyway, the familiar sensation of turning childhood pages and re-encountering images permanently burned onto the memory banks of the half-formed mind was added to by a retrospective awareness of wider events that barely gatecrashed my infant consciousness at the time.
Despite ‘The Sopranos’ and Scorsese movies, most Italian-Americans are not slaves to their inherited heritage, though they are selectively proud of it; like Irish-Americans, their affinity with an ancestral homeland they’re considerably distanced from by several generations and more than 100 years is really a sentimental ideal rather than something rooted in the lived experience of its realities. First and foremost, what they feel more than anything is American, probably because their immigrant forefathers didn’t want to be regarded as ‘others’; they wanted a piece of the American action and wanted to be integrated; their destination was a blank slate, unlike the homeland that had evidently offered them nothing. Some initially clung to the comfort blanket of the culture they’d left behind, but this gradually shifted into the background, only occasionally exhumed for a sporting event or a saint’s day. Descendants of Jewish communities in the US and over here have undergone a similar transformation; they too followed the same pattern, with each successive generation one further step away from those who coped with an alien environment by seeking solace in the religious symbolism, the mother tongue, and – perhaps the most enduring legacy – the food.
One of the main complaints from viewers who’ve followed one of those big sporting events that span two or three weeks like the World Cup or the Olympics during the wall-to-wall coverage usually comes the day after the tournament’s conclusion; suddenly it seems like there’s nothing to watch anymore. In a way, the ten or eleven days that began with schedules being suspiciously rearranged when Her Majesty’s health took a turn for the worse at Balmoral was the beginning of a similar domination of broadcasting hours that the nation became accustomed to very quickly. And now, having been witness to the climax of the event, it feels strange that all in telly-land is back to normal. Few would doubt the BBC’s inexhaustible anchor Huw Edwards deserves a holiday – he seems to have been on screen continuously ever since he announced the death of the Queen almost a fortnight ago; and it will be handy for those who still buy listings magazines to find what’s listed on the printed page once again accurately reflects what’s actually on TV. But the finality of the funeral sets the seal on so many different aspects of British life that seem to have been with us forever, not least what the nation watches.
As a quaint, archaic phrase inextricably bound-up with the monochrome optimism of the immediate post-war 1950s, ‘The New Elizabethan Age’ hadn’t stood the test of time until its recent revival (for obvious reasons). However, with the passing of the Queen whose name this imaginary era had rented, do we now acknowledge it was an authentic epoch in itself or do we accept whatever achievements history might like to squeeze under such a convenient umbrella label simply took place on Her Majesty’s watch even when she wasn’t watching? Will the future file this age away so that the past 70 years will retrospectively group together everything from The Beatles to Brexit, Bond to Bowie, Coronation Street to Concorde, Thunderbirds to Thatcherism, Paddington to Punk Rock, and from Tommy Steele to Tim Berners-Lee? Well, it’s probably in the hands of the generations who never lived through it, though many of us who lived through at least half of it recognise whatever creative and cultural renaissance this country coincidentally experienced whilst Brenda occupied the throne drew to a close long before she breathed her last at Balmoral.
In the wake of other (somewhat distracting) events over the past seven days, footage that has snuck largely under the radar nevertheless glaringly highlights the contradiction in the narrative the Kremlin has been pedalling ever since the Russian military encroached into sovereign territory earlier this year. Fancy that! Yes, some may recall the fairy stories of ‘Far-Right Nazis’ running riot through the former Soviet outpost that the Ukrainian people begged to be liberated from (fairy stories served-up as one element of the justification for invasion), though the reaction of the Ukrainian people via videos posted on social media as Ukrainian forces stormed into town and retook territory didn’t necessarily portray a terrified populace bereft at losing their Russian liberators. In many respects, the footage evoked archive of the French people reacting to Allied Forces recapturing Paris in 1944 – with little old ladies in headscarves tearfully embracing Ukrainian troops and giving every impression they were actually pleased to see the ‘Nazis’ back in town.
There’s been a lot of understandable talk these past few days of how her late Majesty gave the British people a sense of security when every other Great British bastion proved fallible; if all else failed, the Queen was always there. Now she’s gone, who can we rely on? Well, at one time – albeit over 40 years ago – we could rely on CI5. This uniquely hardline service, sandwiched between Special Branch and MI6, was established in the tumultuous climate of the 1970s to deal with the escalating threats to the British way of life from international terrorism and increasingly sophisticated espionage. Headed by the redoubtable Major George Cowley, CI5 drew on the best men from the armed forces and the police and rode roughshod over all the legal obstacles that hindered ordinary coppers from nailing their man. CI5 had a remit that precluded niceties and this was reflected in the guys that fronted it, especially agents Bodie and Doyle. The former was an ex-military man who’d earned his spurs as a mercenary-for-hire in Africa; the latter rose to the rank of DC in the Police Force. When partnered together, Bodie and Doyle proved to be the ideal combination to cope with the challenges that threatened Britannia’s borders as the country careered towards the 80s.
Quite a week, eh? I’m not the first to point it out, though it bears repeating because it’s so historically unprecedented: this week began with Boris Johnson as PM and the Queen on the throne; it ends with Liz Truss as PM and the King on the throne. And having to now refer to the man formerly known as Prince Charles as ‘The King’ is just one of the strange changes we’ll have to get used to. Brand Brenda has always been all around us, so ubiquitous that her image is easily taken for granted – on our stamps, coins and banknotes, for one thing; to anybody born after 1952, she’s been part of the cultural wallpaper forever, giving rise to a sense of permanence on a par with Stonehenge. For that to suddenly end is very odd indeed. Sure, we’re all familiar – if not over-familiar – with the musical chairs at Westminster, especially ever since David Cameron fell on his Brexit sword six years ago; but the death of the Head of State is something one would have to be at least 75 to have a previous memory of. And anyone who had reached that age at the time of the Coronation in 1953 would’ve lived under six sovereigns; how different from today. The late Queen’s first Prime Minister was born in 1874; her last was born 101 years later. That curious fact alone perhaps underlines the extraordinary duration of her reign.
The performance of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet over the past couple of seasons didn’t exactly mark them out as potential champions; they played the game with all the flair of a Sunday League squad of pot-bellied bruisers nursing hangovers. True, the old boss splashed out the cash, but the team’s form has dramatically dipped since the title triumph of 2019, with tactical ineptitude leaving them engaged in a permanent relegation battle. Nevertheless, in footballing terms, the electoral success of the Conservative Party over the past decade-and-a-bit still puts them in the Manchester City or Liverpool category, though the recent downward spiral doesn’t appear as though it’ll suddenly be reversed by sacking the manager; a glance at today’s team-sheet suggests most of the major signings made by the new boss are of a Third Division calibre. And they still expect to remain in the Premier League with this team of mediocrities? Okay, so it’s a stretch of the imagination to imagine the likes of Therese Coffey running for 90 seconds, let alone 90 minutes; the footie analogy would maybe stretch to her standing in goal. But appointing such a visibly unhealthy individual as Health Secretary is like hiring a woman with a lazy eye to man the receptionist’s desk at Specsavers.
The title of this post – without the asterisks – used to be the title of a feature on the weekly video series I produced under the title ‘25 Hour News’ between 2014 and 2015 (or thereabouts); this satirical swipe at the banality of rolling news channels sometimes climaxed with said feature, usually consisting of one brief non-story about a vacuous celebrity, thus invoking the phrase ‘Who gives a shit?’ I guess this segment was a comment on the kind of non-stories about vacuous celebrities that still appear amongst the online headlines of Yahoo News, which hasn’t changed in a decade. You know the kind of thing – ‘Amanda Holden wears revealing low-cut dress at film premiere!’ and all that bollocks. However, perhaps the one thing that has changed in the past decade is that politics have gradually sunk to the same level as Amanda Holden’s revealing low-cut dress so that one can just as easily apply the ‘Who gives a shit?’ tag to our elected representatives. A sequence of what one might call Reality Television politicians – ‘characters’ like Boris who have used their loud personalities to capture the public vote much as contestants in the Big Brother House used to do – have dragged the standing of their profession to the lowly status it currently occupies, sharing the spotlight with Amanda Holden’s cleavage.
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