My arms have been the big issue. So instead of my arm generating the movement, my shoulder takes the lead role in, in doing anything, because I can still move my shoulders. But then trying to do an exercise whereby you actually try to stimulate your correct or your normal muscle functions to, to carry out that particular exercise. And you’re having to sort of make a, a mental effort not to allow the compensation to take place because you’ve got used to doing things in a certain way. If I want to lift my hands up to a certain height, I know I swing my arm. I use my shoulder to, to swing my arm to get my arm up there. If I want to pick something up, it requires both hands. I can’t do it alone. And generally speaking, if it’s of any sort of weight or consequence – a pint, if I want to drink a pint, I need both hands on it and I need to lock my elbows in position and sort of stand, sit there [demonstrating] with my elbows on the table and, and drink the pint that way. Because heaven knows I wouldn’t want to spill it. So it’s, it – you know, it’s difficult. You have to learn to compensate and you just do things in a different way.

Have you ever tried any armrests or anything like that?

No, no. It’s, ‘it’s just finding a way in which you can cope. We have a particularly heavy duvet [laughs] and I can’t pull the damn thing up over myself. But I have an accommodating wife who tucks me in at night, which is good. It’s little things like that. You know, you – at the moment I compensate. I kind of grab hold of the end of the duvet and then if we’re busy and I’ve got into bed first I try and cover myself up. I lift the duvet with my knees. You know, get my knees in the air and try and pull it up towards me as best I can. And you just do. You, you have to try and compensate in one way or another.

What about eating out?

No. No, it’s hard work that is. I don’t eat out now because I, it’s hard work like, you know? See what I mean it’s easier with a, when I eat the sandwiches because I can hold that but like roast dinner or summat it’s really hard work like you know? Or beans, they go everywhere like, you know, it’s just hard work. Honestly that’s what, that’s the worst thing, is eating, trying get the, the spoon up, you know, to your mouth. That’s really bad yeah that bit, definitely.

Is there anything you can do to help it?

There ain’t nothing you can do. My mum helps me, you know, custard and, you know, that’s the worst bit. Trying to get, keep that on the spoon like, the cereal, stuff like that now, that’s really hard work that is, really hard work. And washing’s hard work you know?

The washing?

Well drying, sorry, drying.

Yeah, yeah.

Trying to get the towel on, it’s a joke.

Yeah.

Yeah things like that. It’s all hard work

It’s the day-day living.

Day-day things what you take for granted, it’s, so once you’ve got it that’s what I mean no-one else knows what you’re going through bar you, because they’re, you know, they, they don’t know. They don’t know what it’s like. Like you said eating that just sort of says it all, that’s the hardest thing.

Like you say day-day things like.

Day-day?

Yeah living, day-day living, it’s hard work And trying to get a coat on, that’s hard. Trying to get things out my pocket, especially now it’s cold, now it’s cold mind, I loves the summer because I can walk, wear shorts and t-shirt and it’s fine and my hands work alright but then bang when it gets cold, my hands stop working. They don’t, they won’t move they’ll just seize up like that, and they won’t, they won’t move.

So they’re worse in the cold weather?

Yeah, freezing. My hands go numb, even when now with the nights have gone cold like they yeah, they get real bad. That’s summat that when, no-one knows what you’re going through. Honestly when I’m, when I’m out, I want to get summat and my phone rings and my hands are cold, I, they won’t do it [laughs] and they, I miss a call.

Well I think everything got more and more difficult. Walking was like walking through porridge or something like that, you know. Managing to do the hoovering and things like that were difficult. I’d tend to lose my balance a bit. If it was windy and I was trying to walk anywhere I’d have to hang on to something. If I was going to sneeze when I was walking I had to hang on to something. And you progress from, you know, just walking by yourself to walking with a walking stick, then with a walking stick and somebody else and things like that. And you sort of adapt as time goes on. I found cooking quite difficult, but I used to get the meal into the oven. I could carry cold dishes and get them into the oven, often by sliding them on to the lowered oven door and then up into the thing. And then I’d leave it for my husband to get the hot ones out you see. So for a long time I was cooking the meal and leaving it for my husband to serve up, because I couldn’t lift heavy saucepans. But I could put things into a saucepan if it was left on the hob for me. So all sorts of things like that, little stratagems which would make use of what I could do and then let him do the dangerous bits, I would carry on with.

The main thing I was able to carry on with was my creative writing, which I hadn’t wanted to do. I wanted to do art and pottery and things like that, but I couldn’t because of my lack of strength. So I went to creative writing classes and started writing short stories and things. And then one of the short stories was rather nice, so I wrote it into a novel. And then I thought I’d go on a course. So I went to the Open University and did a playwriting course for twelve weeks first of all, and then I did a full course on creative writing, which was good fun. And it kept me busy for the last nine months really and I’ve really enjoyed that very much indeed. And I’m going on to do another short course in the next few weeks on writing for the Internet. So that will hopefully improve my skills on the computer. So that should keep me happy.

As the disease has affected me or as for how it has affected me it, as I said it basically started off with muscle wastage on one shoulder and then it moved to the other shoulder. And has moved to my hands after that really. I can still throw my arms around and I can use my hands but not very well. And if I get cold then my arms and my hands in particular become almost useless. I can still throw my arms around so I can. If I want to reach a door handle I can, I throw my arm at the door handle, grab it hopefully and then turn it although the turning part is necessarily quite weak because my strength is quite weak because I have no muscle or little muscle.

So the main thing about my condition as it is now is to remember to stay warm and not to fall over. Because again with no use of my arms if I trip and fall which is quite a common thing for MND patients to do I’ve got no way of breaking my fall. And it doesn’t matter if it’s on grass that’s ok but if it’s on concrete and there’s an awful lot of concrete around the world nowadays I’ve got to be very, I’ve just got to be careful not to do so.

And when my partner and I go out walking we tend to hold, well link arms. But we’re both aware that if I start falling then the best thing she can do for me is to let go because if we both go down in a heap and she gets hurt then I’ve done neither of us a favour by, I mean I might get hurt as well but that’s. If there isn’t anybody to look after me then that’s, we’ve doubled the problem if you like.

Do you have any aids to help you with walking?

No. The only thing that might help me is, would be to get an electric scooter or something like that at some point in the future. But as for aids in walking that would involve carrying something around and moving it. And if it was a stick then I couldn’t use, I couldn’t move it. I couldn’t lean on it and move it or lean on it and pivot. I mean, as I said I’ve got no strength in my arms so anything like that it wouldn’t work. If I went for a trolley or something like, you can get stands which have wheels on and you can push them along but I think it’s the same. It gives me, I’ve still got the same problem that I’d have to have to have the strength in my arms to move whatever device that was trying to help me.

And how long ago did your arms start becoming weak?

Well I suppose it was, I noticed, I started noticing it more after the diagnosis which was, as I said getting on for 8 years ago and it’s just gradually progressed. I was going to say the fun of the disease if that’s, it sounds, it probably doesn’t sound, make much sense. But it’s quite interesting trying to work out different ways of doing things, different ways of getting into a bath or having a shower or moving the showerhead. I mean, I do a lot of, well not a lot, I do a number of things with my head. So if I want to get in the shower and I don’t want to get cold then I move the showerhead with my head one way and get the water the right temperature then get under it. Have the shower and then move the showerhead back again and then turn the shower off. And I mean that’s one I’ve only really started practising in the last few weeks. It was, well it was fairly obvious that something to try. I didn’t see it at the first.

You use your head for all of that for switching it off as well?

No not for switching it off. No I can throw my arms at the tap.

Do you find that people talk to your husband rather than you when you’re out together?

No, but – not too badly, actually. No, I haven’t really come across that. I expected to, but not really. What I do find is that people will pass something to you, and I can’t move my arm up to, to reach it or to shake their hand, but they won’t bring it any closer. There’s, it’s really, really interesting. They’ve kind of got a, a physical barrier. And it, and it’s personal space, isn’t it? which they won’t cross.

Is that even after knowing that your arms are affected? Because I just wonder if it’s that people sort of think, ‘Wheelchair equals legs.

Yes, I think it is that. And, and so when people pass something to me, I’ll expect them not to put it right in my hand. I’ll expect them to, you know, leave a bit of space for my hand to then meet theirs. But then when my hand isn’t moving or is just only, it’s only moved its inch which it’s going to, they’re still very, very reluctant to put it in my hand. They just, they just don’t know what to do. Yet my friend’s 3-year-old came and gave something to me, and just put it straight in my hand. And it, so it’s interesting. It’s not, it’s not till we’re a bit older that we learn about personal space, and you just don’t go past that. So that’s frustrating, and I tend to, yeah, I tend to avoid those instances, and I, and I just get them to pass it to whoever I’m with. Because I don’t need that, you know, I don’t want that. I just avoid that encounter in a way. Yeah. And when people want to shake your hand or they come and greet you, yeah, I, I tend to find that people that are in the know will come and, you know, come straight to your hand straight away, and people who aren’t are, are more hesitant or might even give up.

Yeah.

That’s a bit upsetting. Mm.

Yes, it’s a very difficult one, isn’t it? Because I’m sure some of it is that people sort of associate wheelchairs with lower-half loss of mobility [yeah] and aren’t kind of prepared [yeah]. So it takes them by surprise when you can’t move it far enough to…

Yeah, and I do think that there’s no malice in it. It’s, it’s just people don’t have the experience of it. I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t know what things would matter to me. But it, it’s those little things. And it’s, what I also find with, the most supportive people in terms of caring for me are those that can anticipate my needs and will ask me if I want things before I have to ask. So I don’t – so I will, if I’ve got a friend with me all day or a, or a relative, I will much prefer it if they almost take responsibility for checking my bag, you know, and, and getting my catheter bag emptied, rather than me have to say, ‘Oh, could you empty my catheter bag?’ That’s not nice for me to have to ask.

But – or for them to – I can’t, I can’t get anything for myself. So if they’re not sat talking to me and the TV’s not on, I’m not entertained. You know, if they go off and do something else, I’m not entertained, and I’ve got no way of reaching out for, to get my book or switch the radio on or, and so it’s, again those people that are intuitive I find always notice that and say, ‘Right, I’m just going to go and do this. Can I get you a book?’ They’ll, they won’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go and do that. You know, they’ll know that I, I need to be set up. Or, or they’ll say, ‘Oh, oh, you haven’t, you haven’t had a little nap or something or, you know, ‘How about we just make half an hour now and, you know, just have a bit of quiet time, or–‘ – but not in a patronising way. Or, you know, ‘Can I rub your feet?’ Lovely for someone to say, Can you rub my feet? I – because although they say to me, We’re more than happy to rub your feet. Just ask me any time, it’s another thing to ask. I’ve already just asked you to get me a drink ‘Get me this’ or, ‘Oh, no, not that straw, the other straw. Oh, now, can you rub my feet? Yet for them to think of that and say, Oh, oh, can I rub your feet? that’s lovely. And it’s just little things. And they, and some people are, are naturally talented at it. And it’s, it’s lovely to see that.

Here also I, two or three times I have fallen down. And the strength – once I was having a rest downstairs and I fell asleep. And I took my telephone also down. And I came back. Suddenly I realised, The telephone is downstairs. I’d better go back because somebody might ring me. I went back again, and I started coming back again, the same continuity. When I went halfway and my hand, this chair was not there, electric chair.

The stairlift?

The stairlift, the right word. The stairlift was not there, and I was trying to come up. And I was so tired. Halfway I just wanted to – the question came, Should I leave my hands and go down tumbling, or should I hang on? And then I stopped thinking completely, waited about ten minutes or something, then I pulled myself up and then I collapsed here. And I didn’t have this buzzer. The buzzer was here. And from there to walk, I mean to crawl, even the hands are getting weaker. And it reminded me of these alligators – well, alligators have got four legs [laughs]. But the snake even, they don’t have any legs, how do they wriggle and reach the places? It’s, all these things are reminding me of these things. Anyhow, it took me a long time to come and reach that. And, then I thought, Should I ring, or should I not ring? Should I wait? Because I was so exhausted. I’ll just press the thing. And then they ask me, What do you want? And I told them, I need help. Then they rang back to my neighbours and they came. Even they could not lift me, because I mean they’re not that strong either [laughs]. So, but anyhow I tried, wriggled up, and stood, sit there. It takes a very, it’s difficult to place myself from here to there, sort of thing. That is the, that thing that I have to go through and it’s my most weak point. Otherwise, okay, it’s a lovely day.

So you’ve got a, an alarm call?

Yes, I have, which is downstairs I think somewhere.

And you’ve got a, a stairlift?

Yes, I have got a stairlift.

Zimmer frame. Obviously a wheelchair.

Yes.

Are there any other bits of equipment or adaptations you’ve had round the house that have been helpful or not helpful?

No. Well, I’ve been told, well, not yet, because I can go around with this [wheelchair]. This is very helpful. Downstairs I’ve got only a Zimmer frame, from there to go to, I have to go to the toilet, rushing, running. And it’s a very helpless thing. And I heard that I could get another chair like this. I need another chair like this, that I could move about easily. That’s my necessity, which has not happened yet.

You have to laugh about it, don’t you? Like when I fall over. I mean I, we were in a restaurant in South Africa a year ago, and we were standing in the foyer of this restaurant and it was a sort of a cobblestone thing. And I obviously moved my foot wrong and I just fell over, I just keeled over. And another family had come in to the, the forecourt and they looked at me as if I was drunk. And we were in absolute hysterics while one of my daughters had to pick me up, because you just have to laugh about it. We used to laugh when I used to trip over when we had no idea what was the matter with me. I remember going into [town] with my older daughter and I’d got a huge blister on my foot from some shoes and I said, ‘Look, I’m going to have to wear my flip-flops. And you know what I’m like if I wear flip-flops, I’ll trip over. And so you’ll have to watch me. And we were walking along and suddenly there I was sprawled across the pavement. And she said, ‘Mum, you could have landed on that little boy. Not, ‘Oh, you poor thing. How are you? Did you get hurt?’ [laughs] So I thought, ‘Thanks very much. That’s nice. So you, you just have to laugh about it. You can’t, you can’t sit there grizzling, you can’t bemoan your fate, because life’s too short. And it’s certainly too short now. So.

Turning over is getting difficult in the night. And so we have to devise little ways of pulling legs up and things like that. It’s just one thing after another, you know. You get used to one thing and you know, there’s a sort of plateau every so often, where things go smoothly and on at one level, and then there’s a little drop in strength in one area or another and you find you’ve got to revise everything you do to cope with that. So turning over in bed is the most recent one. And I now have a loop of, a strap to put round my foot, so I can pull my leg up to turn over. So that makes it easier.

It sounds like a lot of the things have been you and your husband being innovative.

Yes.

And thinking how you can get round problems.

That’s right, yes, yes. It’s mostly that. And, you know, sometimes my daughters as well are quite innovative. yes, that’s what we have to do. Like just getting slippery nighties instead of cotton ones, because if you wear a cotton T-shirt it’s much harder to turn over in bed. If you can get a slippery, stretchy nylon nightie, horrible though it is, it’s a lot easier. And it’s not easy to get a slippery nylon nightie these days. You’d be surprised how difficult it was. I had people scouring Marks and Spencer’s for me, and there was nothing in Marks and Spencer’s or British Home Stores. And I eventually found something in one of those horrible, cheap catalogues and I bought four of them, because they were just what I wanted really. And they’re slippery and shiny and really rather naff-looking, but they are good at turning over in bed. So you’ve got to go for little things like that, you know, which help you. I believe some people like satin sheets, and we haven’t got to that stage yet, but somebody was telling me that they’re a good thing to have if you want to turn over. So just look for what you can get really.

And it’s constantly changing.

Yes, it is, yes. I keep dreading the next thing, you know. I find that each thing you do is okay for a while and then, you know, like walking, I was beginning to dread having to walk anywhere. I’d dread having to get to the end of the garden path. I’d dread having to walk into the place where I was working. And I would dread having to get from here to the loo for example. And so gradually things become a bit frightening and then you have to sort of say, ‘Well, am I safe doing this?’ And then you have a little sort of time when you’re not quite safe and you think, ‘If I do this again I might fall. I’d better make another arrangement. And so you decide to, you know, move into a chair, or have a ramp or have a handrail put up. And each little thing, you just have to, really don’t push it until you actually fall. You’ve got to make the decision before you fall, because if you fall you might do more damage. So you’ve got to be a bit, it’s no good being brave and saying, ‘I can do this’ to the point where you actually have a disaster. You’ve got to give in a little bit before and accept that you’re getting weak and say, ‘Right, well, I will now use a wheelchair or whatever.

About a year ago I started walking with a walking stick. But the trouble with a walking stick is, when you’ve got weak arms the stick becomes quite heavy to lift. And so I could only walk fairly short distances with a stick. I could walk longer distances if I held on to my husband’s arms. But now I find that my breathing is shallower as well and I really can’t walk long distances. So I began to think about this mobility scooter. And one of the girls that I know through the MS group had got one. And I borrowed hers for a few weeks and bombed around in it and found it quite useful. So we bought one. And, yes, it’s another emotional thing you’ve got to get over. You’re, you know, sitting there in one of these old lady’s scooters as we call them. But it does open up areas for me that had closed down. So it’s worth doing. We went for quite a nice long walk round a lake in Northern Ireland last week, which I wouldn’t have got at all without a scooter. It does make you realise how poor a lot of towns and villages are at coping with people with kind of physical needs, because their pavements are pretty atrocious. But it is a big help. And we’ve got a little one that could get in and out of the car fairly easily.

Have you had to make any adaptations to the house yet?

Not really, no. As I say the stairs are now getting difficult. But we’re lucky in that we’ve got a separate shower. So I can get in and out of the shower. I can get into a bath, but I can’t get out of a bath. So I occasionally have a bath, when my husband’s feeling fit and healthy and he can yank me out. I’ve just bought myself a kettle tipper, which is an amazing invention. And it means that again I can now make cups of tea and coffee, which I couldn’t do because I couldn’t lift the kettle up to pour the water into the cup. I am really pretty limited in the kitchen these days in what I can do with my weak arms. So we’ve bought a steamer, because then you don’t have to drain the water out of the saucepan. But I can’t do a lot in the kitchen. We tend to cook together, with me being the Gordon Ramsay and telling him what to do.

I have a wheelchair which I use when necessary but I’m trying hard not to use a wheelchair. I want to walk as long as I can. The only real problem I have is with the Local Authority, they seem to be able to place the disabled bays in the most useless places and I’m fighting a battle with the Local Authority at the moment because the disabled bays are so far from the entrance door to the, to the sports centre that it’s, it’s ridiculous in my opinion. And there’s an area at the side which could be quite easily made into disabled bays and they just don’t seem to see the necessity and I say they look at me with, with a bland expression and they say it’s within government guidelines. I haven’t seen these guidelines. To me there’s only one guideline and that is to have the disabled bay as near the entrance as possible. But they just don’t seem to have any idea of who they consult about the positioning of them, don’t seem to know where they should be.

And, and to me that’s the, we have a situation where I go where the local library and the, the staff car park is all nearer the entrance than the disabled bays and I think this is absolutely horrendous and shows a, a complete lack of understanding. But with the aid of a good friend I’m, I’m fighting the problem and I will continue to do so as long as I can. Not for me alone, but there’s other people who go with me who are disabled and they have the same problem and they don’t seem to take into account your pride and the fact that you want to be independent. We don’t want to be pushed along in a wheelchair. That will come quick enough and I think that a, a good deal more could be done certainly by our Local Authority, the Borough Council.

I mean in my estimation there’s an area of land, which is nearer the, the, the entrance door, which could put at least six disabled bays on there and they’d be all nearer the entrance than the existing ones, and usually when I go to use one of these disabled bays, often there’s a mother and child parked in there and they’re not very co-operative.

Is there anything else about getting around that you’ve noticed is harder?

It’s just the sheer effort that’s required in, in my case I can only speak for myself and it, it would probably be easier for me if I went in a wheelchair but I’m determined to walk as long as I can. What I was fortunate enough to do I won an electric scooter and I sometimes use that to go down the street and it makes such a difference to be able to move and talk, you talk to people. If you’re in the car you tend to be isolated and you can’t often get parked where you need to be parked within striking distance of where you want to be, but the electric scooter makes a big difference.

I was singing in a church last Friday and it had been designed obviously with a wheelchair ramp for the outside. But the inside had been designed before they thought of wheelchairs. And the ramp was a new concrete ramp. And I actually had to take the footrest off this to get through the door. The corridor was narrow, the door was wide enough, but I couldn’t swing the wheelchair because of the position of the door opening into the corridor. So I had to take the wheelchair footrests off and let my feet hang. That’s a drawback with these wheelchairs. If you make them tall enough for tall people, then the footrests, the wheelchair is so high it’s inconvenient. It can’t go into taxis, it can’t go into disabled vehicles. If you make it lower, and your feet are on the footrests like mine are, then the leg is lifted off the cushion. Even though I have a wedge-shaped cushion it’s still lifted off and you’re sort of perched on the back of your bottom which gets sore after a while. So what I tend to do, which is an anathema to occupational therapists, it sends them into fits and they think this is terrible, is to let my legs hang occasionally. Just lift off the footrests, not take them right off, but just lift them up and let my feet hang, which isn’t very comfortable after a while because you then find your knees hurt. My knees hurt because I haven’t got muscles to hold them. At least my legs are a bit more comfortable.

If you have the footrests lower of course, you wouldn’t be able to go over any kerbs, because the chair is fitted with a kerb-lifter, which I rather upset my occupational therapist by calling a kerb-crawler. Anyway this kerb-lifter thing works, but if the footrests are in the down position on steep curves, the footrests hit the kerb before the kerb-lifter does.

Again the church I was going to had been very carefully – they’d put a ramp in. Unfortunately nobody had thought that perhaps they needed a ramp from the road, where you unload, into the church, onto the pavement, so that you can get into the church. And I had to go about 200 yards down the road to find a place where there was a drive and a dropped kerb, which was a very steep dropped kerb, simply to get in the church.

Dropped kerbs are a problem. Where we live there’s a station, oh, 300 yards away, 200 yards away. And to get to it there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 dropped kerbs. One of them wasn’t dropped until I asked. Two of them were newly put in and horrendously steep. With my old wheelchair, when I tried to go up it, the front wheels used to come off the ground. And because the other two were on the hill, they were also very steep. So I rang the local authority, who haven’t – it’s very difficult to work out who do the kerbs, but it turns out to be the county council, which seems to be very illogical. Anyway the county council sent somebody round, who happened to be an ex-pupil of mine, and he and I hatched a plan and so they’ve done these seven kerbs much better now. It’s great. The county have been very good about that.

But there are care homes in [our town], my wife visits a lady who used to be in her choir at a care home in [our town], and as you come out of that there isn’t a dropped kerb. And the residents there used to object. So then they put in one, but there isn’t one on the other side of the road. So you have to cross up to a place where there’s a residence with a garage, and then you go to the next road and there isn’t a dropped kerb, so you go up the road to the first house with a garage and cross. It’s quite a problem. Some places are brilliant.

I’ve got a scooter as well, which I haven’t used for a few weeks now, because they’ve had all the roads up and I’ve got to go on a special route because of the dips in the pavement. But that’s wonderful, because that’s freedom. Because however much your friends are good and take you out, you only see what they want you to see. But when you go out on your own you can meander and just browse at things, and you don’t have to sort of be hurried along. So that’s lovely. Yeah.

What do you do when you get to, say if you want to go into a shop, you get off the scooter or?

No, no. I can go into the bank, I can go to the building society, the card shop, the chemist’s, the stationer’s, and the big store. Most big shops you can go in and go round on your scooter. You can even go in the lifts. So it’s very good, yeah.

Yeah.

The smaller shops you struggle with.

Yeah. Either because they’ve got a step or because there’s just not enough space.

And you can’t turn round and come out.

Yes. You have to go into reverse.

Yeah, well I did in, in Timpson’s because I needed a new key for the back. And I got in and they did me the new key, and I said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to carry me out’, because I had to reverse. But it is a wonderful feeling of independence.

Mmm. Do you drive still?

No. Well, the problem was I had a little automatic car, and it’s my right foot that’s gone and that’s the one you use. And I thought, ‘If I caused an accident I’d never forgive myself. So I gave up quite a few months ago.

Have you thought about getting, because you can get hand controls?

Yes, but when I got to wherever I was going, I couldn’t get out of the car, because I couldn’t walk anywhere, could I?

Right.

So I thought, ‘Well, I’m better with my scooter really.

I think people have been sympathetic. You know I make it quite clear that I’ve got problems or the problems that I have when I go into somewhere. A better example in a way would have been, would be the hygienist at my dentists. They’ve changed her now but when she read my notes which said, you know, I’m motor neurone disease and can’t use my arms. She was, I wouldn’t say horrified but she was worried that she couldn’t give me the suction tube to hold whilst she was cleaning my teeth. And I said, ‘Well we’ll try it and see how we get on. Her first thought was quite negative really. But as long as you, I mean people are amazingly kind if you let them know you’ve got problems whether it’s getting things from top shelf of Marks & Spencer’s or well helping you up when you fall over on occasion. I mean I haven’t fallen over for I think about five months but it does happen. It will happen again I’m sure. As I said in general people are amazingly kind.

The best thing you can do is to ask. Just standing there like a lemon looking at the top shelf lovingly is and waiting for a member of staff to come by you could be there a long time. So it’s quite a few helpful people in our local Marks & Spencer’s [laugh].