This isn't something I'd wish to write. I don't enjoy conflict.

But, faced with the prospect of being taunted every time, or virtually every time, I pass a certain shop (which is most days and could easily be four or more times on some days), my column here would seem to be my only effective way of standing up for myself.

Almost as a matter of course, when I'm out and about, I bump into or get slightly tangled up in this or that.

Or, rather, it's generally my white stick that makes contact, not me (though not always so!).

Mostly I can continue on my way without needing any assistance. Even so, when help is offered in these situations, I either try to decline it as courteously and good-humouredly as I can, or sometimes actually accept, just to be civil.

But what if I suspect that assistance being offered is only a pretence of help?

When a teenage boy (it's almost invariably a teenage boy) shouts from across the street there's a wall or a hole in front of me when I'm absolutely certain there's no such thing, I can more or less ignore it as an isolated incident.

Similarly then, when a certain shop assistant started calling to me as I approached his shop, I at first believed he was indeed meaning to warn me. Perhaps I was about to walk into his mounted display boxes or other items placed along the kerb.

As this continued, my first response was to point out that the kerb-side display shouldn't be there at all. But if I complain about everything that's where it shouldn't be, my life would be one long lather of complaint!

Soon, however, I began to feel that this increasingly frequent and never-changing call of "Whoa, whoa, whoa" as I passed was not only not very informative but also not in the least necessary.

True, my stick would quite often tap against the display, but that's just me using my stick how it's meant to be used.

I was causing no damage whatsoever. So I began to feel irked and must have shown it on my face and by my body language. I began to believe that I was actually being toyed with.

Always "Whoa, whoa, whoa" and delivered in exactly the same tone, which I was now hearing as mocking, taking pleasure at my discomfort.

Yet, could I be sure? It might still just be his particularly clumsy way of trying to help . . . so I said no more for the time being.

But it was playing on my nerves now. And, the worst of it is, when that happens, my mobility does suffer.

Before long, though, when it was "Whoa, whoa, whoa" practically every time I passed the shop, whether or not my white stick touched anything, I was convinced this was deliberate taunting.

So when my stick did touch the display one day and I heard the same old chant from immediately behind me, I spun round . . . and lost my temper.

But both then and a couple of days on, when I managed to explain more calmly my beliefs and feelings around all this, the accused man strenuously and indignantly protested his innocence. He'd never make fun of a blind man, he said. Perish the thought!

So had I totally misjudged the situation after all?

Things did change after that . . . but for the worse. Now he was openly taunting, singing his "Whoa, whoa, whoa".

One more intervention from me, this time to let him know there was action I could and would take (meaning this column, but not actually saying so). But he was only singing!

My first impulse was to simply name and shame the shop. But what did I actually want to happen for myself? I wanted this nonsense to stop and for there to be no negative repercussions for me.

So the next step was to talk with the shop's owner, who doesn't work there himself.

And, so far, at any rate, that has had the desired effect.