Audrey Ellis - Searching Fifty Shades Of Grey

Her home had been a loving one; with her husband a miner until an injury had forced him onto the pit-head and them living in fear. The threads of their family held together then by her increasing her hours as a baker, out of their home early morning, returning late evening, with dramatic stories to tell in the fading firelight when their world had been happy. There were small things that made her home slightly different from the rest in the terraced street. Since there was no specialist state day school for blind and partially sighted children in their area, they'd put spare cash away in a tin. These measures allowed their bright and beloved boy to learn touch typing and Braille. His parents aware that these were the skills he would need if he was to eventually become independent; his eyes always weak.

Every Wednesday tea-time, having left a stew cold in a pot, took two bus rides to a tutor in Durham.

“I hate going to that silly man. His breath smells of tobacco rapping me all the while on my knuckles simply because I tap the wrong key. There must be something I can do on the docks or in the station!”

His grandfather had worked on the boats, but then didn’t most of the folks round there, including his fully sighted school friends!

Lucy didn’t know what to say. How might he be expected to accept the idea that, by the age of twenty he faced the possibility of losing all his sight; which was what the doctor at Sunderland hospital had warned might happen? When was the best time to break this sad news? How might he cope......these were the thoughts that worried her as the years came and went?

But she couldn't protect him forever could she?

So it was that the family moved from Sunderland to Coventry; hoping for a better life. Their belongings stashed into a borrowed van. After a long tiring day they arrived at their new home. It was thought best that James had a bed-settee downstairs; with the twisty, winding, steep stairs. As time passed life became settled and neighbors became friends.

However the passing years brought more challenges for James but at least he had found work.

After leaving school he had been employed as a rope runner on the small-gauge single-track railway; where trains carried defused bombs to be safely dumped after the war. All that had gone.

“There's nothing for it. I’m going to London. My mind is made up. I won't be stopped!”

Every evening he'd tapped his way around the streets. Expanding his routes; expecting he would have accidents He joked he was made of rubber and he bounced; not seeing the tears in his mother’s eyes as she placed his ceramic water bottle to the middle of his soft-to-sink-into mattress; where his tears had once dampened his pillow.

His mum knew what she had to do. She had to let her son go. He wasn't a child but a man over six feet tall with size-11 shoes and a liking for Player’s cigarettes.

Lucy was dressed as usual by six. She’d scrubbed the red kitchen tiles and wooden draining board, and was deep in thought.

Bang…

“Oh my God, Son, I am so sorry, and how stupid of me. I should have thought to move that bucket before now. Here let me help you up!”

“It’s alright, Ma. Please don’t fuss”.

His loving mother rushed towards him.

“But you’re bleeding, look at you and your trousers. Let me at least go and fetch you a clean pair!”

He walked sadly away from her and her old photos knowing it would take more than a clean pair of trousers to fix his sadness and loneliness.

He hoped, as he carried his brown battered suitcase out of their front door, that one day they would understand. So it was that he entered his new set of challenges, always holding onto an unwavering desire and dream that would carry him forward into a life where he would fight for his place in the world, and love as others loved. He knew he'd found that person in May. He would need all his strength and courage; his family had been his rock. …...it was now up to him!

“Settle yourself in love. I'll pop your case and coat on. I've tried my best to make you feel comfy. If I were your mum I'd be fretting no end about you. Must crack on with your tea'.

She should have felt happy that at last she was free; but at what loss?

She stepped on the tail of a cat stretched out beneath the open window which mixed with the whirl of traffic, raised voices and cisterns whilst the cat with the sore tail shot beneath the bed screeching.

“We have to face facts,” whispered May as she strolled hand in hand with James in the darkening streets of London near their boarding house. They took a stroll most nights after he had finished work. “Mum and Dad aren’t going to change their attitudes are they?

“Well”, he replied, his white stick tapping the pavements into the now darkening street (which of course didn’t matter to them) they can’t stop us from having a normal life. At least you r still in one piece after a month, apart from a few bruises when that chump Bert from three rooms down left his work things in the hallway like that!”

May squeezed his arm.

“The man didn’t think did he? Anyway, I am fine now, and it’s been kind of your landlady to put me up like this. I don’t know how she has found the time with boarders to feed and rooms to be cleaned; she has been so kind and thoughtful helping me in all sorts of ways.

“I know”, James replied as he dropped a letter he had typed to his folks, back home into the letter-box three streets away from their digs.

“She was just the same with me when I arrived here from Coventry last year with my case. Do you know it was her that helped me get my telephonist’s work at Balham Hospital? A nephew of hers works there as a porter I think”.

That following Saturday, James played his accordion down at The Prince of Wales whilst May sat in the snug with a drink. She knew that however much she tried to get her dad to understand he wouldn’t budge from his views. There was as much chance of her dad softening his heart as there was of plaiting fog. She wished for a brighter outcome but had to face the chilling reality. Hearing the rain falling on her window she reached again for her typewriter.

Well, Mum and Dad, here I am again, and still with no word from you. Our very quiet wedding in June wasn’t quite what I had dreamed of when I was a little girl. It was still lovely though. I hope you will understand one day. May thought again of her wedding day ...........

“How wonderful of you, thank you, Mrs Franks murmured May, taking a freshly picked bouquet of flowers, wrapped in a thin feeling ribbon?

Remember how they had met up with a couple of’ partially sighted friends!

A room had been booked at a modest hotel for their honeymoon. It was time to think of their new home. At least they could plan for the future and children to.

James stopped to light a Player’s cigarette as he stood against the front gate of a house in Harold Hill Romford Essex. As he listened to a dog barking his thoughts returned to his parents; heading home to his sisters- promising to help but pointing out without interfering!

Everything felt almost perfect; they were ready to live their own life in their own way; becoming parents in their own right.

“What a beautiful baby!” he was told by the midwife who’d delivered and laid her gently in his anxious arms. They couldn't see who she resembled but they could touch her and smell her and know she was theirs! They were ready to show everyone that being blind wasn't a barrier.

He’d already telephoned May’s mum and dad to share his wonderful news; all they could do was to wait and to hope.

“Now where the hell is that bloody key?” he muttered as his hands stretched out over all the surfaces; including the cold sink heaped high with boxes of all shapes and sizes. He heard a ting and a clink as the key slipped lightly to the tiled floor.