The Blind Traveller

Sometimes the stories you hear in the news about blind people doing extraordinary things (such as running marathons, breaking blind land speed records or climbing mountains) can be intimidating when you’re experiencing sight loss.  Some of the things I hear about blind people doing, I wouldn’t have even attempted fully sighted! 

Not everyone is an adrenalin junky or wants to be a record breaker, or whatever, but just wants to live as normal a life as everyone else.  Sometimes their disability can make that seem like an heroic effort in itself and going into your shell is so easy.
However, these stories can also help people realise that a disability doesn’t have to prevent people from achieving their goals or even just doing the things they love.
As someone still getting used to getting around with deteriorating eyesight the story of “Tony the Traveller” is inspiring.

I met Tony Giles this week.  He was born with a genetic disease the eventually robbed him of all sight and has only 20% hearing without his hearing aids.  He also had a kidney transplant in 2008.   He was telling me how he’d not long returned from a solo trip to Argentina and Antarctica.  He has travelled the globe, visiting all 50 U.S. and all 10 Canadian states, crossed the Artic Circle and bungee jumped in New Zealand.

With the help of local guides and fellow travellers he befriends he has visited more countries, experienced more exotic locations and tasted more weird and wonderful local cuisines than most people will in a lifetime.  Tony is 33.

Tony has written a number of books, in the form of his travel diaries, also available in different accessible formats.  You can find out a lot more on his web site "Tony the Traveller" .

For anyone going through the life changing effects of losing their sight, stories like Tony’s can highlight the fact that things they may have thought would become impossible to do, are still out there to experience, even if it might just take a little more thought and effort in how to achieve them.

Quote from the Tony the Traveller web site about his book “Seeing the World My Way”:

“Seeing the World My Way follows Tony Giles’ journey of hedonism and thrill-seeking adventure as he travels across North America, Asia and Australasia. Full of drama, danger and discovery, this fascinating travel biography is a young blind man’s view of the world as he sets out to achieve his dream, dealing with disability whilst living life to the limit.
From bungee jumping in New Zealand to booze filled nights out in New Orleans, Seeing the World My Way is a no-holds-barred account that is certainly not for the faint hearted. Travel the world in a whole new way with Tony Giles’ frank, honest and exhilarating romp through one adrenaline-fuelled experience after another.”

"Let's make the web more accessible" - RNIB campaign

Online services on the internet can be tricky to navigate, even at the best of times.  For people with disabilities that use assisstive technology to access the web they can sometimes be impossible.

There are laws in the UK that mean shops and public places have too be made accessible to disabled people.  Household bills and government  correspondence be made available in various formats, such as braille, audio and large print.  A company wouldn't dream of creating, for example, one of their stores inaccessible to people in wheelchairs, just to follow a trend or incorporate certain design features.  So why is the web no following suit?

The Internet is becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, especially with the advent of mobile access to the world wide web.  Many online services, such as travel web booking sites and online shopping has concentrated to much on the look of their design and interactive content that they haven't taken into account accessibility, or alternative versions for the disabled.

The  RNIB "Online Services Project" in conjunction with "Fix the Web" is challenging the most popular and worst offenders with the aim of making them change their online services available to all.  They are encouraging people to report and sites that have caused people problems when trying to access with screen readers or magnifiction software.  They want to make the web's top 50 online services accessible to the blind and partially sighted.

If you know of an inaccessible web service and would like the RNIB to challenge the company or organisation into creating a more level playing field for all, visit the  RNIB "Online Services Project" page to find out more.

Glastonbury with a white cane

Losing your sight is more than just losing your vision.  You also lose many other aspects of your life and have to cope with and come to terms with changes that don’t cross the mind of people who only focus on the fact that you’re going blind.

I have found that I’ve had to deal with a complete change in who I am.  I used to be a graphic designer, I used to drive a VW Campervan, I used to love all variety of films, I used to be an avid reader, watch a lot of football and play video games.

All of these, if not impossible, are now a lot more difficult.  It’s things like this that define who you, so when you find you can’t do them anymore you lose part of who you are.  You have to hold on to as much as you can and adapt the way you do things.

The first topic of conversation when seeing someone is invariably how my sight is or other vision related topics.  I’m as guilty of it as the next person because it has become the major factor in my life and everything I do.  I’m the severely visually impaired bloke, the blind guy, the one with the dodgy vision.

I was also the one who went to Glastonbury Festival every year and I was determined this wasn’t going to change, just because I’m losing my sight.

Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury is Europe's largest and longest running Music and Performing Arts festival.  I first attended in 1993 and haven’t missed one since 1999.  It’s something I do, my escape, my annual holiday.  The thought of missing it is upsetting. 

Last year the festival’s final headline act was Stevie Wonder.  He made a speech at the end of his set about how the world should be accessible to all.  It seemed deeply personal and I stood there, not knowing if it was my last festival because of my failing eyesight, with tears in my eyes.  When it came to the tickets for 2011’s event going on sale, all doubts of whether I should go or not went out of the window.  Somehow I would make it.

My friends all said help.  They would get me there and help me round, even though my condition had got worse since last year.

Getting there:
Once I’d secured my ticket I contacted the festival staff about getting a disabled pass.  This meant we’d be able to use the disabled car park, closer to the camping and if I wanted the disabled camping area too.  I decided against the latter, I’d be camping with my large group of friends with the rest of the 170,000 party goers.

With a Disabled Parking sticking in the windscreen of my friends car we were ushered to the disabled car park quickly and efficiently, parked up and in the queue for gates open.  Inevitably for Glastonbury, the heavens opened as we stood waiting to get our wristbands and information and this is where I have my only complaint about the festival’s disabled facilities.  It took forever to get the things we needed to get onto the main site.  We were queued outside in the rain for nearly three hours, with no cover.  People with various disabilities, including in wheelchairs, got soaked as the few staff did their best to reduce the queue of maybe 150 people. 

We then had to wait a long time for a minibus to ferry us to disabled camping. At least we hadn’t had to lug all our stuff across the huge main car parks.  It was a good service but did not take into account the numbers of people that were there for the opening of the festival. 

On site facilities:
As well as being given the festival wristband to get into the site, i was given a disabled camping and disabled facilities wristband and a code for the disabled toilets.  I was also given a pass for a carer, who would be able to accompany me when using the facilities, such as the viewing platforms, and this could be transferred to anyone I wanted to take with me.

The facilities at the festival for disabled people were a great help.  Getting around the huge site, which for the rest of the year is a working farm.  Viewing platforms at the main stages meant disabled people could watch the bands from a flat, slightly raised and less crowded position.

Next to each platform and dotted around festival were disabled portaloos.  The toilets at Glastonbiry are infamous and have an (unfair) bad reputation (they’re better than most large festivals). 

Having larger, cleaner and more accessible toilets is a great help as getting through the crowds and then having to queue as a disabled person is a lot more difficult.  Having a small combination lock padlock could have been a bit of a problem for the toilets without attendants but there was always someone with me to help.  The attendants at the viewing platforms were very friendly and helpful, as were almost everyone on site.  On seeing my white cane/wristband everyone was more than willing to give assistance, staff and punters alike.

Getting around:
it certainly helped that I know the massive site well and I was with a good crowd of friends, who were always willing to help (including putting my tent up, thanks guys!).  We made sure we camped near a path, with clear access (i.e. no guy ropes in the way).

Using my white long cane helped in a couple of ways.  It showed people of my disability and people would be happy to make room for me, to the extent that my group of friends started putting me up front when going anywhere because it acted liked the parting of the Red Sea !

Being a farm the ground is very uneven and rocky in places, making it treacherous at the best of times, when it rains it has an added hazard. it the wet slippery mud (and gloopy stickiness as it dries) it’s impossible to swipe the cane as you would on pavement, so where possible I had to tap (or sometimes just hover) the cane.  This made each step on the un-even ground hard work, not knowing whether it would be a dip, a rise or even a rock or other object.  By concentrating and being careful it wasn’t too bad but it was mentally as well as physically tiring and took a lot longer than normal.

It always takes loner than you think to get anywhere at Glastonbury, even more so with a disability.  I missed a lot of things I had wanted to see, mostly because of the time it would have taken to travel between stages.  The festival organisers have helped out a bit with this by having a few paths via the back stage areas between a few of the main arenas.

Overall:
I’m glad I decided to go, whatever my worries were.  I saw some great bands and comedians, friends I hadn’t seen since last year’s festival and the group of friends I always camp and have a great laugh with.

It’s a daunting place to sighted people so it could be overwhelming to someone with vision impairment. 

I missed a lot of the extra things that make the festival so special: the site art and decoration, the circus acts and street performers, the crazy people that go and all the weird and wonderful wackiness.  When going from stage to stage I had to concentrate on where I was going so missed all the stalls and all variety of colourful sights.  But the atmosphere and the brilliant music on offer (U2, Paul Simon, Queens of the Stone Age, Biffi Clyro,  Morrissey, The Kills, The Wombles! etc. etc. etc.!!!) and the invaluable help from Glastonbury Festivals Ltd and some special friends, made it all worthwhile.

And the next one will be my 20 year anniversary ! So I can’t miss that one.

Image to voice text readers for the blind

I was given a demonstration yesterday at Devon in Sight of a brilliant piece of kit. The Optelec ClearReader+, a machine that takes a photo of a text document and in seconds reads it back to you. It is acurate, easy to use and relays the text in a very clear voice.

The unit is about the size of a thin, slightly taller car battery. An arm folds out with the camera on and by placing the document parallel and at a right angle (straight on or sideways) it can read an A4 size below it. I was shown it readin a printed document and a newspaper article. With the newspaper it managed to distinguish between the headline, that spanned four columns in a larger font and the copy's separate columns, very impressive.

How it deals with text on different coloured backgrounds and different typefaces, I don;t know but what I did see was 100% acurate, the potential uses are huge.

The controls are minimal and simple and it has a number of features, such as four languages, four voices, both male and female, the ability to record and portablity, with a claimed battery life of five hours continous use.

However, coming in at just under £2,000, for personal use it price strictive but for use in the workplace, this could be the answer for a lot of people with sight loss needing to read a variety of printed work.

iPhone alternative:
A much cheaper, though not quite as accurate alternative is an app for the iPhone. At on 59p the app "Image to Speech" from GP Imports Inc Software, utilies the iPhone camera to take a snap and interpret anything in the image it believes to be text and reads it back out loud. The results are very hit and miss.  Clear, large, well lit text works best but as a staring point this is a brilliant innovation.

Maybe later updates will improve it's accuracy but currently it is only really useful for reading signage or small amounts of text.

Like many apps that could be of great use to the blind and visually impaired, the developers have missed a trick and made the interface not completely compatible with VoiceOver, so some level of vision is needed (lining up the text in the camera viewfinder is obviously another issue). But apps such as this show the potential of platforms such as the iPhone being a tremendous tool for people with sight loss.

Links:
Optelec link: "ClearReader page
Image to Speech link: "Image to Speech" at iTunes