I met my darling wife Lynn in June 1989 and although Lynn knew when she met me that I was losing my sight, she couldn’t get her head around the fact that I wasn’t using a white stick, but more to the point neither did I want to be seen swinging a white stick to get me to my place of work; one of the world’s most exclusive banks in the centre of London.
I suppose not using a white stick was me telling myself that I 
didn’t want the world or London at least to know I was going blind, so therefore I wouldn’t use a white stick and would rather struggle, and struggle I did every day of my life until my wife Lynn came along.
You see, we all had to be extremely sharp at my bank, suited and booted in our three piece suits and with my flash brief case a white stick just had no place in how I wanted the sighted world to see me.
Anyway, having walked into quite a few people each day and getting nasty comments and tut tuts Lynn encouraged me to at least use a symbol cane, and as she said, ‘at least when you cross the road or are walking along the pavement, people will move out of your way,’ well most of the time they did.
By the time I was 37 in 1995 me and Lynn had discussed how a guide dog would fit into our lives and that when we wanted to go back to America where we got married in 1991?, we could leave Thomas with a friend for a week or two.
I contacted Guide Dogs and Wayne from the then Wokingham Centre came out to visit me in Copthorne near Gatwick which is where we lived at the time.
Wayne was at the house for almost five hours and we had a good discussion and I got to go out on a make-believe walk with Wayne holding a harness and me holding on to the handle.
This was to see how I would respond to the movements of a guide dog and for Wayne to find out how much I could see in front of me.
It was a great relief when we got back to the house and forms were filled in, now it was just a waiting game.
I did state to Wayne though, that I wanted a German Shepherd dog as I liked German Shepherds and as I am 6.2” I needed a big boy to assist me to and from London and for people to get out of my way, and they did when Thomas was on duty…
Every night we got to Victoria main line station and as we were heading for the platforms I would say to Thomas ‘find the train Tom, find the train, good boy’. Every night Tom found the train on platform 13-14 The Gatwick Express without fail, as Thames Link trains as they were in those days couldn’t have cared less whether I got on the train safely or not, let alone find a decent seat. I approached The Gatwick Express, and spoke with the management at that time. They said they would allow me to sit in first class so I was the first off the train away from the crowds and off to the underground and the first on when we hit platform 13-14. I was also one of the first off at Gatwick to jump in the lift to head across to meet my wife at The North terminal as Lynn was management cabin crew at British Airways.
Thomas was an excellent guide dog me having trained at Wokingham and lived in the training centre for three and a half weeks. The bank were very kind as they gave me the time off with full pay so that I could train with Tom but still get paid which I thought was extremely kind.
Thomas was a great hit at the bank and many a funny story has and still is told on my many talks around the country. I guess all guide dog owners can tell some funny stories about themselves and their dogs and some of these will follow in later blogs.
Thomas was puppy walked by a lovely lady who then was living in North London called Shirley, she only seemed to puppy walk German Shepherds and we did get to meet a couple of occasions quite by chance.
Thomas fitted in with me and Lynn extremely well. Lynn my wife absolutely adored Tom but possibly not nearly as much as me as he was becoming my best mate and my eyes.
In no time I was going places I hadn’t had the confidence to go before and it was a weight off Lynn’s mind as she was cabin crew and quite often away for one or two nights each week so felt she didn’t need to worry about us getting home as she knew we would take care of each other.
Thomas was a fab guide dog and friend and we got up to all sorts and when I needed to stretch my legs and get away from my desk, I would say come on Tom let’s go down to see Kay or up to see the switchboard girls on the fourth floor and I could hear people who didn’t know Tom say, ‘I’m sure I just saw a German Shepherd go by me then’, ‘you did’ someone would say, ‘that was Stefan from Tax with his guide dog Thomas’.
Oh, once I got Thomas, we never did leave him once. We went on holiday down to Devon and stayed in a cottage and Thomas loved to play ball on the beach and let his ball roll into the sea so Lynn in her wellies had to go in the sea and pick it up and as she did so, the biggest wave would fill her boots but we all got to giggle and I believe that Tom thought it was funny also!
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to have spent a year with such a super, clever, affectionate dog. We will surely miss our lovely Arthur and wish him success and contentment in his training and working life.
