Visual impairment

Let there be light: macular degeneration and me

4 November 2019 6 Comments

Renée

Let there be warriors…

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be regarded as warriors.” Adrienne Rich.

I was taught to read before I was five by my mother Rose. I read stories, then long books, then joined the library, changed both Rose’s and my books, read both, went out to work at the woollen mill when I was twelve and read my way around libraries wherever I worked. I worked at all sorts of jobs then, when I was forty, began studying for an extra mural BA degree. I began teaching in my forties and at fifty I began writing plays. Since then I have read and written (worked) every day. Now I am 90. I’ve just finished teaching a course on writing memoir, and The Cuba Press has just published my first crime novel, The Wild Card.

Two years ago I was told I had macular degeneration.

This is a desolate and unhappy place to be. Being labelled ‘vision impaired’ doesn’t go anywhere near describing the impact of it on my life. As a reader and a working writer it is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Ways of Seeing?

6 February 2017 2 Comments

Bruce Summers

My father-in-law, Eric Leary, was totally blind from the age of eight. During an impromptu children’s game of cricket on waste ground, somewhere in the East End of London, he was struck in the eye by a potato. This was in the 1920s: the bat was a plank of wood, the stumps a cardboard box, and the pitch just the distance from ‘ball’ to ‘bat’. The ball, of course, was the potato that changed his life forever. He was treated at Moorfields Eye Hospital but developed ‘complementary’ blindness in the other eye a few days later and subsequently had both eyes enucleated. Eric’s reaction to total blindness, as a child, was simple acceptance but later, as an adolescent and adult, he came to consider his accident as good fortune and an asset.

[Read more…] about Ways of Seeing?

On becoming illiterate

5 December 2016 2 Comments

Dr Lynley Hood

In 2009, author Lynley Hood was diagnosed with a rare eye disorder. In this video, the audio of which is transcribed below, she describes the devastation of ‘becoming illiterate’.

For every person who’s got a white cane or a guide dog there are ten people who are struggling to read, and they’re very frightened about what the future holds. I was reading in bed one evening and my left eye went blurry. I thought, time to put the light out. And in the morning it was still blurry…

The joy of blindfulness

31 October 2016 Leave a Comment

Julie Woods

Oh Helen Keller, where were you when I needed you and your wise words? Why didn’t I know of your observations of the world when I went blind? You too have walked with people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing. But why do their voices loom so large in our minds? If only I knew that sight was of the soul then perhaps my light may have come sooner.

Vision!

17 October 2016 2 Comments

Ron Esplin

Braille Art and the Power of Touch

We all know how difficult it is when birthdays and Christmases roll round as each year advances. Your intimate knowledge of your partner may increase, but your knowledge of what he or she already has diminishes the probability of coming up with a present that will show them just how much they really mean to you.

When your partner is blind, the possibilities are even further diminished.

My wife Julie is blind, and she has been for nearly twenty years. Before Christmas 2005 I was looking for something that was really special, something that had to be personal, accessible to her, convey my love, and be a lasting tribute to her.

At this point I should explain that I am an artist, and you could be forgiven for raising your eyebrows at an apparently odd coupling of an artist and a blind woman. How could I gain inspiration and support for my work from her when the work could not be seen?

[Read more…] about Vision!