When in my thirties, I was considered a good-looking woman. I worked as a professional demonstrator, hired to present products at exhibitions and conventions, trade shows and that sort of thing. I was good at it, and basically had more work offered me than I could handle.
One of the deliberate limits on my business was that I would charge, depending on the complexity of the product and the industry, for 'learning time'; for getting up to speed on the sort of answers a professional, informed potential customer might require. This cost me some of the 'pretty face' jobs, because it made me too expensive.
But, for the same reason, I was often employed for computer shows, because I knew what I was talking about. I covered some of the biggest, like the Office Equipment shows in Munich and Stuttgart, as well as the Business Efficiency Exhibition in Olympia in London.
I even had a couple of gigs in Las Vegas at The Consumer Electronics Show. However, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
All in all, I was doing very well for myself. I was professional in all ways, including keeping proper accounts, which also helped me talk about accounting systems during a time when accounting was moving off electro-mechanical machines to electronics in the 1970s and 80s. And although I had numerous casual hook-ups, I never bedded a client.
When I was 39, in 1985, it all changed. I was driving in west London, where I lived at the time so as to be close to Heathrow Airport, when I was T-boned through the left, passenger, side. The result was serious damage to my spine and my left leg. My spine had several surgeries, resulting in metal plates and various other pieces of hardware being inserted.
Doctors, over a period of months in hospital, were able to avoid amputation, but the left leg from the knee down was useless. I could not walk without crutches. They also gave me, because of internal injuries, a hysterectomy.
Eventually, I was fitted with a form of calipers, stretching from my thigh to my shin, that could lock my leg in a straight position. I could stand crutch-free, say at the kitchen sink, for a little while, before the pain in the right hip and the spine got too much. I had some movement of the left thigh, but the lower left leg, when unlocked, would just hang down vertically. So I was able to get in and out of my van, pulling myself up on the grab handles with my back to the driver's seat, and then swiveling around.
Career-wise, I was finished. Exhibitions, as a demonstrator, require that you a) looked and walked normally so as to get to the potential customer on the exhibition stand, b) stand and converse for prolonged periods of time without wincing in pain, c) be able, as a woman, to wear a skirt showing a normal, shapely leg, preferably one not covered in scars and metal calipers. And so, Cathy White was officially classified as 'Disabled'.
At age 38 I had long blonde hair, a 34c-24 34 figure and was 5'9" tall. At 40, I had shorter, curled but still blonde hair, could just make 5'9" standing tall on my good leg, and was a 36d-26-36 figure from months of laying in a bed. And I had had to work damned hard to keep my measurements down to those.
Clearly I was not going to be able to come out of hospital and resume my career. Even if I thought I could work from a wheel-chair, it would take a couple of years of physical therapy to get me strong enough and mobile enough for the hours of the job and its related travelling.
Prior to the accident, I had a slate of booking at shows and exhibitions that was 14 months out. All with signed confirmations.
Fortunately for me, if there was a silver lining, it was that the van that hit me belonged to a leading national public company, and was being driven during regular business hours on company business. It didn't help their defense, however, that the driver, although an employee of the company for several years, was driving whilst prohibited, because of a previous accident his employers were aware of. After all, that was in one of their other vans.
My lawyer, a young, earnest and determined fellow, did me proud. Because of my neatly maintained accounting, and the slate of forward bookings, he was able to fully demonstrate the degree of lost earnings, and prove that my career would have been lengthy and profitable. I had been clearly destined to continue my career beyond 40, and for many more years. I was sufficiently professional for him to prove I was hired for my knowledge and experience, and not for being a 'pretty face'.
I finished up with a nice house just yards from the sea in Dorset. It was an older, character house, but I was able to get a single-person elevator installed, because there were two storage cupboards, one directly above the other. That made it easy to move around, either with a wheel-chair or a 2-wheel Zimmer frame. To be honest, it was more a period cottage than modern house on the outside, but had all the latest gadgets on the inside.
I got a van to drive around in, with a platform on the back that would take my motorized scooter/chair. Physio-therapy got my right leg back to the point I could drive the van without having to get it modified for a disabled driver, as it was an automatic. And after paying for the house, the settlement guaranteed me enough, through investments, to live comfortably, and even to take some nice holidays.
With the physio and the calipers, I could even walk a few steps around the house without crutches, using the furniture where necessary.
The climate in Dorset is good for a wheel-chair bound person. The summers are warm, rather than hot, and the winter not too bad with just occasional cold spells.
In the summer, I would go down to the sea front, where there was a reasonable-length promenade that I could take a spin down on the scooter and get my fresh air.
At other times of year, I would drive around and explore which old pubs and restaurants I could get into. I didn't mind using my crutches as long as any steps were just a couple at a time. In fact, on those two-step level changes common in old English pubs, when going down, I would reach forward with the crutches and then sort of swing over them to the lower level. Going up meant putting the crutches right in front of the first step, bending and putting my right leg forwards and upwards, and then lifting myself and the crutches by straightening my good leg. Slow, but effective.
As I approached, at 44, my second spring down there, I got the urge for some companionship. A companion that also need some support, some TLC and some quiet to see out their latter days, and wouldn't argue with me. In other words, an older dog. As luck would have it, a local paper advertised an Open House at the RSPCA kennels not too far away from where I live, and so on the Saturday afternoon, there I was.
I went around slowly, looking at the dogs in their cages. Some came dashing over as soon as I got close, and were barking and spinning around, and jumping up against the wire enclosure. They were not for me; too energetic, and my slowness was not in their best interest. Then I saw him. As I approached, he laconically raised one eye, trying to decide if I was worth the effort of him making a pitch for a new home.
In the end, he stood up and shambled over. He was clearly a Heinz 57 mongrel, several years down life's trail. He had a black patch to the top of his head that extended down towards his right eye, like a hat. His head and neck, other than the patch, were mainly white, his body black, with four white feet.
I called one of the volunteers over. "What's his name?" I asked.
She answered "We don't know. He turned up at the gate a few weeks ago without a collar. Despite efforts, we can't find a missing dog that matches his description. We figure he was abandoned by the world."
Before I could bite my tongue, I said "I know the feeling."
She looked at me and said, "If he sees you looking at him, he comes, regardless of what you call him. Vet says he is probably about 6 or 7, perhaps more, but generally healthy and his teeth are still good. Certainly eats well, and is not a fussy eater. Seems house trained, as he doesn't mess his cage and seems well able to tell us when he needs toileting. Doesn't currently need any shots, as we gave him the full annual menu when we got him. So he is all yours for a donation, as it is Open House."
"Well, he certainly seems cool, calm and collected," I said.
She opened the cage, and he came out and sniffed all around me, and around the chair. He didn't bark, and when I extended an open hand, palm up, he looked at it, sniffed it and then licked it. I asked "Do you have a lead so I can walk him around a bit and see how he is walking alongside my chair?"
