-- Reviews by the Famous and well Known
This fascinating book takes us behind the scenes of the partnership between a blind person and her guide dog and gives a highly readable and moving account of what that partnership really means.
Jill Allen-King is already known to many as a tireless and inspirational campaigner for the rights of blind and partially sighted people. Her book Just Jill, published in 2010, gave a remarkable insight into her life, from losing her sight totally at the age of 24, on her wedding day through her struggle to regain her confidence and independence, to her continuing high profile and high octane work, now in her 70s, on behalf of blind and other disabled people.
This latest book tells the story of the six guide dogs who have supported Jill over the past 40 years and without whom her own story would be very different. As Jill tells us, no one who is sighted can really understand the relationship between a blind person and their guide dog. Each of Jill’s guide dogs has shared important stages in her life and each, in their very different ways, has been an integral part of all that she has achieved. I have been privileged to know Jill and all of her guide dogs, and to work with her on transport and mobility issues over many years.
Behind the calm, confident image of a blind person and guide dog walking along the street with which we are all familiar is a demanding and at times stressful process for the blind person of learning to put their trust in the dog. For the dog too there is a steep learning curve and many obstacles and challenges along the way.
As Jill describes so vividly, not all partnerships work out and dogs – like people – have their own characteristics and personalities. The book starts with the loyal and devoted Topsy who gave Jill the confidence to travel again after losing her sight and with whom she started her lifelong campaigning work. But then, for a brief period, came Bunty whose over-exuberance and greed made life very stressful for Jill.
The death of a guide dog is particularly traumatic for a blind person and Jill writes movingly of the loss of her closest and most constant companions and the struggle to come to terms with starting again on the long process of training, familiarisation and confidence building with a new dog.
Through the story of working with her guide dogs Jill also charts a fascinating social history in which her own campaigning has played such a key part. She takes us from the early days of commonplace prejudice which banned guide dogs from local libraries and many other public places through to the opening up of opportunities to take guide dogs on overseas travel and – a particular triumph for Jill – to Buckingham Palace for her OBE investiture in 2011.
Jill’s Leading Ladies is an intensely personal story of the part that her “best friends” have played in giving her back the freedom she had lost when she went blind. It is also a powerful chronicle of the obstacles of prejudice, ignorance and tradition that Jill has taken on and demolished – and that she still challenges today.
Ann Frye OBE, Head of the Mobility & Inclusion Unit at the Department for Transport - Written the Foreword
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-- Newspaper and Website Reviews
JILL'S LEADING LADIES
Ipswich 24 Magazine
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JILL'S LEADING LADIES
Romford Recorder
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JILL'S LEADING LADIES
The Weekly News
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'SHE GAVE ME BACK MY LIFE'
Daily Telegraph
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MY GUIDE DOGS CHANGED MY LIFE. THEY HAVE MADE ME TRULY FREE
JILL ALLEN-KING was just 24 when she went completely blind on her wedding day. Having lost one eye to measles as a baby, glaucoma claimed the other just as she was cutting her cake. Following that day in 1964, Jill spent seven years “virtually housebound”, but gradually began to reclaim her independence with the arrival of her first guide dog, Topsy.
She is now guided by her sixth dog, Amanda, and is thankful for all the four- legged friends who have helped shape her life and allowed her to become a formidable campaigner on behalf of other blind and partially-sighted people (work that has earned her both an MBE and an OBE).
Amanda’s campaigns have included achieving access for guide dogs to many, previously inaccessible, public places but she says there can still be problems. Just last Sunday she was on her way to a Titanic-themed fund-raising event and a taxi driver tried to stop Amanda getting into the car. “Straight away he said, ‘I don’t take dogs’. And I said ‘This is my guide dog, legally you have to take her’.”
This however seems relatively moderate compared with the prejudice Jill faced when she lost her sight. When she and her first husband Mick found out they were expecting a child (daughter Jacqueline) Jill was told her disability would make her an unfit mother and she was urged to have an abortion. She kept the baby but afterwards bowed to pressure to have herself sterilised so she could not have any more children.
Although motherhood brought a sense of fulfillment, Jill still lacked the independence she craved and eventually decided to get a guide dog, despite being initially reluctant.
“There were a lot of buts,” she says. “I knew there were so many places where they weren’t allowed to go and I knew I would have to leave Jacqueline for four weeks to do the training. The social worker said that having a dog would make it even harder to get a job and, of course, I was still hoping I’d get my sight back.”
Yet, when she returned home with 22-month-old black Labrador Topsy, training completed, Jill’s life was changed forever. “I was able to go out and about. Even after 40 years I still appreciate that.” Now 72, Jill is still very active, campaigning and attending conferences. She has also found time to write a book, Jill’s Leading Ladies, paying tribute to her dogs.
Topsy gave Jill back her confidence and enabled her to meet Princess Diana at a Buckingham Palace garden party to mark the International Year of Disabled People in 1981. Sadly, a year later, the Lab was diagnosed with cancer and put down. Although every effort is made to match dog and owner, occasionally mistakes are made. Jill’s next dog, Bunty, was too much of a handful. “She was too big and she was a naughty, naughty dog,” says Jill.
“She basically didn’t want to be a guide dog, I think. You can’t force them to work. She just wanted to be an ordinary dog and play, but that made it very unsafe for me.”
Bunty’s greed for both food and attention meant that she only lasted six months with Jill. The incident highlights the difference between working guide dogs and pets. Jill has given countless talks in schools and churches in which she explains the importance of not distracting a guide dog as it leads someone around.
“The dog has got to concentrate on everything so we don’t walk in dog poo or on uneven pavements. They’ve even got to walk us round overhanging branches. It’s really hard for even the nicest people to understand why they can’t stroke a guide dog or give it a tidbit to eat.
“Every guide dog is different and you must learn to trust them.”
HER THIRD dog, Brandy, arrived in 1983, a year of emotional ups and downs as she divorced Mick and moved in with Alvin, the man who would become her second husband. She was also appointed an MBE. Ironically, the honour was to recognise the work Jill had done improving access for guide dogs, but Brandy was forbidden from accompanying her into Buckingham Palace.
The emotionally turbulent year meant that a very strong bond was formed. “We were just so in love with each other, Brandy and I. I still miss her now after all these years,” she says. Sadly, Brandy was attacked by another dog which left her nervous and she had to be retired as a guide dog after three years.
“I couldn’t even keep her as a pet as she would have upset my next dog. It broke my heart when she went.”
Brandy was followed by Quella in 1986, a “slow and stately” dog who took her duties seriously. “I was ever so busy but Quella slowed me down which was good for me. She wouldn’t rush to get a bus or a train, she’d go at her own speed and she knew she was a guide dog.”
Quella was allowed to stay as a pet when she retired and was replaced by “lively and very sociable” Lady, a happy and reliable dog whose tail was always wagging. She retired in 2004 but was also kept as a pet.
Jill’s current dog, Amanda, has been working since 2004 and, unlike Brandy, was allowed to accompany her when she collected her OBE last year. “She’s the most intelligent dog I’ve had but I have to be wide awake. She is so intelligent that she will step off the kerb if she sees no traffic is coming even before the lights change. I say ‘No’ but I can feel her thinking ‘But why?’
“She wakes me up every day at half past six and it took her only a day to work out that the clocks had changed.”
Amanda is, apparently, also a terrible flirt. “She loves men and she loves having her photograph taken,” says Jill. “Someone came from the local paper to take our picture the other day and, for the first time ever, it was a woman. I think Amanda was terribly disappointed.”
Jill is at pains to point out that no matter how clever and dependable one’s guide dog, blind people still need help from their nearest and dearest as well as the public.
MY DOG is illiterate,” she says. “She can’t read, write or talk so she can’t tell me if something is past its sell-by date or what number bus is coming.” She says no one should feel embarrassed about offering help to a blind person but still reserves the last word of praise for her dogs. “The dog is with you all the time. They’re the other half of you. Even after more than 40 years of being blind, I haven’t got the confidence to go out on my own without the dog. I couldn’t walk down the street alone.”
Despite her bubbly personality and decades of tireless campaigning, Jill says she would be nothing without her “leading ladies”. “Without a guide dog I’m not the person I need to be. Without a guide dog I’m not a confident person.”
● To order Jill’s Leading Ladies, The Story Of Jill’s Six Guide Dogs by Jill Allen-King OBE (£9.99, Apex Publishing) with free UK delivery call 0871 988 8366 or order online at express- bookshop.com. Calls cost 10p per minute from BT landlines.
Sunday Express
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HOW JILL'S BEST FRIENDS GUIDED HER THROUGH LIFE
Campaigner for the blind Jill Allen-King with Amanda and her new book
FOR a blind person, a guide dog is not just a pet. The dog is their eyes, their confidence and most of all for Jill Allen-King, a trusted friend.
That is why Jill, from Westcliff, decided to pay tribute to all of her four-legged friends in her book Jill’s Leading Ladies – the Story of Jill’s Six Guide Dogs.
It tells the tales of the dogs she has had over the last 40 years.They include Topsy, Bunty, Brandy, Quella, Lady and her current dog, Amanda.
Jill has been an outspoken campaigner for the blind and voluntary worker for 40 years.
She was awarded the MBE in 1983 and the OBE in 2011 for her work raising awareness of the needs and rights of the disabled, particularly pushing for issues of access to public buildings to be considered by householders, businesses, councils and the Government.
She admits she couldn’t have done much of her work without the help of her dogs.
Jill says: “Having a guide dog gave me my life back after I went blind and gave me the confidence to do my campaign work.
“Each of them had their own personality and they were always so much more than pets, they were friends.”
Growing up partially sighted, Jill went blind on her wedding day at the age of 24 and was housebound for almost seven years.Once Jill had been trained to use a blind dog at 31, it changed her life.
Jill says: “My motivation to use a guide dog was originally to be able to take my young daughter Jacqueline to school. When I got my first dog Topsy, it meant I also got my freedom back.”
Once Jill had got her confidence, she started giving talks at churches and schools about being a blind person. She has given more than 1,000 in 40 years, including one year when she did 63.
It was while going through the meticulous notes she kept of the talks she had given that the idea of a book came to her.
Jill, 72, says: “I have kept notes of every single talk I have given over the years – what I spoke about, where it was, some including what I wore.
“Going through the notes brought back so many memories of my life and the dogs which were with me at the time.”
The book interweaves her campaign work and the guide dogs that helped Jill along the way. It follows her autobiography, Just Jill, which was published last year.
How would Jill describe the connection between a blind person and a guide dog?
She says: “When I go out with a guide dog we work as a unit and they are my eyes. I can’t function without them and they can’t function without me. I couldn’t go out alone, even now, without a dog, and one I am confident with.
“The need for guide dogs is even greater now because there are a lot more hazards around nowadays with things like electric cars, which you can’t hear.”
Every dog in Jill’s life holds different memories.
She says: “Brandy helped me through my divorce and so she will always be special to me. Sadly, she was attacked by a dog and it made her nervous and unpredictable, so I had to let her go.
“After her I kept every dog after they had retired. At one point we had Quella until she was 15 and a half, Lady until 13 and a half and my husband’s dog living with us at the same time.”
The dogs are trained to be able to switch on and be in working mode when they are needed. Jill says: “When they are indoors they behave just like normal dogs. When the harness is on and you lift it, they know they are working.
As she has got older Jill’s needs have changed. She says: “My life has changed completely from when I first had a guide dog. I had a young child and my priorities were different.
“I am lucky because Amanda can read my mind. She knows when I want to get up and comes in at 6.30am every morning. When the clocks went forward it only took one day for her to work it out – so I got a lie-in for one day!”
Jill lives in Westcliff with her second husband, Alvin, who is also blind. She has one daughter and two grandchildren.
She is public relations officer for the National Federation of the Blind, a trustee of Disability Essex and the charity Ricability, and is patron of Trust Links Southend.
After chairing the European Blind Union Commission for 15 years, Jill still represents the union on various committees.
She says: “I want to sit back and relax, but there is still so much to campaign for. The rights of blind people are continuing not to be considered, so I will keep working to fight that.”
Jill’s Leading Ladies – the Story of Jill’s Six Guide Dogs is on sale for £9.99. For further details, visit http://www.apexpublishing.co.uk
Southend Echo
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JILL'S LEADING LADIES
The Brit (Madeira Newspaper)
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-- Book Signings and Events
18 March 2017 - Jill Allen-King OBE talked about and signed copies of her books 'Just Jill' and 'Jill's Leading Ladies' at the Essex Book Festival, Chelmsford Library, Essex.
Essex Book Festival (2017)
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