Is common sense too much to ask? (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Is common sense too much to ask?

4:00pm Wednesday 24th June 2009

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SIR — What is it like to walk about easily and free from pain? I have forgotten. I can’t even imagine it.

I’ve been disabled for over three years. Most food and household shopping is done at my nearest supermarket, which has a car park with spaces for the disabled.

My carer finds what I need and I hold on to the trolley with one hand and my stick with the other. When all is done, I’m exhausted.

The misery of queueing for 20 minutes or more when the post office moved to WH Smith ended when I remembered that there’s a small shop and sub-post office opposite the Cart and Horses in Kings Worthy.

My carer drives me there every few weeks. It’s open all day, we can park right outside, the staff are helpful and friendly, and we’re usually in and out in five minutes.

But there are occasions when one has to go into the city centre, and I view these with dread.

I hobble along, leaning heavily on my stick on one side, and my companion on the other, my back, legs and knees aching so abominably that I wonder if I can totter much further before collapsing in a heap on the pavement.

I’d always thought that Blue Badges were meant to make life easier, but this is evidently not so.

It would be a salutary experience for all city councillors to be disabled for a week. They might learn compassion.

A little common sense is, perhaps, too much to hope for.

After all, we mustn’t make things difficult for the buses which don’t go along the few yards of High Street between St Thomas Street and the HSBC bank, must we?

P M Tayler, Firmstone Road, Winchester.

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