Blind to Misfortune

Book excerpt: Bill Griffiths lost both hands and both eyes when he was a prisoner of the Japanese in Java in 1942. This book tells the story of how he overcame these two shattering handicaps, either one of which might have qualified him to spend the rest of his life quietly in a home for the disabled. But Bill had no intention of allowing himself to become an object of pity and it was not long after his return to civilian life that he began to make it clear that, even if he had no hands and no eyes, he still had his own two feet and he certainly intended to stand on them. Inevitably life has not been without its ups and downs, and he certainly Bill could not have got where he has without the care and devotion of Alice, his wife. Their story is one of remarkable courage, told with no trace of bitterness and with a generous helping of laughter. It is a measure of the man that Bill can end his story with the words, "I've been lucky"!