Brigid Sherry

"The doctor told me to count fingers. I didn't want to tell him I couldn't see. I just pretended I could see fingers"

The Story

Brigid had had mumps. She went back to school with her sister. during the day her eyes got very watery and painful and she couldn't see the board. The schoolmaster sent her home. As she walked she was aware of fog in the distance. The fog came down and she couldn't find the lane. She remembers her panic.

The story continues...

Brigid is married with one daughter, a schoolteacher. She has two grandchildren, a boy of 16 months and a 2 week old baby girl. (at April '07).

After she lost her sight Brigid was given a place in a rehabilitation centre in Torquay and afterwards secured a factory job in Westons biscuit factory in the mid '50s. She was the only blind person in the workforce of 175. She liked working there and she says it was great to work with sighted people.

When the factory closed down, Brigid returned to Ardboe to live with her parents and took the bus with her sisters to work in Daintyfit, a company manufacturing bras. Her job was to put hooks onto strips and elastic and satin straps by hand.

Brigid met her husband as a result of a holiday to the Red Cross House in Bangor. She made friends with a girl there who had a deaf brother, Jim. Brigid later married Jim.

Brigid's daughter, Lisa, also shared a story with Days Like This. To view Lisa's page click here.

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