Unceasing Echoes

Busy on my phone, Standing on the street.  Relaxed (but not unpurposful), hoping to b inconspicuous but not look lost or adrift.   A passer-by approaches me:   “Hello? Are you alright?”   I say “in what sense?”

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that the way sighted people introduce themselves to blind people with whom they have some kind of connection is variously completely straightforward, problematic, embarrassed, over-expectant, annoyed or even a thing of fun/ malice.   It should be  pretty obvious that unless you know a blind person really well, if they’re expecting you, or you have a particularly distinctive/strange voice, it is most helpful to greet them and tell them who you are. However, my experience is that most sighted people don’t greet me in this way. The encounter might take place in anything from a meeting to a train, a noisy pub to a swimming pool - the person might be someone who I know quite well, have met once, who I haven’t seen for years, or who I’ve never actually met but who attended a workshop I ran in 1997. The fact that enough people do get it enough to introduce themselves saying who they are (Hi, it’s…) and (if the...

In the local pub, I order a pint and ask what crisps they have.   The barman proudly says: “We have: Walkers Smokey Bacon, Cheese and Onion, BBQ, Worcester sauce, Salt’n Vinegar, and Ready Salted, Bacon Fries, Jalapeno Pretzel Snacks, Scampi Fries, Cheesy Wotsits, Tyrel’s Sweet chilli and red pepper, Aberdeen Angus, Burt’s Sweet Chilli, the full Pipers range including the new lobster ones, oh, and three types of Pork Scratching” “fantastic” I say.  

Looking for a sandwich, I go to the counter : “Hi, can you tell me what sandwiches you have please?” “What do you want love?” “I’d like to know which sandwiches you have” “Yes, but we’ve got rather a lot, what sort of sandwiches do you like?” “I like lots of different fillings, could you run through them please?” We’ve got cheese, ham, tuna?” “…Any others?” “well, egg? What do you want?” “So you just have cheese, ham, tuna and egg.” “no, we’ve got lots more than that? But I need to know the kind of thing you want?” “”I’d really like to know the range of fillings you have on your board” She sighs irritatedly. “Oh, alright, we’ve got, cheddar with red onion chutney and rocket, egg anchovy and lettuce, smoked ham with jarlsberg and avocado, Cajon tuna with sweetcorn, coronation chicken with green peppers, tiger p...

I remember in the late 1980s going to the local train station with a friend who was also blind. I ordered the drinks and, when we sat down at our table,  he expressed such relief and fascination, saying ‘it’s not just me-  Thank Christ it happens to you too’.   He had noticed the way that the woman behind the counter spoke just a little louder and  slightly slower than to other customers, the way that she gave me just that bit too much information but using  a tone of voice which suggested that, while I am obviously under-age and inferior to her, she was nonetheless going to do me a particular favour in serving me. She then made more of a deal than she needed to of offering to carry the drinks over to our table (making sure she was heard by others in the room).   My friend had thought that it was just him who was talked to in this way and I will be writing a lot about this in my blog over time as I come across this way of being spoken to a...

At a gig. The guy standing next to me says Hi, introduces himself and says: “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but I thought you might not be able to see that their line-up’s different tonight and they’re changing instruments a lot. would it be helpful if I described who’s playing what instruments on stage?” I introduced myself and thanked him and said it really would.  

At a gig on my own, standing watching the support act. After about half an hour, a number of pieces and not loud, the guy standing next to me introduces himself. He turns out to be someone who I’ve known for over 15 years on and off through work, who I didn’t know well and who wasn’t a friend as such, but who I had been out for a drink with at least a couple of times.   It was a weird experience that I’d been standing right next to someone who I knew certainly well enough for him to say hi to me as soon as he saw me. I said “so you’ve been standing right next to me for over half an hour, you know that I can’t see enough to recognise you and yet you’ve just stood there without introducing yourself.” He told me that he just wanted to watch the band.      

Starting a new piece of work and meeting a new colleague for the first time. I introduce the meeting and my project, why I’ve asked to meet with her. She leans forward as if conspiratorially, and speaks for the first time. “how much can you see?”   What do I do?: A.    Tell her (and make a mental tick in my ‘people not worth bothering about’ check list). B.     Say “ah, now there’s a question. How much can you see? (and make a mental tick in my ‘people not worth bothering about’ check list). C.    Say that she doesn’t know me enough to warrant being told (and make a mental tick in my ‘people not worth bothering about’ check list) D.    Tell her that it isn’t relevant to our meeting (and make a mental tick in my ‘people not worth bothering about’ check list). E.        Tell her to go f**k herself (and make a mental tick...

While browsing through old files on my PC a couple of days ago, I came across my old blog from 2007. I’d mainly forgotten about it and in particular why I stopped doing it – I have a vague recollection that the website became less accessible and I lost the impetus to continue. Later the email associated with it became lost to me and now, more than twelve years ago, I felt motivated to do it again. In reading through, I was not surprised how many of the posts reflected still regular experiences in my life and wanted to find a way of conveying this in the title of this new blog. Unceasing echoes seemed to convey the repeated and continuous nature of the daily encounters in my life that I think come from my being blind and what it represents to others. In this blog, I guess I’ll generally post when I come upon some kind of irritation in a journey, in a shop, at work or in some uncomfortable encounter where I think that it is my blindness, or more often the other player...

I suspect that there is an expectation that a new blogger, particularly one writing about personal issues, should introduce themselves at the start of writing a new blog. I confess that I’m reluctant to do too much of that here at this stage as I hope that who I am )whatever that is) will emerge in ways that I couldn’t predict. More importantly though, I’m reluctant to position, restrict  or limit myself to you by providing too many auto-biographical shortcuts. I think it is probably particularly nuanced for disabled people as strangers’ desire to ‘know’ more about us than the relationship deserves, is so entrenched in our experience. I’m nervous of saying too much about my blindness, how much I might be able to see, how it limits me, how long I’ve been blind for, how I live etc. I’ll see how I go with it … suffice it to say that I am fascinated by the role that blindness has played in shaping who I am and my relationships...