In Touch

London’s new £18.9bn Elizabeth line has recently opened, with travellers now able to go from Abbey Wood to Heathrow and Reading, and from Shenfield to Heathrow. We went to find out about the line's access features, with Clive Wood of the charity Guide Dogs. Clive was offering advice and guidance on the accessible design of the new line and he believes there is more that can be done to ensure full...

Unlike most of the natural world, birds are quite easy to enjoy with a visual impairment because, well, they can be rather noisy. Martin and Jackie Brown invited us into their garden and share some of their enthusiasms for gardening and, you guessed it, birds. Natalie Doig also joins us. Natalie is partially sighted and enjoys taking photographs of birds and other wildlife, because it allows her t...

Visually impaired Liverpool FC fans Dave Williams and Aj Ahmed were at the Stade de France last weekend, as Liverpool prepared to meet Real Madrid in the Champions League final. News headlines have been dominated by the mayhem that unfolded there, including the use of tear gas and dangerous overcrowding. The two tell us what happened to them, whilst caught up in it. A lot of the great outdoors can...

For some people with visual impairments, when wanting to travel abroad there are many considerations to take into account. Namely, booking assistance at airports and travel requirements for your guide dog, if you have one. Since Brexit, there have been changes to regulations of taking Guide Dogs abroad. Before, owners had to acquire a pet passport but now, a Animal Health Certificate is required....

It could be about time to start planning that long overdue holiday and whether you prefer to stay in the UK or go abroad, we have three experienced visually impaired travellers on hand to share their advice of making the most of a holiday. The North Wales Accessible Holidays for Blind and Visually Impaired is a charity run by Nigel Garry and his wife, Karen. They can offer free fully adapted acces...

Self-confidence can be impacted by many factors when you have a visual impairment or when gradually losing your sight. We look into confidence through the lens of beauty and self-care products and psychology. Procter & Gamble own many household name brands, within beauty, haircare and personal grooming. Their Accessibility Leader, Sam Latif is blind and she has introduced features to some of t...

In recent years, charity Guide Dogs have published research that found 75% of guide dog owners had experienced some form of refusal of entry. Unfortunately, guide dog refusals are still very common and so we look into what steps you can take if it happens at an indoor establishment, for example: restaurants, shops, garden centres etc. We speak to a guide dog owner about his recent experience when...

The Elections Bill passed the final reading stages in the House of Lords and will soon receive Royal Assent to be passed into law. We discuss the amendments which were approved in the House of Lords and were proposed by visually impaired Life Peer, Lord Holmes of Richmond. The amendments aim to provide blind and partially sighted people the right to vote at polling stations independently and in se...

We revisit the topic of how the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is impacting its visually impaired citizens. We speak to married couple Denys and Olga Petrov who evacuated to Poland soon after the war began. They tell us about how they got across the border with a small child, a pregnancy and... seven animals. A few weeks ago, we spoke to Olga Mahler about how she travelled nearly 10,000 miles...

Breathe in...and out. Namaste. With the global mental wellness market reaching around $120 billion in recent years, here lies the truth that in the West, many are finding the daily incorporation of mindfulness techniques highly beneficial to reduce stress and to become more present in daily life. With its ever growing popularity, we wanted to hear from visually impaired people who are making a liv...

Vision impairment organisations have launched a new education framework called The Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI). Its main aim is to define and clarify how those between the ages of 0-25 are to receive specialist skill development, by whom and to recommend best practices across the board so that all visually impaired children have equal access to...

Audio description is a form of narration that fills in the blanks in film, TV and theatre shows. It tells blind and partially sighted people what visual elements they could be missing on screen or the stage. Many believe that the current provision of audio description is too low, as some of the leading broadcasters and streaming platforms are only just going above the legally recommended requireme...

The European Blind Union represent the interests of 30 million blind and partially sighted people across Europe and with the war in Ukraine still ongoing, we wanted to know how the EBU are helping visually impaired people in Ukraine and those who have evacuated to neighbouring countries. We put this question to the EBU's director, Lars Bossleman. For some, no matter how skilfully you use a cane, g...

The Marrakesh Treaty, or more informally referred to as Book Share, is an international agreement that gives visually impaired people access to a world of accessible books - quite literally! Countries that have signed up to the Marrakesh Treaty are able to share their online libraries with other countries involved. But listener Jackie Brown raised the point that the UK's system sometimes doesn't w...

According to the United Nations, more than 2.8 million people have so far fled Ukraine because of the Russian invasion and amongst them are visually impaired people. Many have fled to Poland, where some could be offered the help they need by Olga Mahler and Andriy Butenko. Olga travelled nearly 10,000 miles across the world from Australia to help visually impaired people with food and accommodatio...

Last weekend marked two years since the tragic death of blind rail user Cleveland Gervais, due to him falling off a train platform's edge in South East London. Since then, the UK's train network operators have been coming up with ways to make train stations a safer place for visually impaired travellers; including the pledge to install tactile paving to all train station platforms by 2029. Now, th...

Technological change within the workplace is often rapid with frequent system updates. More companies are adopting software that operates via a web page browser - or what is known as the cloud. Listener Matt Johnson, a data protection and privacy lawyer, contacted In Touch to say he feels the move to cloud-based software in the workplace is causing serious access problems for people who are blind...

Georgie Morrell is a visually impaired actress and stand-up comedian. She recently appeared in an episode of BBC One's hit hospital drama, Casualty; where she was cast to play a visually impaired woman and guide dog owner. Georgie wrote an article about her experience in the Metro, where she spoke about how refreshing it was to have a visually impaired person play a visually impaired character on...

Amendments to the Elections Bill are making their way through Parliament at the moment. They are not yet set in stone, but they include some significant changes to our rights to a fully independent and secret vote at polling stations. The RNIB have raised their concerns surrounding the wording of these proposed amendments; they think it will water down our protections and assurances to a secret vo...

The recent amendments to the Highway Code give, among other things, priority to pedestrians. This sounds like seemingly good news if you're blind or partially sighted; but charity Guide Dogs have raised concerns that, especially in the early stages, these changes could be dangerous as road users take time to get used to the new rules. We ask Guide Dogs' head of canine affairs, John Welsman to outl...

There are many types of eye conditions that can cause blindness or low vision and we often get requests to cover some of them in more detail. Tonight we're discussing Retinal Vein Occlusion with medical retina consultant Luke Nicholson from Moorfield's Eye Hospital. We discuss how the condition affects the eyes, the causes and the treatments. What techniques do you have for reading the room in soc...

Like many things in the art and performance sector, there isn't much that blind and visually impaired people haven't been involved in. And drag is no exception. It is thought to have been around in the UK since Shakespearean times and the first recorded drag queen is thought to have been in 1732. It has a long and rich history here in the UK. Today, drag reaches far beyond just drag queens. There...

We're discussing three audiobooks: Cold In Hand by John Harvey and narrated by Nick Boulton, Lost for Words by Stephanie Butland and narrated by Imogen Church and The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carré and narrated by... John le Carré. Peter reviews the stories and themes and, most importantly, the narration with guests Richard Land and Fiona Dunn. Presenter: Peter White Producer Beth Hemmings Website...

Kerry Burke, Eilidh Morrison and Reece Watt are all from Scotland and are members of the youth forum Haggeye. Haggeye first began in 2007 as part of RNIB Scotland. Its a place where young people from all over Scotland can meet to socialise and campaign on issues such as accessible transport, the need for more educational material in formats such as braille and audio and more. We speak to the three...

Back in 2007, Craig Lundberg was a decorated British Army soldier. He was one of the army's youngest junior leaders and was frequently being used by special forces. However during a roof top fire fight, Craig was hit with an RPG and was blinded instantly. Shortly after this happened, Peter visited him in Liverpool to hear about how he'd coped with his sudden sight loss. Back then, Craig's determin...