However, tragedy struck for the second time when glaucoma rendered her completely blind at the age of 24 on what should have been one of the happiest occasions of her life – her wedding day. Guests included Councillor Ann Holland, Mayor of Southend, Lord Colin Low CBE, and Southend MP David Amis.

I have never managed to wield a needle to do more than fasten a button,so the fact that Jill could and did design carnival costumes for her daughter left me speechless with admiration. Thus the book fulfils the equally necessary if not more important function of trying to change the received image the general public has of the blind as people unable to work, in receipt of incapacity and other benefits. She recently told us “I have been given an MBE and an OBE, but my greatest honour was becoming Patron of Trust Links in 2011. Mrs Allen-King said: “I am useless without a guide dog and will not be confidently independent at all.NHS Digital data shows that 1,135 people in Southend were registered as being blind or partially sighted in March 2017.

The journey was the first since her guide dog Jagger was retired, at the age of 11, The Mirror reports.I knew when I went out of the gate, I could be confident and independent with walking in the streets, using public transport. One of them, which she only touches on in her book, with self effacing modesty, is being an active and long standing member of the Disability Appeals Tribunal. It succeeds to change public opinion about the impact of blindness in peoples’ lives, and it does so without deliberately setting out to do so, by the message it conveys. Jill herself has overcome adversity and has been working hard within the community for many years and we are so grateful for her ongoing support. The campaigner, who won the lifetime achievement award at last year’s Pride of Britain Awards, has helped bring in major changes for the blind and visually-impaired community, such as braille on bus buttons and textured paving at pedestrian crossings and train stations.

Ms Firth also spoke with Pete Osborne, chief operating officer of Guide Dogs UK, who assured her the organisation is doing all it can to help Mrs Allen-King OBE. This book, following close on the heels of Jill s autobiography, Just Jill, is a heartfelt tribute to her trusted four-legged friends, who have given her companionship, instilled her with confidence and guided her safely in both her personal life and in her incredibly important voluntary work throughout the UK. Jill went on to have a baby the following year but she spent her daughter’s early life too scared to go out alone.The experience last Friday has left her scared for the future if the proposed closure of 974 ticket offices come into effect. In the first few years, I was determined to prove that a blind person could and should bring up a child. She is on familiar terms with ministers, and when she shakes them by the hand, she does not let go until she has finished with them. In Southend, people have to wait for five months for the first visit from social services,” she says. Above all she has been a leading member of the movement of the blind to defend the interests of blind people and secure their rights at local, national and international level.

But after only a short conversation with Jill in her immaculate home, I realised that here was a person who had a lot to offer to adults as well as children, and I invited her to appear on the In Touch programme to give down to earth advice on “cooking without looking! Outside the tent, there were about 40 guide dogs, all sitting completely motionless, as they are trained to do. Jill Allen-King, 83, a lifetime campaigner for the National Federation of the Blind, was travelling from Essex to their conference in Windermere when one of her trains was 40 minutes late.One hundred people go blind every day in this country and 50 per cent could be cut if people went to have their eyes tested. Jill said that she never tried to remember , she simply started by putting into one of her pockets a button for every road she needed to cross. In 1971, things began to improve when Jill got her first guide dog and slowly began to regain he independence.