Frank appeal on streets

Frank Taylor and his newest recruit, Shiraz, have been busy selling the Warwick Blind Vision Impaired Citizens 2015 calendar.

By ALENA HIGGINS

FRANK Taylor was just 24 years of age when he began losing his sight.
The year was 1964 and Mr Taylor, a newlywed, was working for Western Transport as a truck driver when an eye specialist suspended his licence.
Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa – an inherited, degenerative eye disease – the Warwick local received his first guide dog in 1972 and his current dog, two-year-old Shiraz, is his fifth.
It is the first year the black Labrador has joined Mr Taylor on his annual pilgrimage to sell calendars for Warwick’s Blind and Visually Impaired Citizens – a support group for Guide Dogs Queensland – after his previous pooch, Zinnya, was forced to became a companion dog after she developed problems with her hind legs.
“For a very young dog she is doing a very good job,” Mr Taylor said of the pup.
“I have been going out the last four days selling 25 calendars a day and she is getting used to finding all the shops.
“You don’t know how lucky you are to have a guide dog because once you haven’t got one, boy, you’re in trouble.
“When I didn’t have Zinnya for six weeks I was house-bound.”
Mr Taylor, who chairs the group, has been selling 500 calendars a year for the past eight years to help raise money for support equipment.
He estimates there are about 1,000 blind or visually impaired residents living in Warwick.
“We don’t make a big fortune out of them,” he said.
“We make 90 cents per calendar but we would rather sell them for $5 and sell them all, than sell them for $11 and not sell many.
“If any blind person in Warwick needs anything I will help them out with what they need.”
Mr Taylor said members of the public could purchase their 2015 calendar from the Condamine Medical Centre, My Optical, Warwick Computers, and Cutz 4 All.
Members of Warwick’s Blind and Visually Impaired Citizens meet on the second Tuesday of each month at noon at the Condamine Horse Club.