jevois

View Original

The crutch lady

Yesterday I was walking down the street in the middle of London. I saw a young lady crossing the street very slowly on crutches. When I say slowly, I mean I’ve never seen anyone handle crutches so badly and she was like a snail. She was hunched forward over these crutches with her good leg about two feet behind her body, and her broken leg stuck out the back of her as though she was pretending to be an aeroplane. The lights turned green for the couple of cars in the queue who thankfully politely waited while this lady inched to the side of the road. My goodness she was so slow it was painful to watch. It was a really unusual sight. Now for some reason, this lady didn’t approach the pathway via the gentle slope intended for wheelchairs… she approached the kerb instead, which was quite a high step. Well of course at the angle her body was positioned there was absolutely no way she could navigate this step and she came to a halt. Two scruffy teenage boys, looking as though they were out to cause trouble, who had passed her on the crossing (not difficult!), stopped and looked back at her, assessed the situation, then went back and lifted her up on to the kerb. She was thrilled. I was delighted to have witnessed the scene and I walked on with a smile on my face.