| A relaxed crutch walk |
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It was a lovely sunny day at the Agricultural Show. There were probably 70,000 people there. I glimpsed her standing in front of a sideshow - the kind where you put table-tennis balls into the mouth of a clown which moves from side to side.
I saw her axillary crutches, so I stopped to see whether she was an amputee or otherwise in need of walking assistance. She was wearing clingy leggings on this cool day. The right leg ended about 4 inches below the hip, and the empty leg was folded tightly into her waistband behind. From the side I could see the well-rounded stump profile. She was about 5'8", well-rounded, but not fat, and about 28; her 4 year old daughter played round her foot. Her daughter would walk under her stump to look at the game. When the game was ended, they walked off, and I followed. Any time she made a turn, her stump would flick up to 90 degrees; other times it rested at about 15 degrees forward of the vertical. She had a very relaxed crutch walk, and I estimate she lost the leg when she was pre-teen - the stump was not as muscular as her remaining leg, which would have done credit to a junior weightlifter - powerful upper thigh and quads.
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