When I became a paraplegic nearly two years ago, people were quick – enthusiastic, even – to remind me of the things that I must miss badly. Travel. Swimming. Doing the Charleston – a big dance craze when I was a girl. But it wasn’t any of these – to be honest, I was already somewhat done with them. The thing, apart from actual walking, that I missed most, with an intensity that shocked me, was my volunteer job.

To the naked eye, it wasn’t much. I didn’t talk people down from imminent suicide over the phone or rescue hedgehogs who’d lost their prickles. All I did, six mornings a week for a couple of hours, was go to my local Mind shop and steam clothes. It was the first remotely manual job that I’d ever had, having become a writer at 17. I turned out to be good at it, both fast and thorough.

It made me feel ineffably happy. I’d bring my computer with me and blast house music throughout a shop that could sometimes be a little on the solemn side, due to the Mind Mental Elf reminders everywhere, and I sang, from sheer high spirits, though I have a shockingly bad and somewhat freakish voice. More than once my front-of-house colleagues were asked by curious browsers whether there was a child back there in the recessed alcove where I worked marvels on my unloved charges.

Sometimes I sang to my actual steam-cleaner, who I named Stephanie, professing my affection to her. That always got a laugh, especially when I sang the song by the Sixties psychedelic band Love that goes: “What can I say, dear Stephanie?/Who shall I next inform/Of love and poetry that you bring?/Your eyes, your hair, your everything!” Because of course, it was really just a bit of inanimate metal – and a potentially lethal one at that. Stephanie could get into a temper and spit; as she contained boiling water, this wasn’t fun.

I loved my colleagues. I was a solitary youngster and only appreciated the pleasure of being in a gang when I was an adult, whether creating a magazine or working on a fundraiser. I was dubbed “Tigger” due to my bouncy nature; my boss (a ravishing ex-model) was Pooh, and her deputy (a gentle, charming Goth man) was Piglet. Sometimes we laughed ourselves insensible, in a way one seems to leave behind at school. There was the time a perfect tooth was left on the desk in a perfect tiny envelope on which was written in perfect calligraphy “Tooth”. Then there was the time a male customer was questioned about whether he really wanted to purchase women’s dresses in sizes from 12 to 20 and gave the unexpected answer, “O, that doesn’t matter, it’s all about the amount of air I pump in!”

For a decade, this was a part of my day which – even as much as writing – made my life feel blessed. You read all the stats about how volunteering makes people feel good, and I think some people do it once and then judge the effect on that, but unless you’ve done it for years on end almost every day, you can’t understand how it comes to be such a huge, gorgeous part of your life that you would actually pay for the privilege of doing it. I hate the word JOY, but that was what the daily sight of a pile of musty clothes evoked in me.

It took me nearly two years to work up the courage, but this week I went back. It wasn’t the same as before; I kept banging into things, and I felt very small among the looming heaps of rubbish bags full of clothes waiting to be recycled. What if they fell on me? I’d be goner – some weird demise straight out of !

I was a big, strapping broad before becoming disabled, always hauling stuff around, so long-legged and self-adoring, even when I was in my early 60s. I knew my job was useful but I was also aware that it made me look good. I was “prideful” – as I was in everything I did. Now I saw myself in the mirror: a wizened grey-haired creature in a wheelchair, surrounded by towering jeopardy, who needed to have the clothes rail lowered for her to reach it. I had been cut down to size, in every way imaginable.

As if to test me, I became aware after half an hour that my catheter was blocked. I won’t go into the gory details here, but if you Google it, you’ll see that it’s classed as a medical emergency. But I was determined to do an hour. (I’m being prideful again; it’s like I’ve got a monstrous ego or something.)

I did, and when I went home and had to wait for the community nurse to come and perform unspeakable acts, the memory of it made me feel that my day was less about being done to – the great sorrow of the disabled. So all things being equal, I’ll be going back. This time, hopefully, without a medical malfunction.