Things that Make My Day
Post categories: Disability
|16:56 PM, Monday, 15 November 2010
I'm not saying that we disabled people moan a lot, but there is a temptation to tell people what they're doing wrong, rather than what they're doing right, when it comes to offering help. I plead guilty myself! It's so much more fun as a blind person to tell stories about people not bothering to ask you where you're going, but just grabbing you by the fleshiest part of your forearm and marching you across a road; or propelling you from behind through a revolving door as if you were a battering-ram; and I can't tell you how often I've been regaled by indignant wheelchair users with stories of the people who talk over their heads, bend very close and shout in their ear, or just ignore them altogether and talk to their friend or partner. All forms of disability generate examples of their own.
This has been very much on my mind as late because, as some of you may know, You and Yours and In Touch and a number of other programmes are coming, not from Broadcasting House, but from Bush House down the road. This has meant that I have had to change my well-honed route to work, which I could more or less do in my sleep, and start asking for help again - where is the bus stop from which about twelve different-numbered buses go to the Aldwych, which bus is coming, what's the safe way to manoeuvre the triangular crossing at the Aldwych itself... It reminded me that a lot of people are lovely, and go the extra mile plus, but giving directions to a blind man which make sense is a dark art, and only a few people do it really well.
You see, the real secret is that you need to give directions that you can touch, rather than you can see! You have to realise that saying "it's the third turning on the right" only works if it really is the third, and that you haven't forgotten there's a garage or pub entrance, or a carpark, which feels exactly like a road; or that a lamp-post can feel exactly the same to a stick as a bus-stop, or a pelican crossing pole, or a dozen other things. So what makes my day is when I come across someone who understands.
Of course the ideal person is another blind traveller, but the chances of coming across one of those outside Waterloo Station when you need them, is pretty remote! But enough of my traveller's tales, we would like to hear from you. We want innovative solutions, premium quality help that makes your day. And you never know if we get enough great examples it could spark a series of its own!
Peter White presents You and Yours and In Touch on BBC Radio 4
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