Around this time last year, I signed myself up to volunteer as a Young People’s Ambassador for RNIB Cymru. Being an ambassador gives me the opportunity to share my insight and experience of growing up as a visually impaired person to help and advise others in a similar situation. RNIB Cymru has a number of ambassadors located across Wales, whom they will match with any young person who contacts them seeking support or advice from someone who’s been there and has the T-Shirt to prove it.
I know from my own experience how valuable a service like this would have been to me when I was a gawky teenager trying to figure out this whole “sight loss” thing, so I take my roll very seriously. Of course I am not a trained professional in the subject of blindness, but I hope that my personal experience of both mainstream and specialist education, higher education and being a young guide dog owner qualifies me to some degree to advise others on the topics. After all, you can study something until you’re blue in the face but you’ll never understand it as well as if you’ve lived it.
Most recently I was contacted by the RNIB to do some ambassading about having a guide dog at University. Most of the questions were ones I’ve been asked by blind and sighted people alike and that I myself had before becoming a guide dog owner, so I thought I would share a few examples of how I answered the FAQ’s about having a guide dog at University.
Q: How do you manage other people and students reactions??
A: I think it makes a massive difference if you set the boundaries straight away. The first time I brought Jazzy to a new lecture, I asked for a minute before the tutor began to introduce her but to explain that she is a working dog doing a job an consequentially should not be touched, fed or distracted. Clear explanations make people much more understanding and cooperative in my experience.
Q: When you’re in lectures or seminars, do you take a blanket or a bone for her?
A: I don’t. Usually she will sprawl out and fall asleep for the duration. I only poke her if her snoring gets too loud!
Q: In a lecture theatre where the seats are tiered, where do you sit?
A: I sit on the end of the row to allow her room to spread out, especially if it’s a long session. As long as she’s not blocking the way too much for anyone getting passed, there should be no problems.
Q: What if a flatmate/classmate is afraid of dogs?
A: Again, I think full disclosure is the best policy in this case. Be open to questions and be patient. When Jazzy moved into my flat, I distributed little leaflets under every door on my floor with some information about guide dogs and an invitation to knock on my door if anybody had any questions. Make sure your accommodation department is aware that you’re bringing a guide dog so that they can ask your potential flatmates about allergies before move in day.
Q: What do you do with your dog when you go out clubbing?
A: Guide dogs advise that it is fine to leave our furry friends alone for up to five hours, providing they’re in a comfortable and secure environment. When I go out without her, I leave some entertainment like a bone or a chew and leave some music/TV/audio book on to mute the noise of other students. I leave fresh water out and lock the door and she’s pretty content. At least I’ve never had complaints of howling or come back to a trashed bedroom, so I assume she just enjoys the alone time.
I hope this post has cleared up any trepidations you might have if you’re a guide dog owner soon to be fresher, but also that I’ve hopefully managed to clear up any confusion or questions about the logistics of being a student and owning a guide dog.
I will soon be writing a post about some blind student life hacks I’ve picked up while at University, so please keep an eye out for my upcoming blogs and remember to check out the Facebook and Twitter pages to keep up to date with See My Way!
Tag: blind
#EndTheAwkward
Disability Charity Scope UK’s #EndTheAwkward campaign is back stronger than everv trying to end the awkwardness surrounding disability.
“Two-thirds of people feel awkward around disability”
Emily Davison AKA Fashioneyesta recently made this video telling her stories about the awkward moments she’s experienced due to her disability.
So after she tagged me to join in, I couldn’t wait to get involved and share my own cringey moments in a bid to #EndTheAwkward.
“Are you blind love?”
This first awkward moment happened a few years ago when I was travelling alone on a train. I hadn’t long been travelling independently and was still getting used to using my cane on a regular basis. Growing up, I always felt that the cane made me stand out and was reluctant to use it for fear of not looking “normal”. It wasn’t until I was about 18 that I really gave into using it productively.
Anyway, so there I was. Sat happily on the train, feeling quite pleased with how the journey had gone and enjoying the boost in confidence I’d gotten from visiting my friend. Along came the food and drinks trolley and feeling pretty thirsty, I plucked up the nerve to say “excuse me” to flag the trolley down.
I think this was the first time I’d done this; not being able to make eye contact or see peoples facial expressions has always made me a bit nervous of situations like this. There have been far too many occasions when I’ve answered someones cheery greeting, only to realise that they’re actually on the phone, or I’ve asked someone for directions only to find out that I’m actually chatting to a lamppost for things like this to come easily to me.
So riding on my recently boosted confidence I asked the man pulling the trolley, “Do you have any drinks on this trolley?” (This may have been a stupid question, but in my defence it made sense to me to make sure that this was the food and drink trolley before I asked for a diet coke). My enquiry was met with the scornful and disbelieving reply, “do I have any drinks?”
“Yeah…” I said, a little uncertainly. To which he replied, obviously not trying very hard to suppress a snigger and feeling very proud of himself for this witty comeback,
“Ha! Are you blind love?”
“Well, yes” I said, casually lifting my folded cane from the seat next to me to show him.
The deathly silence that enveloped the passengers within our vicinity let me know that this encounter hadn’t gone unnoticed. Now, I obviously couldn’t see how red he went. But considering the tremor in his voice when he listed the soft drinks and how much his hand shook when he dropped my change, I think he was a little embarrassed.
But he’d embarrassed me too. His ignorance and smart-arse attitude made me feel so small and stupid. But at the same time I knew that he was the one in the wrong. In the long run the experience only served to thicken my skin against such comments.
The invasion of the prams
This awkward encounter again went down on a train (I travel a lot).
The rail assistance had put Jazzy and I in the disabled seats because the train was so full that some passengers were forced to stand. We don’t normally do this because if a wheelchair user gets on and needs the space we have to try to find another alternative, but on this particular occasion we had no other choice.
In fact I don’t know what would’ve happened if a wheelchair user had needed to board the train because following us into the carriage came no less than three sets of families with a pram each. I was asked to move to make room for the prams, but I had to explain that on this occasion I couldn’t due to their literally being no alternative and my needing space for my guide dog. My reply was met with grumbling and mutters but I was challenged no further.
Sometime into the journey I became aware that Jazzy was eating something. When I investigated I discovered that she was eating crisps that seemed to be falling from the nearby pram. I tried to draw the attention of the childs mother, but her reaction made me feel very embarrassed, undermined and incompetent. She loudly shook off my request saying,
“Oh they’re only crisps love, she doesn’t mind sharing.” I gathered from her response that her child was actually trying to feed Jazzy, so I asked again if she minded preventing her child from doing so as it would interfere with my guide dog’s training. She seemed to take offense at this and said,
“Well if she’s so well trained she shouldn’t be eating my kids crisps then should she?” and then proceeded to explain very loudly to her child so that the whole carriage could hear, “no don’t give the doggy your crisps love, that poor doggy isn’t allowed any food. Doggy shouldn’t have been eating your crisps anyway should it sweetheart, come here don’t look at the doggy anymore.”
She called the care of my guide dog into question and made me out to be the bad guy, but I wasn’t confident enough to stand up for myself and explain properly. I get very tongue-tied when faced with confrontation and find it hard to articulate myself clearly, so I felt powerless to defend myself or Jazzy. This was also quite early on in mine and Jazzy’s relationship and I hadn’t really encountered this kind of thing before. But all the fun of Jo Public’s varying reactions to my guide dog is something for another post.
Hiking stick or mobility aid?
This awkward moment is the most recent and funniest that I’ll share today.
Only about a month ago, myself and two other visually impaired friends had just gotten off a train and were standing outside figuring out whether to get a taxi or to walk home. I had Jazzy with me while both my mates were using canes. However, one of my friends has chosen to jaz up his mobility aid by opting to have a bright blue cane rather than the traditional white.
We were talking amongst ourselves trying to work out what to do when a young guy came up to us and quite smugly said,
“Did you have fun hiking today guys?” We stopped mid-conversation, thinking we’d misheard.
“Those are some funky looking hiking sticks you have there” he elaborated, going on to ask us where exactly we’d been hiking, in Cambridgeshire, where there are no mountains…
It finally dawned on us that the poor guy had mistaken the canes for hiking sticks. We explained that we hadn’t been hiking, that we were blind and that they were our canes whilst trying not to laugh along with his mates who’d witnessed his blunder. I chipped in sarcastically with,
“yeah, she’s my hiking dog. I ride her up the mountains…” which I was rewarded for with more laughter. The poor guy was pretty embarrassed and very apologetic, but we tried to reassure him that we weren’t offended.
Occasions like this present a different kind of awkwardness I think. From my experience, it’s much better to laugh at yourself and with others rather than get stressed out or touchy about silly mistakes. What makes it awkward is when the perpetrator of the misunderstanding can’t laugh along with you. They’re too mortified at having possibly offended you to relax enough to see the funny side. This often makes it much more awkward than if they’d just share the joke.
#EndTheAwkward
I could share so many other awkward moments, but I don’t think I’d ever finish this post. There’ve been times when canes have been mistaken for fishing poles, when strangers have wanted to pray for me to be healed, when my guide dog has been described as “magic” and all sorts of wonderfully weird situations have arisen.
What I’ve come to learn is that your own awkwardness about your disability is reflected in others. If your uncomfortable about your impairment and don’t know how to talk about it/understand it/laugh about it, you’re not in a position to make others feel comfortable addressing it either.
Scopes #EndTheAwkward is a fantastic steppingstone towards dispelling the taboo that surrounds disability, but I think it’s important to remember that it starts with us; only by accepting ourselves, our capabilities and limitations and by understanding our position in society can we begin to change it.
Find out more information about #EndTheAwkward here:
http://www.scope.org.uk/awkward
And I tag these bloggers to share their own awkward moments:
Beauty Within http://www.wakeupandcthemakeup.wordpress.com
Freely Me marameeh.wordpress.com
Dekota Rose https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty8cFHexOEs&feature=youtu.be
Thanks as always for reading and please enter your email address in the box below to get my posts sent straight to your inbox.
Confessions of a VI theatre lover
Being a literature student, it probably won’t come as much of a surprise to you that I am a self-confessed theatre buff. Plays, musicals, dramatic monologues; the theatre is one of my favourite places to go because I just adore the magic of the stage. I believe that there are fewer things more electrifying than being privy to a really powerful performance.
I’ve been to the theatre twice this summer and am due to go again this weekend, not to mention having a few performances lined up for the rest of the year. So seeing as it’s something of a regular occurrence for me lately I thought I would explain a little bit about what it’s like to go to the theatre as a visually impaired person.
Audio description and touch tours
Visually impaired patrons of the theatre can attend specific performances that feature an audio description service. During these specific performances, anyone who is blind or partially sighted can request a headset through which they can hear a live commentary of the visual aspects of the performance. The commentary is designed not to impede on the dialogue so that you can keep track of the action on stage while picking up the description simultaneously.
Audio described performances also often include a touch tour. Usually scheduled at least an hour before the curtain goes up, the touch tour gives visually impaired patrons the opportunity to get hands on experience of the stage, costumes and props. Exploring the layout of the stage and being able to inspect the props and costumes close up certainly helps me build up a more accurate picture in my mind enabling me to visualise the performance. It’s an added bonus if the actors come to meet you during the touch tour!
My most recent trips to the theatre have been to see To Kill a Mockingbird (TKM) at The Barbican Theatre and The Importance of Being Earnest (IBE) at the Vaudeville. Very different stories, but both equally brilliant performances. I received audio description for both and got there in time for the touch tour for IBE.
To Kill a Mockingbird
TKM is a very emotional story and I’m not ashamed to say that the intense atmosphere and fantastically talented actors had me welling up on more than one occasion. I was blown away by the child actors playing Scout, Gem and Dill, not only because their accents were amazing!
Having the actors address us in the audience as if we were the jury during the court-house scenes was particularly powerful, and the tension in the room when Boo Radley finally appeared on stage was incredible!
The Importance of Being Earnest
I was welling up during IBE as well, but because I was laughing rather than crying! The Vaudeville’s auditorium is much smaller than that of The Barbican’s which made for a much more intimate atmosphere. This meant that when Algernon addressed the audience with some quip or comment about his companions, it really felt like he was sharing a secret with you. All of the actors were spectacular but David Suchet’s portrayal of Lady Bracknell was a particular hit, having the audience in hysterics more than once!
Attending the touch tour for this performance definitely made a difference. I was able to appreciate the speed of the scene changes that much more after having exploring how small and crowded the stage was for myself. Getting to see all the props up close, right down to the intricate paintings on the walls added that extra bit of detail that made it that much easier to picture the opulence and wealth depicted in the set in my mind.
Vocaleyes
The audio description and touch tour were produced by Vocaleyes; a registered charity dedicated to the description of the arts. Vocaleyes provide audio description for theatre performances including plays, musicals, ballets and opera’s, as well as recorded audio tours for museums, galleries and architecture. They also provide training and advice on how to best support blind and visually impaired customers to venues with assisted performances.
I must say that every assisted performance I’ve attended with Vocaleyes has been brilliant. The audio description is descriptive without being intrusive and the commentators attentive but not overbearing. All Vocaleyes staff I’ve met have been friendly, accommodating and happy to help. During IBE, I took advantage of Vocalise’s service to arrange for someone to take care of Jazzy during the performance. She was returned to me at the end of the play fed, watered and walked, much to her enjoyment! Vocaleyes provide an excellent service making the arts as accessible and inclusive as possible.
To find out what Vocaleyes are getting up to in your area, check out:
http://www.vocaleyes.co.uk
I hope I’ve shed some light on how it’s possible to experience the theatre as a visually impaired person and if you’re blind or partially sighted and have never been to the theatre before, I hope my post has succeeded in encouraging you to try it; there really is nothing like it!
Keep an eye out for my upcoming blog all about my weekend seeing the sights in London!
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