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IN TOUCH – Wine and Architecture Courses

TX:Ìý 16.08.2022Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening. Ìý

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Clip

It completely changed my life doing this course, even my perception of my own disability was so strengthened.

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White

Well, the course that student was referring to was a tailormade syllabus for visually impaired people on architecture.Ìý But it could just have easily have been applied to both reports in tonight’s programme.Ìý Later on, we’re going to be hearing more about what blind and partially sighted people could bring to the design of buildings and the outside environment.Ìý But we start with the visually impaired man who’s the first totally blind student, now to be teaching the Wine and Spirits Education Trust’s prestigious courses on wine appreciation.

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Richard Lane always knew he enjoyed his wine but after something of a lightbulb moment he realised he had a palate which with a bit more education could open up a real opportunity. So, a few days ago, I went down to the WSET’s headquarters near London Bridge to observe Richard in action.

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Cork popping and liquid being poured

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Lane

So, we’ve got our two sira from Côte-Rôtie, wine number five and shiraz from Australia.Ìý Let’s look at them individually.Ìý What else are we getting that smells secondary?

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Student

There’s almost a dampness to it.

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Student

Wet leaves.

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Lane

Wet leaves.Ìý Wet leaves is a good note.Ìý I know it sounds funny – what do I mean wet leaves – but yes there is a slight damp… you know when you have a walk in the autumn, well our humid autumn morning, it smells a bit damp?Ìý I’m expecting some intensity of colour here, guys, please guide me through the appearance of this wine.

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Student

Deep ruby red.

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Lane

Deep ruby, thank you.

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So, Peter, today, you heard a bit of me teaching and this was what’s called level two, which is sort of fairly introductory and it’s aimed at people who either love wine and just… as consumers… and want to know a bit more about that or actually they’re there for a business reason because they need to know about wines and grape varieties and wine styles in their careers in the hospitality sector.

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White

So, what were the initial challenges for you, as a blind person, maybe partly as a student but particularly as the idea of teaching?

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Lane

Especially, I think, from the perspective of the teacher, what I’ve got to really be on top of my game because I must know what the students are looking at because however much we say wine is about what we’re smelling and what we’re tasting we live in a visual world, we have 30 PowerPoint slides per class, on average, so I’ve got to know the content of those slides, I’ve got to direct my students to parts of the slide – maps particularly.Ìý So, I’ve got Access to Work funding, an assistant, when I’m in the classroom which helps with moving on the PowerPoint slides, making sure the students are getting the wine bottles passed around, all that sort of thing, the resources team bring in the wines.Ìý So, my job, really, is just to sit back and enjoy the class, knowing – particularly with my assistant – that I haven’t got to stress about moving the clicker on and which slide are we on because that’s taken care of because I rehearse with my assistant and I’ve got all the equivalent notes from the PowerPoints being fed to me through JAWS in my ear.Ìý And when we get to the wines that we taste, the first thing we do is – well, okay, guys, what’s the appearance.

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White

Well, that’s exactly what I was going to ask you, I mean are they, effectively, telling you?

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Lane

Kind of, I think the students are playing an important role in confirming the appearance of the wine, according to the notes that I’ve got on my computer that JAWS is reading to me in my ear.Ìý So, I show these wines when I teach these classes all the time, I know these wines and my sighted colleagues have been through all the wines with me, so I know what they should look like.Ìý And the students are great about it and I joke about it, particularly as when it comes to assessing white wines, most of the time, students write pale lemon and when I did my diploma, as a student, I said how am I going to write the appearance of the wines and some of my educators said – just write pale lemon you’ll be fine.

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White

And can I ask you a question that I could ask any visually impaired teacher I suppose is that you had a class of, I think, it was 23 this morning, that was what was on the tin anyway, how do you cope with that, I mean do you know all their names, do you remember all their voices because you were asking them all questions and answers were coming up from all over the room?

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Lane

Right, do I know all their names in a class of 23, you’ve got to be kidding.

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White

Right.

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Lane

But with today I mean, obviously, I introduce myself and I also explain, of course, that I’m blind, they’ve probably seen me come in with my white cane, so thinking – eh up, what’s going on here.Ìý And they’re great about it.Ìý And, of course, some of their names I get to know, absolutely and it’s not favouritism at all because I’m not going to remember 23 names.Ìý I haven’t yet experienced any kind of negativity about the fact that I’m blind, I think they just appreciate, I hope, having a teacher who’s clear about what he’s saying and helping them in their journey.

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Vox pops

I was a bit surprised at first, actually, and then I thought, it was amazing because obviously such a huge part is the tasting and the scent, which I imagine are even more heightened when you don’t have your sight.Ìý So, actually, then we’ve learnt so many things about the notes in the wine that maybe I wouldn’t have picked up before, which, obviously, Richard has such like an amazing detail for.

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Definitely haven’t lost out on not being able to visualise with him.Ìý Yeah, he’s probably got a bit of an advantage on his nose over mine but overall, no, we’re not missing out on anything in my opinion.

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Lane

Definitely a bit of our friend prune.Ìý These wines are so healthy, aren’t they, with all these prunes in them?Ìý We’ve shown different Côte-Rôties on this course where, honestly, I smell the wine and I think of bacon frazzles, you do literally get that sometimes.Ìý Let’s taste it.

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White

A lot is often made of our – by which I mean blind people – using our other senses and making the most of those senses.Ìý Has this been a factor for you?Ìý I mean do you think you have any advantages over sighted teachers?

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Lane

I think generally no and I certainly don’t – I’m not what’s called a super taster because I’m blind, you know the old thing about oh you’re blind therefore everything else is enhanced – no.Ìý I think I’m an averagely good taster, quite an experienced one now I’m teaching, which is great.Ìý I think where the non-visual bit comes in, that’s helpful, is that I’m not put off by a lot of the marketing blurb that goes on with flashy wine labels and stuff, I’m not exposed to that.Ìý

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White

Well, one of the 23 students on Richard’s course this morning has been Harry Mead, who is himself blind.Ìý I mean Harry, what drew you to this course?

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Mead

Well, you had a part to play in that Peter.

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White

Really?

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Mead

Yes.Ìý I am a regular listener to In Touch and you were interviewing Richard and you said one of your closing comments was – Richard has just become an educator in wines for the WSET or words to that effect.

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White

And so, I mean, in a way, you’ve got perhaps nothing to compare it with but I’m just wondering how it is to have a teacher, as yourself, blind, does that give you confidence or does it actually make no difference whatsoever?

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Mead

Well, to me it gave me huge confidence because I was able to speak with Richard before the course started, to be reassured that the whole process was going to work for me.Ìý I mean I’ve had all my course materials in an accessible format.Ìý They gave me a download link and I was able to download the book and I can use JAWS to read it in Word.Ìý I get Richard’s slides in advance; I get the wine tasting notes in advance so I know what the wines are going to be.Ìý And so, you know, to me, no, it was greatly reassuring.

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White

Harry Mead, thank you very much indeed.

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Just one thing, Richard, I’ve spent the morning listening to you or your assistant pouring glasses of wine, I don’t think I ought to go without trying something.Ìý Do you want to recommend anything?

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Lane

Well, I had a feeling you might ask me that, Peter.Ìý So, yeah, there was a rather interesting sira from Côte-Rôtie, I think we’ve got a little drop here.Ìý [Pouring noise] There you go Pete.

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White

Two blind people trying to pass each other glasses of wine is a notoriously risky business.Ìý Richard, lovely to see you again.

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Lane

Cheers Peter.

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White

Cheers.

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Lane

Enjoy.

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White

You’re not going to ask me to spit this back, are you?

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Lane

Down the hatch Peter, down the hatch.

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White

Well, there are worse ways of making a living and there are some just as good.Ìý Could, for example, blind or partially sighted people take up the profession of architect?Ìý Well, one or two already have but as I picked my way across the Media City site this morning, I could have wished there were rather more of them.Ìý But how realistic is it, as a profession for us?Ìý Well, the course called Architecture Beyond Sight may provide some of the answers.Ìý It’s the result of a collaboration between the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and the DisOrdinary Architecture Project.Ìý It aims to harness the creative talents of blind people and build their confidence to become more influential in the design of the built environment.

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Well, our reporter, Fern Lulham, went along not just to observe but to get involved herself with last week’s course.

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Meerding

Hitting stop on this machine does not stop the flight immediately, you just have to remember that alright?

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Lulham

Right, okay.

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Yep, that is the sound of me, a clumsy blind woman, preparing to slice a piece of wood in two using an electric bandsaw.Ìý Find out how that went later.

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First, I thought I’d track the people responsible for this situation, so, I found two of the course organisers.

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Redvers-Rowe

My name is Mandy Redvers-Rowe and I am a course tutor on the Architecture Beyond Sight course.

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Boys

My name is Jos Boys and I’m co-director of the DisOrdinary Architecture Project.

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Redvers-Rowe

The aim of the general project is to engage with architectural students and architects to get them to consider access in a creative way, as a creative starting point as opposed to a negative tick box.Ìý And we met the Dean of the Bartlett School of Architecture at the time, Professor Alan Penn, who just said can blind people be architects.Ìý He said, I feel that architecture’s highly, highly visual and Zoe and I, who are both visually impaired, and we went yes, of course, we should be architects.

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Boys

For me, one of the most important things is how you actually change the character of architectural education and the practice.Ìý So, architecture ought to be taught differently, it’s not just simply that it would enable blind and visually impaired people to study and be part of the architectural profession but also it really changed the shape of the built environment because it would take all our bodily experiences into account, it wouldn’t just concentrate on what you see.

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Lulham

Back in the workshop, one of the course tutors, Duncan Meerding, a professional blind designer and maker, was assessing how I measured up.

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Meerding

So, now you grab this stencil that’s over here, I’m just going to grab your hand and you pull it across and then you hear that?Ìý So, do you want to get it to like 120 for me?

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Lulham

Sure okay, I think I can do that.Ìý One hundred and thirty-four.Ìý Oh, no it went too far.Ìý

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While I get to grips with the talking tape measure, meet Kiera Syeed, a current participant in Architecture Beyond Sight, who is also new to the wonderful whirring world of power tools.

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Syeed

I want to make it so that architects of the future understand about accessibility.Ìý In order for me to make them understand, I have to understand their world.Ìý And then my secondary aim is maybe, yeah, they will want to go on to do architecture school.Ìý I’m an older person but that doesn’t necessarily mean that as an older woman I shouldn’t do it.Ìý I’m also Asian and the world of architecture is predominantly white, so to try and break those barriers down and as somebody who’s visually impaired and female, why not?Ìý I’m totally blind, I’m using these massive blades, it feels terrifying, about third or fourth time on I was using this machine by myself and I just thought – this is such an exhilarating experience, I can do this.Ìý And I think that’s been the most exciting part of the course.Ìý And once I understand that concept of building, I can then transfer that concept into talking to other people about how to make things accessible and they can’t bamboozle me with the language of we built it this way and we can do… actually no, I’ve done it too, I’ve used a machine, I’ve done a bandsaw, I know what I’m talking about now, I’ve empowered myself.

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Meering

We’ve got so near as your hands can go under the machine, this is sort of the danger zone and then you need to pick up the push stick, you don’t do the old feel out with your hands to try and find things because you’re in a dangerous environment, the push stick is like a single finger with a piece of dowl, with a piece of rubber on the end.

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Lulham

So, is that instead of your finger that gets chopped?

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Meering

Yeah.

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Lulham

Okay.

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Meering

Do you want to have a go before the machine’s running?

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Lulham

I think, yeah, that would be good.

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Leverson

This Instagram generation doesn’t help because everything’s about what it looks like rather than necessarily how it functions or what the other sensory experiences are.

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Lulham

That’s Poppy Leverson, a past participant of the course, who has gone on to become a professional blind architect.Ìý She told me about some of the challenges blind architects face.

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Leverson

None of the software that we use has any accessibility and they actively close down things like voiceover.Ìý And then there’s also attitudes.Ìý I have been told that I would never get a job and then I’ve now got a job.Ìý

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Lulham

And is architecture something you’ve always been interested in?

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Leverson

I was very much brought up with an attitude of if you want to do something we’ll find a way of doing it.Ìý I was also, registered visually impaired back then, I’m now registered blind, so, it was hard being at university and having that transition of losing sight and it made me have to reassess the situation.Ìý But then, the amount of quiet confidence that doing this course gave me, meeting people that are already in the industry in various different ways, it sounds really corny to say but it completely changed my life doing this course, even my perception of my own disability was so strengthened by coming on the course because one of the first times that I actually like properly accepted having like people help me things and it wasn’t seen as a negative, it was seen as a like – well, we know you could do it, but let’s make it easier for you, let’s make it work for you.Ìý So, it’s kind of hard to describe quite how much of an impact it’s had.

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Lulham

And what about the practical side, how did you feel about using these big machines that are all over the place here?

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Leverson

Having someone like Duncan teaching you, he gave you so much confidence because he was the same as you.Ìý It’s one thing being told by a sighted person – oh no, don’t worry, you can do it – but when you’re being taught by a blind person, he’s like – I can do it, you can do it – it’s like a whole different thing.

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Lulham

Talking about sort of attitudes around disability, we know that surveys do indicate that some employers are still reluctant to employ blind people, have you experienced this in the architecture industry at all?

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Leverson

I don’t think there’s enough support for employers to know what’s out there.Ìý I had my Access to Work appointment and they were like – we’re going to give a magnifying glass – and I was like, that’s not going to help me.Ìý The Royal Institute for British Architects and the Architects Registration Board both need to be doing a lot more about education about disabled people.Ìý We need to have mandatory training about disabled people at architecture school both from a design point of view but also that these people might be your colleagues.Ìý And then if people aren’t seeing people in the industry either, it’s no wonder that people don’t think about us, it’s not really relevant because there’s no one here seemingly.

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Lulham

And so, it was suddenly the moment of truth, could I cut it as a budding blind architect?

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I’m going to do my best.

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Meering

The machine is live now.Ìý So now you can turn it on, I’m right here.

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Lulham

Okay, great. ÌýOkay, oh we’re going through, we’re going through.Ìý Hey!

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Meering

So, now you need to turn it off by…

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Lulham

Yes

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Always remember to turn the machine off.Ìý Still, I’d successfully chopped a piece of wood while keeping all my fingers intact and the other students seemed to have gained some firm foundations that they could now build on.Ìý Everyone was happy.

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White

Fern Lulham reporting there.

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But Brian Rigg spoke for many listeners, and I can’t pretend to be neutral on this one myself, when he emailed us this:

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Rigg

I’ve just heard on the radio that the classified football results are no longer to be broadcast on the Â鶹Éç Radio 5 Live programme at 5.00 pm on Saturdays.Ìý And we’ve been told to consult their website.Ìý I despair.Ìý Being totally blind I often have problems with the websites and surely the five minutes or so taken up by the results could still be included.

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White

Well, we’re far from the only Â鶹Éç programme to have picked this up – PM, Broadcasting House…

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Clip

Silly billies one, common sense nil.Ìý Teatime traditionalists nil, Radio Rangers nil.Ìý Â鶹Éç One…

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White

And it made it on to Pick of the Week as well.Ìý So, what is the explanation?Ìý We sought an interview and were told: ‘We’re politely declining all interviews on this at this point’.

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Well, In Touch can offer you sports report presenter, Mark Chapman’s own explanation on last Saturday’s edition:

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Clip – Mark Chapman

And I will bring you all of the day’s football results from across the UK, just like last weekend, if you want them right now, they’re available on the Â鶹Éç Sport Website, an app, and that is fully accessible with audio description.

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White

The problem is, of course, that it’s not just like last weekend because the results were read sprinkled throughout the programme rather than in one place and, as Brian explains, the problem quite a lot of blind people have just getting to the website.Ìý Well, in a statement to us the Â鶹Éç spokesperson did point out that Â鶹Éç Sport still provides a full classified service on Final Score on Â鶹Éç One.Ìý We shall continue to ask for a direct interview, specifically addressing the concerns of In Touch listeners.

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You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, you can leave voice messages on 0161 8361338.Ìý From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio manager Nat Stokes, goodbye.