In Touch

Last week the Royal National Institute for the Blind announced the closure of the Pears Centre, a children's home and school, run by the charity. The Pears Centre will shut in November after Ofsted raised significant concerns about the management of the Specialist Learning Centre. The children at the centre will need to find new placements. We get reaction from Hardeep Rai, a parent, whose son is...

A school for visually impaired children with additional disabilities is being closed.

Tom Walker talks to visually-impaired attendees of the first conference of the Partially-Sighted Society. Anita Plant, CEO of the PSS talks to Peter White about the charity's relaunch. RNIB Optometrist Louise Gaw talks to Cheryl Gabriel about the way lighting can help someone with low vision, make the most of their residual sight. Louise stresses the importance of getting professional help from a...

News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted. Jackie Brown wants better access to domestic white goods, which don't require sighted help to set up. Robin Christopherson from AbilityNet, suggests smart options which use apps, speech and wifi to enable a blind person to take control of their domestic appliances. Jackie is concerned however, that not everyone is comfortab...

A question often-asked of blind and visually impaired people, by both sighted and other blind people, is "is your partner blind or sighted?" Peter White explores the reasons behind this question, and blind and visually impaired peoples' reaction to it. Guests: Amie Slavin, Jonathan Mosen and Rob Murthwaite. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Lee Kumutat.

16-year-old Grace Marsh talks of her vision loss and her poetry aspirations. Actor Karina Jones lands an iconic role as a blind character.

21-year-old Allan Hennessey was born in Iraq totally blind. His parents applied to the UK for him to undergo laser surgery, which restored a minimal amount of vision in one eye. Later Allan and his family settled in the UK on a council estate in east London. While attending a mainstream school, he rejected all attempts to teach him to read braille or adapt to his visual impairment, preferring to r...

In August 2016 it became mandatory for health and social care providers to offer patients written information in whichever format they required - whether that be via text, email, braille, audio or large print. The implementation of what is called the Accessible Information Standard has recently been reviewed with mixed results. We put some listeners' experiences of getting required information in...

What's the best approach when it comes to holidays for blind and partially sighted people? TravelEyes is a company which takes both blind and sighted people on holiday - the visually impaired traveller pays full price, and the fully-sighted person pays up to 50% of the full cost and agrees to guide and describe the attractions for the visually impaired travellers. But what if you have an additiona...

A look at the range of specialist and non-specialist gadgets available for identifying objects and travelling around. Joining Peter to share their experiences of solutions offered by technology are guests Jackie Brown, the incoming chair of the British Computer Association of the Blind, and Dave Williams, a freelance trainer on technology. If you'd like to find out more about the products discusse...

Two listeners to In Touch talk about some of the obstacles they faced when looking to move. Danielle Burgess is looking for a new home to rent, and is discovering how separate she feels from the process because everything needs to be described to her. Ben Rendle, his visually impaired partner and their family recently bought a flat off-plan and had to find a way of envisaging it for himself. Penny...

Cyrus Habib lost his sight when he was eight, and in January this year aged 35 took up an elected position as Lieutenant governor of Washington State in America. He talks to Peter White about walking the fine line between sympathy and empathy when campaigning, and how technology is helping him do his job. Listener Nick Adamson has been working for the same company in the same role for the last 12...

Blind people with no light perception can suffer from a variety of sleep problems. Its now been proved that for the majority of blind people with no light perception, the lack of light makes it impossible for a gland situated in the brain to produce sufficient levels of a hormone called melatonin. This can lead to circadian sleep disorders which can occur when the body clock does not fall into a r...

Listener Mike Kelly lost his sight in his thirties, shortly after he'd finished his training as an architect. He underwent intensive rehabilitation and has had a successful full time career in the civil service. Now aged 65 Mike has chosen to retire. Mixed in with the excitement of starting a new chapter in his life, he has some fears and concerns as well. David Black who has Retinitis Pigmentosa...

After a ten year career holding various roles in national blindness charities, in 2014 Marsha De Cordova entered the world of politics when she became a councillor in Lambeth, south-east London. Last Thursday evening, she unexpectedly won the seat of Battersea from the Conservative minister Jane Ellison with a 10% swing. Born with nystagmus, a condition which makes it difficult for the eyes to foc...

Rachael Andrews wanted to vote in the general election held in 2015, but when she and her blind husband arrived at her polling station, the device that was supposed to be in place to help them vote secretly and independently couldn't be found. She launched a legal challenge against her local authority to try to change the situation. She tells us why and what the outcome was. Don't worry if you hav...

Due to a genetic eye condition, identical twins Daniel and Michael Smith both lost their sight when they were 18. Now, seven years on and following their much published story, the brothers talk to Peter White about the impact their blindness has had on their lives in the intervening years. They speak candidly about the stress they have experienced working in very visual jobs in the City of London....

Kirsten Hearn and Red Szell join Peter White to talk about their personal experiences of having their lovers mistaken for carers, when they are out together. The panel all offer advice on how to deal with awkward situations, including when a member of the public or shop assistant asks a 'does he take sugar?' type question. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Cheryl Gabriel.

Peter White talks to the author of The Braille Legacy - a musical currently staged at The Charing Cross Theatre in London, which dramatises the life and achievements of Louis Braille, who invented the tactile writing system. Ellie Southwood who has been to see the show, gives a review from a blind person's perspective. Last week in Spain the first international blind tennis tournament was held wit...

Andrew Bastawrous CEO Peek, which is a social enterprise providing technology and support to healthcare providers, which will help them screen people for eye disease. He is currently doing this work in Africa as part of a campaign called Clearly, which aims to find global solutions to improve vision correction. Tom Walker reports from a running club in Bristol which encourages blind and visually-i...

Tracy Pearson, Leader of RNIB's Reader Services responds to listeners queries about talking books. Tracy tells Peter White that the service is in good shape and that where problems have been pointed out by customers, they have tried to take them on board and make appropriate improvements. Tom Walker meets visually impaired MKDons supporter Jeff Newell and they go to watch his team play Southend Un...

Baluji Shrivastav is one of India's greatest sitar players and musicians. Now UK based, he has formed the Inner Vision Orchestra, comprised of blind and visually-impaired musicians from around the world. Baluji talks to Peter about his long held passion for music and in particular the sitar, for which he is probably best known. Corinna Bauer is one of the leading researchers at Harvard, who has fo...

Peter White talks to the Acting Chief Executive of Guide Dogs Steve Vaid about his plans for its future, and asks whether waiting lists for dogs are too long and whether the organisation is spreading itself too thinly. We also hear from Aleksandra Surla, who's moved to the UK from Slovenia, about her struggle to keep her guide dog Pingo with her. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Cheryl Gabriel.

Professor Pete Coffey from UCL reacts to the recent US case, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, of three women who paid for stem cell treatment in a private clinic, in which cells from their own body fat were injected into their eyes and which left them all with virtually no vision. Prof Coffey explains the difference between the US and UK procedures. He also updates us on his own t...

Ian Brooks is a very experienced computer programmer and was approached by a job agency about a position for which he was ideally qualified. All went well and the agency told Ian to expect a call from the prospective client. However, after revealing that he had a guide dog, the interview offer was suddenly withdrawn, as the employers claimed they would not be able to accommodate a dog in the offic...