An introduction...

Hi, I'm Biddy, I am in my 50's and have just recently trained with my guide dog Bee. I was on a class of four and was the only totally blind person on the course.

 

I was so surprised by the “I can't do it because I'm blind” attitude of the others on the course, that I decided to write this blog, hoping that I can give a realistic view on what's it's like being blind and hopefully giving sighted people a better understanding of blindness.

What got me thinking about blindness and the perception the sighted world have about blind and visually impaired people was the way my colleagues allowed the staff in the hotel to do the simplest of things for them. For example, taking the top off the yogurt or opening the little pack of butter. To me doing these simple tasks should come as naturally as putting one foot in front of the other. I was also amazed at the level of anxiety it caused the others in the group when we were told that we may have to occasionally unlock an outside door using a key. They didn’t know how to find the keyhole! I'm not putting my friends down just making comments so you can understand why I felt the need to write this blog.

I have been at home for two weeks with Bee and we are doing well. One of the hardest things for a blind person is to be left at home with a new guide dog and to go out on your own without the security of the trainer on your right shoulder. It takes up to a year for you and the dog to really understand each other so we have a lot of hard work ahead of us and a lot of fun too. I will tell you about Bee and how we are doing in the days to come.

I was registered blind from the age of two. My late mother, five brothers and a sister are also blind
or visually impaired. Can I just point out, that I am not visually impaired, I am blind. Apparently only 4% of people registered blind are actually blind.

We were misdiagnosed of having Retinitis Pigmentosa and it wasn't until the 80's that we were re-diagnosed with Wagner's Syndrome. This is a rare eye condition and each person is affected to varying degrees of sight loss. Not a lot was known back in the 80's and I lost my sight completely following a retinal repair operation.

I don't have any childhood memories before the age of four. It was my first day at (mainstream) school; all I remember about that day is that I cried for my older sister and the strange smell of the toilets! I only went to mainstream school for that one day. My next memory is again when I was four but this time I had been left at a boarding school for the blind. I had what we in the blind world call “useful vision” then and I held on to that useful vision until 1988. I was tiny for my age and everything and everybody at the school seemed so big and scary. I remember going into the dining room and being terrified of all the tables and all the kids sat at them. (And where was my Mum?)

It was a very scary time for me at first but I will always be grateful that I attended that school and was educated as a blind child. I was still only four when I could read the braille alphabet and five when I read my first library book in grade 2 braille.  I love braille and have always been a book worm.

We weren't encouraged to use our sight back then and I remember being punished by the headmaster when he caught me reading my hymn book with my eyes.     

Life wasn't always easy at school and the staff could be cruel and brutal at times but I grew to love being there and I often laugh with my friends from school (who I’m still in touch with) about how we were treated and why we were singled out and often punished more than some of the other kids.

Maybe I will talk more about that and also about the squalor and poverty I lived in at home. 

To be continued….

B x