While sharing lunch at a RNIB charitable event, I started a conversation with a gentleman opposite me, who had been sitting very quietly.

I started by asking if he would mind telling me his name. “Mine is Penny.” I began.

“I am Bill.” He replied.

“Hello Bill, may I ask you a personal question, please? He nodded his assent.

“Are you blind, partially sighted, or here as a carer for someone else?”

“I am partially sighted and colour blind.”

“Bill, may I ask you another personal question?”

“Yes!” His eyes and face showing an interest.

“What did you do before you retired?”

“I was an electrical construction engineer before I joined the army and took it up again afterwards on demob.

The army was a bit of a laugh when I received my papers. I never thought I would be called up because of my colour blindness.

However, I went for the medical fully expecting to be turned down. To my horror, I was assigned the job of a storeman. “Your colour problem won’t bother you there,” was a remark passed.

My heart sank, “How was I going to tolerate the boredom of a storeman after my exciting engineering career?”

After signing up and going through training, I was assigned to a squad of men working in stores.

One day I thought, “There has to be more to life than this and applied for promotion.” My mates said, “You will have another medical, how are you going to cope with that?”

“I am going to give it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

At the medical, I was asked all the usual medical questions till my sight was mentioned.”

“It says here you are colour blind, how bad is it? The officer shoved a book over to me and asked, “What colour is this book?”

To me, it was grey, but to others, it was maroon. I heard my mates say pass the maroon book, or look in the maroon book will you. I knew its size and shape, and it had the king’s head on it.

Confidently I replied maroon. He looked a bit surprised and asked “It is lighter or darker than a Post Office pillar box.”

I responded, “Darker, Sir.” I knew that as everyone talks about bright red pillar boxes.

On return to my mates, they asked how I got on. “I passed,” I pointed proudly to the two strips on my arm.

“Blimey, now what are you going to do? You are a leader now! Leading us up the bleeding garden path. How are you going to read the coloured signposts to all the army depots we have to deliver goods to?”

I laughed, “Easy, I will get my second-in-command to drive the lead lorry. I will be at the cows’ tail to repair any breakdowns, a piece of cake.”

So I carried on till the end of the war and my return to civvy street.

©️2026 Penny Wobbly of WobblingPen

Image by TheDigitalArtist from Pixabay

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