emma and i - Sheila Hocken

by Emma

  course came later, when we had to use various kinds of makeup

  we had never before thought possible: eye-shadow,

  mascara and eye-liner. I had no idea how to apply them. joan

  started by telling us, 'First of all, you have to match your

  colours. If you're going to wear a green dress, then you want a

  green eye-shadow.' It may sound odd, but that had never

  occurred to me, and it was a minor revelation. 'Then,' she

  went on, 'you have to match your lipstick to your eye-shadow

  and dress, and, in the case of a green dress and eye-shadow

  you could use a pink shade of lipstick.' I was fascinated.

  EVENING CLASSES

  95

  But the problem still remained: how actually to apply the

  eye-shadow?joan came round to each one of us and demonstrated,

  and by feeling we learned. She put the eye-shadow

  on me, and I realized it could be done by touch, and that the

  bone above the eye and at the side is a good guide, while the

  eyelash could be felt as a limiting landmark for shadow.

  Mascara was a little more difficult, and even with practice

  we only partially succeeded. No one found it possible to put

  mascara on the lower lashes. Eye-liner was easier because the

  line of the top of the lashes could be felt and followed. But

  although I say it was easier, it all took a lot of practice and a

  lot of care before we got it right, andjoan was endlessly patient

  in coming round and telling us how we were getting on. Fairly

  frequently we had to take offwhatever we had put on and start

  all over again.

  Nail-varnish was another beauty aid joan dealt with. Up to

  then, I had used nail-varnish, but by the technique of covering

  my nails and the surrounding skin. When it was dry, I

  would peel off the varnish from the skin. A girl at work had

  once watched me doing this, and observed: 'You're getting

  varnish all over the skin round your nails. I'd always thought

  how beautifully you put it on.' I replied, 'Well, now you know

  how I do it.'Butjoan helped me to apply the varnish correctly

  and efficiently by touching the outside of the nail first, over the

  cuticle, then brushing upwards to the top.

  The class was a huge success, and it made me feel marvellous

  when I was going out with Don because at last I could make

  myself up properly. People we met sometimes asked, 'Who put

  your make-up on for you?' I was now able to answer, 'I did,'

  and it gave me a terrific feeling of completeness, and of being

  equal to everyone else.

  The make-up and beauty classes in fact went so well, and

  David Selby was so impressed by the results, that it was

  decided to hold further evening classes solely for the blind.

  The next session, we tackled flower arrangement. Colours, of

  course, were an obvious obstacle. Yet some flowers, with so

  many differing leaves and petal shapes, can be learnt by

  96

  touch, and hence the colours can be learnt too. As daffodils

  are unmistakable to the fingers, it can be known immediately

  that there is a yellow flower. Similarly, chrysanthemums are

  easy to identify, and so bronze or deep red or yellow is the

  scheme for the arrangement.

  In addition, what we had learnt in the make-up and beauty

  class about matching colours was useful here. People had told

  met that various colours matched, or clashed violently, but it

  was not until doing these evening classes that I really fixed

  the various possible and impossible combinations in my mind.

  Applying all this knowledge, and using the pin-holders we

  were taught about, we came up with some quite respectable

  displays.

  The next course, dressmaking, was an even bigger

  adventure. There had been dressmaking classes at my school,

  but I had never been allowed near the sewing-machine, and

  such attempts as I had made unfailingly turned out badly.

  The teachers at school had no technique for teaching a blind

  pupil something for which sight seemed an indispensable

  asset. But the evening classes under our two teachers, Irene

  and Hazel, were very different.

  We started with basic techniques. We were all given small

  pieces of material, and shown how to tack by making loops,

  using wool, or stronger thread, instead of ordinary fine cotton

  so we could know what we were doing by touch. Then we were

  given skirt patterns. But instead of the ordinary kind of tissue

  patterns that are bought in shops, these were made of much

  thicker paper, almost the texture of wallpaper. Hazel and

  Irene had given this great thought and decided that with a

  stiffer paper we would be able to cut out the patterns ourselves.

  They had made dots about an inch from the edge all

  round, so that once we had cut out the patterns, they could be

  folded back and we could feel these dots in order to do the

  tacking. They had cut holes in the pattern where the darts

  were meant to be, so that we tacked round the darts while we

  still had the pattern on the piece of material, and when we

  took it off, we could feel where we had tacked. This was a

  I ~

  EMMA AND I

  Sheila aged five

  Sunday School

  Whitsuntide Walk

  Emma at three

  weeks (back row,

  second from right)

  Emma at eight weeks

  Leamington Spa-trainer Brian Peel on left

  Paddv Wansborough with Emma, Sarah and Miranda

  Sponsored ~ alk

  through Nottingham

  Ming and Ohpas

  Em a and Ming

  Emma no~,

  Emma-retired

  I

  Ke.r(,iisa Emrna Louise

  EVENING CLASSES 97

  marvellous innovation for the blind, and Hazel and Irene had

  achieved it by themselves wearing blindfolds and, by trial and

  error, discovering what a blind person might or might not be

  able to accomplish.

  Next came work on the electric sewing-machine. On all the

  controls of the machine there were braille instructions, and

  Hazel and Irene had also had a needle-guard fitted, as well as

  a guide-in the shape of a long metal strip-to ensure that we

  put the material through straight.

  Yet much as I admired all this, and felt I would be able to

  handle the machine properly, I was rather reluctant to make

  my first attempt. I heard everyone else using the machine,

  and it whirred away busily. Then Hazel came over and said,

  'Come on, your turn Sheila.' 'Is it?' I said, 'Surely there's

  someone else before me.' 'No,' said Hazel, 'everyone else has

  been. Come on, it won't bite you.'

  I went over to the machine and felt it gingerly all over,

  and said, ~What if I get my hand under the needle and

  stitch my fingers?' 'You won't,' said Hazel, 'there's a needle

  guard.'

  So I had to start, and once I had got my piece of material

  in the machine all went reasonably well. I found I had to be

  careful about the speed, which was controlled by a foot pedal.

  I chose a slow speed so I could feel what I was
doing in time

  to avoid mistakes. At first I could feel the material slipping

  through my fingers and didn't know what was happening to

  it. So I went a little crooked on the sewing but Hazel was

  beside me to help, and eventually I mastered the technique,

  although that still didn't prevent me from making some

  blunders that would have instantly earned me the sack in a

  commercial rag-trade establishment.

  I was making, for instance, a pair of trousers, and was left

  to machine them up myself. But when I felt the result of all

  MY work I could not understand what had happened. Instead

  of a pair of trousers I had produced a very long skirt! I had

  sewn all the wrong seams together. On another occasion, I

  produced a dress with one sleeve inside, and one outside.

  D

  98 EMMA AND I

  Nevertheless, if I knew I would never work for Hardy Amics,

  I still had a marvellous time, as did everyone else in the class.

  Some of them had far more ability than I, and made really

  pretty clothes, and while-despite aids such as braille tape

  measures-we all needed some sighted help for dressmaking

  (Don used to come to the rescue when taking up hems and

  getting measurements right), we all felt, when the course

  was over, we had achieved something really valuable for

  ourselves.

  I suppose that the great thing about the evening classes

  was that they widened our confidence in our own capabilities.

  So much so that several of us got together and decided we

  should like to start a drama group for the blind in Nottingham.

  We knew there were similar groups in other places. In London,

  for example, there was one at the Jewish Blind Centre. So we

  went ahead. We obtained permission from our own local

  Blind Institution to hold rehearsals on their premises and

  found two drama teachers to help us.

  At the first meeting, several problems presented themselves.

  We chose two short one-act plays: Companion to a Lady by

  Stanley Houghton, and The Dear Departed by Mabel Constanduros

  and Howard Agg, but we had to decide how we were

  going to learn our parts. One of the teachers suggested that a

  recording could be made of the plays, and so we would be

  able to learn our lines from tape. This was fine; the next task

  was to work out how we were going to get about the stage.

  Fairly obviously we could not take our dogs with us. In the

  end it was decided that the stage would be exactly measured

  out for us, as well as the distances between each prop and

  piece of furniture, and a strip of carpet would be put at the

  front of the stage just before the footlights, to prevent us

  striding off the stage into Row A. This worked, though it

  meant that in addition to learning the lines, we had to learn

  each movement, whether it was seven paces upstage and turn

  to the right, five paces from the wings and face outwards, or

  two paces to the left and exit stage right.

  We had great fun at rehearsals until, at last, the night of otir

  EVENING CLASSES 9

  first dress-rehearsal arrived. It was the night before the actua

  show. We had been booked for two nights at a local amateu

  theatre, and all the tickets had been sold out. I had to run on to

  the stage because someone had attempted to murder my

  aunt, rush forward, reach the carpet-strip (and so know I was

  next to the bed my aunt was sitting on), sit down beside her

  and put my arm round her to comfort her, then go over to the

  telephone in the left-hand corner of the stage and dial the

  police. During rehearsals we had no telephone, and simply

  pretended there was one. By the time of the dress rehearsal

  most of the props were in place, but I had been told a few

  days before that there would not be a t I

  the first night.

  Unfortunately, things did not go as smoothly as we had

  hoped. My piece, in fact, was a disaster from beginning to end.

  I whisked on to the stage, shouting'Aunty, I'm here, I'm here',

  and dashed over to her. I felt the carpet-strip, turned round

  to sit on the bed, missed it completely, dragged her on to the

  stage with me, and we both sat in a heap, dying with laughter.

  To my horror, I heard more laughter-from out front-and it

  was only then that I realized an audience had been invited to

  watch the dress rehearsal. I was so embarrassed. When I had

  recovered and dusted myself down, I rushed over to where the

  phone was meant to be, pretended to pick it up and dial the

  police, and then made my exit to some rather puzzling

  murmurings from the audience.

  I walked straight into the arms of the director backstage,

  and she immediately hissed at me,'Whatwere you playing at?

  What about the phone, thc,.i?'

  'Well, I did that bit, T did that bit,' I said.

  'No, the phone was there,' she said, 'you fool. You were

  about an inch away from it, pr-~tending to pick it up, and it

  was there all the time. The audience couldn't make out what

  you were playing at.'

  But that was not the end of the evening's misfortunes. We

  all went on to take a curtain call, and the girl who had played

  my aunt had lost one of her slippers. When we were all nn

  - "~ ua teiepiione untii

  I

  ioo EMMA AND I

  stage, she said, 'Quick, I've lost one of my slippers, help me

  find it.' So when the curtain went up, there we were, on our

  hands and knees. I suppose stranger things have happened in

  the history of British drama but I cannot imagine what they

  might be.

  It was about this time in my life that I became an Avon

  representative. One evening Don and I were discussing my

  finances (never very healthy) and I asked him if he thought

  there was anything I could do to earn a little over and above

  my wages from my daily job at the garage. I was well aware

  that not being able to see narrowed the field of opportunities,

  but I thought there must be something I could do. As it

  happened, an Avon representative had called on Don that

  evening, and he suggested I could do that.

  At first thought, I was dubious. 'Oh, Don,' I said, 'I really

  couldn't go round to people's houses and flats trying to sell

  them things, and there's a lot of form-filling entailed, you

  know, which I couldn't do.'

  'Yes, you could,' said Don, 'and if there was much formfilling,

  I could do it for you. Why don't you ring them up and

  get one of their area representatives to call?'

  In the end I was persuaded, particularly since I could take

  a small tape recorder round with me and talk all the sales

  details into the microphone. I rang up the local Avon representative

  and she came round to tell me all about their selling

  scheme, and how to process the orders, and so I was in

  business. I decided that I would limit myself, to begin with at

  least, to the three hundred flats in my block and the adjoining

  ones; I knew how to get round them without much difficulty.

  So we set off. Emma
, I think, did not know what to make of it,

  since we stopped at every door and knocked. But things

  worked out well. The numbers on the doors were raised and

  I could feel where I was, and if people happened to be out

  when I knocked, I simply recorded their number on tal)e so I

  could call again the following evening.

  The response was far better than I could have thought

  possible. I found a lot of people interested in the beauty

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  EVENING CLASSES ioi

  products I was selling, and, very often, I was invited in for a

  cup of tea. But my success was due in no small part to Emma.

  Most of the people in the flats had seen her out with me, and,

  apart from being interested in the Avon scheme, they also

  welcomed the opportunity to say hello to Emma. Quite

  possibly she sat in mute appeal: 'Please buy something, or

  she won't be able to feed me tomorrow.' Whether or not this

  was the case, I have no idea, but the orders came in very well.

  About once a week we would translate them off the tape, and

  Don would spend hours filhng the forms in.

  It was a rewarding extension to my life, and not only

  financially. Through the scheme I got to know a whole new

  circle of friends. In addition, I used to meet people who quite

  obviously rarely went out except to do the shopping, and

  hardly had anyone to visit them. There were a lot of lonely

  people in those flats, and I think they liked me calling, and

  seeing someone they could talk to. It was astonishing, too,

  how I found myself able to help in other ways. Because I had

  done the make-up and beauty class, I was able to give advice.

  A surprising number of women used to want guidance about

  what kind of shades they should wear. I used to ask, 'What

  colour hair have you got? What colour eyes? What sort of

  tone would you say your skin is?' And as a result I would say

  what shades I thought best.

  This really was marvellous, and gave me great confidence.