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IN TOUCH – Voting; Extreme Sports

TX:Ìý 11.05.2021Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý SIMON HOBAN

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, I’ll be talking to the 20 something who’s a bit nervous about stepping out for the first time with a white cane but doesn’t mind having a go at almost anything else, however risky.

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Clip

Okay Simon.

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That was insane.

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Yeah, is that crazy or what?

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The best feeling I’ve ever had; I can’t believe I just done that.

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White

So, what was he up to?Ìý No clues.Ìý Oh, okay, it involved water but that’s all you’re getting – stay tuned.

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But first, the deep water of the political fallout from the recent local elections may be continuing to bubble but last week’s vote also saw a seismic shift in how people who are blind or partially sighted can take part in the democratic process independently and without having to share their voting intentions with anyone.

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As many listeners to this programme will know, it’s almost impossible for people who are blind or visually impaired to vote privately. ÌýThe candidates’ names have to be read out by an official or a sighted friend or relative and the vote cast using a tactile voting device.Ìý The process has been deemed unlawful by a high court judge.Ìý Now, in a trial at nine polling booths in Norfolk last Thursday, a new technology was used that reads out the names on an audio device which you control.Ìý The RNIB has been helping to design the trial – Mike Wordingham walked us through the process.

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Wordingham

Okay, I’m in the polling booth, I’ve been given a TVD over the ballot paper and this audio device to read it out.Ìý So, let’s switch it on:

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Audio voting

Start.Ìý Election of police and crime commissioner for Norfolk police area on Thursday 6th May 2021.Ìý There are five candidates.Ìý Vote once in column one for your first choice and vote once in column two for your second choice.Ìý Candidate one, Crofts, John Peter.

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So, I can either listen on the speaker or I can put some headphones in for a little bit more privacy.

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Okay, now I can hear on the headphones the device telling me the names of the candidates in the order they’re on the ballot paper.Ìý And I can listen through a few times without someone standing over me and reading it out.Ìý Now, I’ve heard all the names and the order they’re in, I know which boxes I have to mark to cast my vote.

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Now, I can just take the tactile device off the ballot paper.Ìý Fold it up.Ìý And make sure it makes it into the ballot box.

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White

Well, Joy Croft was one of the first people to use it for real in a polling booth last Thursday and she told us what it was like.

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Croft

It was a little bit nerve wracking just because it was the first time.Ìý It went pretty well, it’s not bad for an electronic voice and what’s good about it is that I’m in charge of playing it, I could play it as many times over as I wanted to because if you think about, if you’re seeing something in front of you, it’s right there and it stays there, if you’re listening it goes right past you.

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White

So, is it easier than the way that you would have done it in the past because you are a guinea pig, basically, at the moment?

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Croft

Yeah.Ìý Well, the thing that was better was that the steward wasn’t standing over me reading the names, which meant I was more private, which is what I want of course, like any voter but also, I didn’t have the embarrassment of having to ask him to read over and over again, I just did it myself.Ìý The thing that’s getting better is this – I had to vote three times, there were three different listed candidates, three different posts, and for the first two I was using the kind of tactile template that we’ve been given for a while, which has little flaps that you have to lift up over the place where you’ve got to put your X or whatever.Ìý I think this needs three hands, you need one hand to hold the ballot steady, you need one hand to hold your pen and then you need a third hand to hold up the flap – not easy.Ìý But the newest form, and I hope this is the one that they will use all the time, doesn’t have any flaps, it just has very clear squares cut in the template, so that you haven’t got to hold anything up, you just need to count down the right number of squares and the braille numbers are there as well and then put your mark in that space.Ìý Only two hands needed this time and I hope that’s the kind of thing we’ll be using, the kind of template they’ll be using always.

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White

Is this the nearest you’ve come to voting independently so far?

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Croft

Very much so.Ìý I was born in the United States and I’ve only been voting here since 2000 but for the first three years I had to have an absentee ballot, a postal ballot and let someone else fill it in for me because it was in tiny print.Ìý So, I had to trust someone else not to blow my cover about who I was voting for and, of course, to do what I’d asked.Ìý And then there was the situation with these strange flaps and also with needing someone in the booth to read the numbers out to me.Ìý And, of course, people standing round could also hear what was going on, even if there was a proper booth and they couldn’t see.Ìý So, this was very much the most kind of independent way that I’ve been able to vote so far.

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White

Joy Croft, thank you very much indeed.

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And we’d like to hear from other people about perhaps your voting experiences last Thursday or indeed in the past, just let us know the kinds of things that have happened to you and how you’d react to using that kind of equipment.

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Now, any doubts I may have had about devoting the whole of last week’s programme to the language used about us and by us were put to rest by your reactions.Ìý I don’t think I can ever really remember quite such a crop of well thought out varied and moving replies to an item.Ìý My only regret is that we haven’t got the room for all of them this week.Ìý We’ll start, though, with one from a name you’ve already heard on tonight’s programme, we’d already decided to use Joy Croft’s email before she turned out to be the voice of our story about voting earlier, a complete coincidence but we thought her email was so good it was definitely worth reading out.

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Croft (read)

The words we humans use shape the ways we think and act.Ìý I think that sight impaired is probably the best general description and that each of us should choose how we describe ourselves.Ìý I choose severely sight impaired.Ìý I was registered as blind in childhood and now have just a minimal amount of eyesight.Ìý I treasure that useful glimmer of vision, however, and am fighting hard to keep it.Ìý It would make me weep, literally, to have to call myself blind while I can still see.Ìý However, I think one vital point was missing from your thorough discussion and, in fact, I heard a couple of your speakers fall into the trap that you missed pointing out.Ìý Whatever we are called the word ‘people’ needs to be included, ‘blind people’, ‘visually impaired people’.Ìý Of course, ‘people with impaired vision’ would be even better.

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White

Andrew Walker also wanted language to relate accurately to his life experience.

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Walker (read)

I was fully sighted until my teens, could see to get about and read with magnification until I was 40, at which point I became totally blind.Ìý To me, there was more of a gulf in experience between going from what could be described as partial sight to total blindness, as there was from going from full to partial sight.Ìý I’d suggest that the two groups are so radically different in experience that they’re separate disabilities, having only disorders of the eyes in common.Ìý Having achieved total blindness, I had to learn how to do just about everything in my life in a different way and I was treated by others in a different way too.Ìý To me, having even very poor sight is different from having none at all.Ìý I think that many blind people feel that not using the term blind to describe them rather trivialises their condition.Ìý In some ways, I find being totally blind easier than having poor vision.Ìý Blindness is much more easily understood by sighted people insofar as one cannot see at all.

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White

Jo Thomas has 45% sight loss from glaucoma in both eyes.Ìý She says:

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Thomas (read)

It hinders a number of daily activities.Ìý Sometimes I need to ask for help, sometimes it just takes longer to do things.Ìý So, I try to find words that aid mutual understanding.Ìý For example, I say I have significant sight loss when phoning utility companies, the bank or retail outlets.Ìý That clears the way for me to state my needs or identify why their system doesn’t work for me.Ìý In face-to-face situations I might say:Ìý Imagine you have just completed a jigsaw and then thrown away nearly half the pieces at random, well that’s what the world looks like to me.Ìý Then we take it from there.

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White

And finally, this reminder to all of us from Pat Oakley that these debates have parallels in the ways we talk about other disabilities.

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Oakley (read)

My daughter, now aged 58, was born with a mental handicap.Ìý I was content to use this particular label and indeed I still am but I have been informed I should say she has learning difficulties.Ìý What a meaningless description.Ìý I have a learning difficulty – I don’t understand a spreadsheet and I don’t speak Russian but I don’t have a mental handicap which my daughter does.Ìý I cheered at the people who said visual impairment did not cover totally blind, of course it doesn’t.Ìý Neither does learning difficulties cover mental handicap.Ìý Call a spade a spade.Ìý So called political correctness is all well and good but only if it accurately describes the condition or situation.

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White

And just to try to forestall another shoal of emails, listeners took issue with one panellist using the now virtually outlawed term ‘visually handicapped’, an expression that that panellist would have grown up with.Ìý Well, lost from the edited version of our discussion was the point that a correct use of the term ‘handicap’ in a sporting context is creating a level playing field, as in, for example, giving a less abled golfer a four hole start or adding weights to a saddle in horseracing to even up the score.Ìý

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When it comes to sport being visually impaired isn’t proving any sort of barrier for our final guest tonight.Ìý Sam Roberts is 27, he’s from Rhyl in North Wales.Ìý Growing up he had more than his share of health problems – leukaemia, meningitis, he underwent a double lung transplant and had seven cornea transplants which left him with just light perception.Ìý But that’s not stopping him now from playing golf, skydiving and his latest adventure – taking up white water kayaking.Ìý

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Sam, first of all, why kayaking and why the most dangerous type you could find?

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Roberts

[Laughing] Well, to be honest Peter, all the stuff that you said I’ve just been through there, I kind of felt like I always put my life on hold a little bit, I always tell myself you shouldn’t do that or why do you want to do that or you don’t belong here.Ìý And last year, when I lost my eyesight, it was kind of an awakening to me where I realised life is short and then I wanted to get out there and experience life as much as I could.Ìý So, I contacted an old family friend, Dan Street, who has been kayaking for years and it was just something I’d always wanted to and never had the guts to do, I suppose.Ìý And here we are on the white water and I’m absolutely loving it.

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White

So, just give us a bit of a clue of how this works?Ìý I mean how do you navigate a course through the water when you can’t see what’s going on around you and, I assume, there’s also quite a lot of noise going on as well?

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Roberts

Yeah, I mean, I’m with an absolutely great team with Dan and very experienced kayakers.Ìý Darren Clarkson, who has kayaked the world.Ìý So, I put in a lot of trust in this team around me as number one for me.Ìý As you said, there’s so much noise, so it can be really scary but I’ve just got to trust my other senses and how I feel.Ìý I mean a bit of naivety as well because I did get into the kayak, the first time, and think – you know, we’ll just float down the water, it can’t be that hard.Ìý But a lot of respect to these people that do it and I’m loving every minute.Ìý A lot of communication is the key as well, all the team that I go with have very loud voices, we’re looking at getting Bluetooth headsets as well, so we can communicate a little bit better.Ìý And also, I think, it’s been a different experience for the kayakers who I go with because they’ve never kayaked with a visually impaired kayaker before, so it’s a different way of kayaking but it’s really – really fun.

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White

And, presumably, you’ve done that thing that as far as I got when I try to do anything like this, I did learn how to capsize, that was about as far as I got.Ìý [Laughter]

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Roberts

Well, it was funny, when I went last week and it was the first time I went in a solo kayak, they didn’t tell me how to fall over, they just said – the water’s going to be cold, get used to it – kind of thing, and that was, well, I was like – right okay then.Ìý So, I realised… and I think that’s good with a team because they don’t treat me any different, they tell me what’s happening and they don’t see if you fall out, I’m going in the deep end and this is what’s going to happen and this is what will happen when you get in that water.

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White

Now Sam, you’ve been through the mill in terms of your health, as we heard.Ìý How has that kind of influenced your attitude to sport?

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Roberts

I mean, I’ve always been a very sporty person, even when I was a youngster before all this happened.Ìý I got leukaemia aged 11, so, I was playing football, that was my life at the time, just being out on the street, being a child.Ìý And when I got cancer at 11, it was a different world but I was still a child and I wanted to still do these things and maybe that wasn’t the right idea but, again, at 11, you just want to play out with your friends and you want go and – you know, I was down to a 13% lung capacity at my lung transplant but I was still running as much as I could, whether that was three steps, four steps, it was still wanting to do that.Ìý And I feel like that is my mindset, where I don’t want to give in, I don’t want… Again, with losing the eyesight, last year, I didn’t want to sit and sulk about it, I wanted to get out there and push myself.Ìý You do get them days, you know, I’m still human, you get them days when you think – why me – but I believe it’s how you react that then and how you push yourself forward.

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White

One thing does interest me, you take all these risks but as you’ve lost your sight, I understand you were reluctant to take up white cane training.Ìý Why?

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Roberts

It was only about eight months ago where I lost 95% of my sight, I have light perception now, I don’t have any light perception in the right eye.Ìý But for years I always had about 50% sight, it was just getting worse.Ìý And I did have conversations with family and friends who have said – let’s think about getting a white cane.Ìý And I will be 100% honest, I told them to shut up, basically, this is not a conversation I want to talk about.Ìý Maybe, it was a pride thing, I don’t know, but, again, the moment I lost my eyesight last year it was a moment of – well now you don’t have a choice so go do it.Ìý And doing all these things may sound crazy and silly and scary to other people but I can honestly say, learning the cane is a lot scarier for me than doing a skydive because I have to relearn everything again.Ìý I’m 26-7 years old and lost my eyesight but it was only eight months ago I stared at a kettle and thought – how do I do this now.Ìý So, it’s relearning everything in a different way.Ìý And I know you’re a cane user, yourself, Peter, and that might sound a bit strange to you but to me it’s a scary thing to do but I am really excited about the way I’ve started to develop with the cane.

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White

Well, it does sound strange to me because using a cane is something I’ve done all my life.Ìý There’s probably no way I’d go white water kayaking.Ìý [Laughter] And I’m trying to get…

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Roberts

Do you not want to come next time?

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White

…I might pass on that.Ìý But I suppose, it’s partly the fear but it does sound as if, for you, also, maybe it’s a kind of symbol of blindness that you haven’t quite yet or hadn’t come to terms with.

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Roberts

It’s being labelled.Ìý I mean I’ve got no shame of being a visually impaired person or blind or partially sighted, whatever you want to call it, but, for example, when I play golf people don’t realise I’m visually impaired.Ìý Sometimes they say – you go ahead, you’re better than us.Ìý But if I have a white cane with me, that labels me as a visually impaired person.Ìý And there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just it’s how people then look at you in a different way, the perception of that.Ìý And me doing all these crazy things, makes me want to change the perception of being visually impaired.

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White

Now, as if all that wasn’t enough, you’re also a guitar teacher, you’re a keen musician in a band and I understand you’ve got some prestigious support spots coming up, when gigs get started again, tell us about that.

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Roberts

Yeah, I mean, music – music is my first love, I mean I’ve always had music in the house and I’ve played guitar since I was 11, 12 maybe.Ìý And yeah, I’ve been in a band called Chasing Shadows for the last six years and it’s been a difficult year because of covid, we haven’t been able to gig but now clubs are starting to open again and we have – we’re really happy to announce we are supporting Toploader in Rhyl Pavilion on October 3rd.

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White

You are really having a pretty eventful life, aren’t you?

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Roberts

I’m trying to.Ìý I want that, I want it to be eventful.Ìý I want experiences.

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White

Well, good luck with the gigging, good luck with the kayaking, thanks for joining us on the programme Sam.

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Roberts

Thank you, Peter, thanks for having me.

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White

The apparently indestructible Sam Roberts.

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And that’s it for today.Ìý You can leave messages with your comments on 0161 8361338.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk or you can go to our website, that’s bbc.co.uk/intouch, where you can also download tonight’s and many other previous editions of the programme.

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From me, Peter White, producer Simon Hoban and studio managers Carwyn Griffith and Mike Smith.Ìý Goodbye.

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