I can still remember standing at the teacher’s desk and
learning to read braille from these really shiny plastic cards. I’ll apologise
to any braille readers if you find this bit boring but I just wanted to give a
brief explanation about how braille works. The whole braille system is made up
of six dots. One, two and three down the left side and four, five and six down
the right side and it's the shape of the dots that make up each letter. For
example, dot one is a, dots one and four is c, dots two, four and five is j and
so on. We have a lot of contractions and abbreviations in braille because it
takes up so much room. My son was surprised when I told him Mockingjay is in
seven volumes because in print it is only one small book of around 300 pages,
so that will give you some idea of how much more space is needed for braille.
Two of my elder brothers were already at the boarding
school when I started but as typical boys they didn't give me any attention. It
was very hard as a four year old to be left with complete strangers and in
those days the terms were as long as 14 weeks. Some of the kids went home at
weekends or fortnightly but we only went home at the end of term. I remember
crying at bedtime and being told not to be a baby but it was the first time I'd
slept in a bed on my own and didn't understand why I was there.
I was in a dormitory of 8 and when they turned the lights
out at 6.30pm I was terrified. But for the next nine years I received an excellent
education and was a book worm from the age of five. My sighted siblings who
were educated in mainstream school were poorly educated in comparison and missed
out on some of the wonderful opportunities I and my brothers experienced.
I loved English, Maths and PE. We had wall bars, scramble
nets, monkey bars and the ropes that hang from the ceiling both knotted and
straight and all the kids used the equipment regardless of whether they had
sight or not. We used to play pirates where we had to get around the gym
without touching the floor, it was great fun.
The school was well equipped and we played with Lego, board
games with braille markings, we had braille playing cards and did jigsaws; all
the things kids should do. We played football and cricket and learned to swim.
We had a bike track, swings, roundabouts, swings and a slide. I believe that it
was because we just did all these things that I found it physically easy to
adapt when I lost my sight completely. It's just a shame that some of the kids
myself included were at times treated very badly because we came from poor
backgrounds but I’ll save that for another day.
B x
