Running Blind

Blind Runner and Guide Speeding Past the Sage

(photo courtesy of Steve Garrett / SportyPix)

My Dad started running marathons and half-marathons 32 years ago. As a child, I remember standing shivering on pavements around Tyne and Wear trying to spot him as he sped past en route from Morpeth to Newcastle (in the  New Year's Day road race) or from Newcastle to South Shields (in the now world-famous Great North Run). Little did I know that years later he would be running alongside me as my guide runner.

I took up running a couple of years ago but have only recently started running with a guide runner during races. Races are crowded and frantic affairs. I find it bewildering trying to run amongst thousands of runners who are constantly jostling for a clear piece of road. But with a guide runner by my side, I feel much more confident. Dad described the route to me as we went along, pointing out kilometre markers, water stations and, most movingly, the seven famous Newcastle-Gateshead bridges that I grew up with. It felt amazing to run past the Sage with the man who first took me to concerts there (and who now takes my children).

This is the first race I've done wearing my very bright RNIB tabbard. At first Dad and I were both worried about feeling self-conscious: it feels odd to advertise your disability in such a public way. But my travels with my white cane have shown me that announcing my blindness is only ever a positive experience. And so it was during the race. Runners were without exception courteous and mindful of our presence. And marshals and spectators along the route were enthusiastic in their applause and encouragement. And on a hilly course like the Great North 10k, every little helps.

In May I ran the Oxford Town and Gown 10k with another guide runner, my colleague and friend Cathy Thorin. She was a brilliant guide on a course that was narrow and very busy in places. But we were not wearing anything which told runners who we were. My recent run with my Dad suggests that fellow runners and spectators alike respond better to more obvious signs of blindness. 

Clash of the Canes

Clash of the Canes:

Old Cane goes right to left, New Cane left to right.

I was given my first long white cane a couple of years ago by Oxfordshire's sensory deprivation team. It is a functional and workaday kind of cane, solid and (until recently) reliable. But you couldn't call it elegant or sophisticated. When I was in Paris a couple of months ago, the roller-ball tip on the end of the cane got stuck in a metro pavement grating and came off. Once a kindly Frenchman had helped me locate it and stick it back on I continued on my way, anxious that my cane was no longer quite as robust as it had been.

So on my most recent visit to Paris I decided to treat myself to a new white cane. It felt good to be taking the decision to buy one (as one might buy a new handbag or hat), rather than having one thrust upon me at the taxpayer's expense and with no discussion of accessorisation. Fellow cane user Cathy Kudlick had told me that the Association Valentin Hauy sold some remarkably stylish French canes, and she was right. I tried three different ones and settled on a thin, sleek and lightweight model with a nifty folding device and a comfortable, yet attractive handle.

The following day I was walking home from the library. As I passed a particularly busy pavement cafe, something black and person-shaped zoomed out in front of me and I heard an oddly familiar sound. My new cane makes a comforting rattle as it goes along and the sound I heard was of another, similar, rattle, colliding with my own. Another cane user had come out of the cafe and our two canes had clashed. I didn't know whether to laugh or apologise so I clumsily did both. He grumpily accepted my apology as i would grudgingly accept an apology from someone who had carelessly walked into me because they weren't looking where they were going. I realised then that he hadn't noticed that I too had a cane. How embarrassing to be mistaken for an unobservant sighted person! I can't imagine what the beer and kir drinkers in the cafe must have made of our bizarre encounter.

In the heat of the moment I didn't explain his mistake, but gathered my wits and my cane and moved out of his way. Off he went down the pavement, oblivious to my own blindness and the things we might have had in common. I wish now that I'd gone after him and introduced myself. But I like to think that maybe one day he'll come across this blog and recognise himself.

How not to welcome the Olympic Flame

Torchbearer 133 Malcolm Fretter carrying the Olympic Flame on the Torch Relay leg through Oxford. Credit: Danny Lawson/LOCOG/PA Wire

On 6th July 2005 I was sitting on the floor of a rented house in Oxford. I was holding my seven-month-old baby boy in my arms, watching a live announcement on TV and explaining to him why it was such great news that the 2012 Olympic Games would be held in London. I spoke a message of hope, equality and peace into his tiny ear.

Yesterday I took my boy, now an exuberant seven-year-old, to greet the Olympic Flame as it arrived in Oxford. We cheered and clapped as it reached the stage in South Park. But this truly once-in-a-lifetime moment was spoilt for me even before I managed to catch a glimpse of the flame. It wasn't the mass of promotional material for a soft drinks company, a bank and a mobile phone manufacturer that spoiled it (although that certainly did not help), it was one sentence of the welcome speech delivered by the Leader of Oxford City Council just before the flame arrived.

The torch was carried into South Park by sports coach Malcolm Fretter. As he introduced him, Bob Price said something along the lines of, 'Malcolm is in a wheelchair, but has made a huge contribution to sport in Wantage'. The problem with this sentence is the word 'but'. It seems such a small and insignificant word. Yet it conveys a deeply troubling message. The assumption behind this sentnece is that Malcolm is an inspirational coach and community leader because he does his work from his wheelchair. Every day he struggles to overcome the adversity that is his disability, every day he fights, and wins, a battle against his impaired body.

This assumption posits disability as something negative which has to be overcome, triumphed over, defeated. It sets up a hierarchy between the able-bodied and the disabled in which the disabled are second-class, always struggling to do things that the able-bodied take for granted. It implies that we would be better off without disability altogether.  It suggests that disabled people who manage to live a 'normal' life are heroes who should be celebrated for their bravery and tenacity.

I have absolutely no doubt that Malcolm has done great work in his community. And I'm sure that being in a wheelchair must be annoying, frustrating and inconvenient at times. I have no wish to denigrate him or his achievements. What I object to is the persistent assumption, by most people, that disability is a hardship, something that we would be better off without. How do you think that makes the permanently disabled feel? Every time someone makes this kind of assumption, especially in public, in front of a 20,000 strong crowd, the negative image that disability has is strengthened. And the disabled become less integrated, more marginalised.

What if we looked again at disability? How might seeing disability in a positive light be better for both the disabled and the able-bodied? It would remind us that bodies come in all shapes and sizes. It would show us that no-one is perfect: some people's imperfections are more visible than others, but everyone has a weakness. And that is fine. It would allow everyone to be happy with their own body, valuing rather than either hating or denying its particular limitations. And it would remind us that surface appearance can be deceptive, that our most interesting and significant characteristics aren't always visible to the naked eye.

I am taking my seven-year-old boy to the Paralympics in September. I want to try and counter the negative images of disability that he is constantly bombarded with despite my very best efforts. Perhaps Bob Price should try and get hold of some tickets. I hear they haven't quite sold out yet.

** UPDATE **
I sent Councillor Bob Price a link to my blog and a letter objecting to his choice of words. I received the following reply which he has given me permission to post on this blog. I post it unchanged and without comment:

Dear Dr Thompson

I am truly sorry if my use of that particular construction has given rise in your, or anyone's mind, to that negative interpretation.

It was not a carefully constructed speech, having been asked to do it only two hours earlier. And in the two minutes max that was allotted I was seeking to to hold up Mr Fetter as one of the 8000 'local heroes' ,as someone who had continued to work very extensively with sports and community groups despite the limitations deriving from his illness.The 'but' was intended to denote admiration and worth.

Thank you for your consideration in drawing this to my attention. I will be more careful in future.

Good wishes

Councillor Bob Price
Hinksey Park Ward
Leader of the Council

Thérèse-Adèle Husson

As part of my research project into Disability Studies and French Culture I have been reading the novels of nineteenth-century blind writer Thérèse-Adèle Husson (introduced to me by Zina Weygand). Next week I will present my first findings on Husson's work in a paper entitled 'Monstrous Messages: Representations of the Disabled Body in Nineteenth-Century French Literature' at the 53rd Annual Conference of the Society for French Studies at the University of Exeter. In my paper I use contemporary Disability Studies to look again at depictions of blindness in French. I use examples from Baudelaire, Flaubert and Hugo to argue that blindness is almost always used in literature as a metaphor for something other than itself. The experience of blindness, how it feels to be blind and how it changes the blind person's relationship with the world, is rarely, if ever, touched upon.

Not all Husson's novels are about blindness but in Les Deux Aveugles et leur Jeune Conducteur (The Two Blind Men and their Young Guide), published posthumously in 1838, she tells the poignant story of blind brothers who are disowned by their family and forced to wander France trying to make a living. The story is told from the first-person perspective of one of the brothers. Late on in the narrative, the brothers unexpectedly encounter their neglectful father. As they suddenly realise who they have in front of them, the blind narrator utters the seemingly incongruous line: 'Son regard a rencontré le mien' (his gaze met mine). When I first came across this line I thought it must be there by mistake. Clearly a blind narrator, imagined by a blind writer, could have no understanding of the notion of the 'gaze' or the importance the sighted attach to eye contact. Surely his must be an authorial slip, a careless addition which Husson must have heard read aloud and unthinkingly transported into her text.

Contemporary Disability Study's resistance to the metaphorization of disability made me think again about this sentence. What if Husson was well aware of the incongruity of the phrase as she wrote it? What if she was trying to make her readers, both sighted and blind, think again about the alleged supremacy of sight?  Might we read this reference to the blind gaze as an insight into the way the blind relate to others in the world? The shock of this sentence invites us to separate blindness from its metaphoric baggage and put ourselves in the place of the narrator. As we do so we realise that the blind are not cut off from the world, living tragically in a bubble of isolation and self-pity. They are fully engaged and involved citizens who use their other senses to achieve the same kind of contact with others as the sighted manage (or think they manage) with their over-determined gaze.

Shouting at the (Blind) Ref

I love watching football on TV even though I agree with Tim Unwin that sport can sometimes sound better on the radio. In the past I have watched matches in bars, cafes, student common rooms and hotels but this year I expect to be mostly watching from the comfort of my sofa.  My boys are now old enough to watch with me and are taking a keen interest in my wall chart. Yesterday I subjected them to my armchair commentary during the England-France game. After abandoning an attempt to explain to them why I was giggling every time the English player Wellbeck was mentioned (a joke only really suitable for fellow French literature enthusiasts....), I had to try and tell them why I thought that the referee was failing to properly acknowledge the fouls inflicted on the English by the French. In the heat of the moment my first response was "Because he's blind". Luckily, and much to my husand's amusement, I managed to stop myself just before these words left my mouth. Instead I explained that the referee cannot possibly spot every misdemeanour which takes place on the pitch: after all he only has one pair of eyes whereas we have the benefit of many TV cameras zooming in on the action.

Once the boys had accepted this explanation, I began to wonder at my original response. What does it mean when someone who identifies herself as 'blind', someone who is working hard to be proud of her blindness, uses this word as a term of abuse? I'd like to think that the years I've spent listening to football commentary have left me with a stock of easy and un-thought-through phrases to trot out on such occasions. Perhaps I also talk about 'games of two halves' and 'tired legs' without even noticing.

But I worry that my response reveals something more sinister. What if society is so ready to accept the negativity of blindness that even the blind find themselves using it as an insult? How can I hope to celebrate my blindness, let alone encourage others to do the same, when the emotion of a football match triggers this kind of mindless comment? Football fans are not known for the subtlety of their insults. Indeed this particular tournament has already been marred by accusations of racist language. I am delighted that racism at football matches has at last been identified as an issue and is being addressed. I wonder when (or rather, if) the misuse of the language of disability will be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. I for one am now going to be paying a lot more attention to the kind of language I use when watching football.

Reading the White Cane

What does my white cane mean? I have enough sight to notice the sideways glances my cane attracts. (This post by another 'blind blogger' gives a great idea of what cane users can see). I don't use my cane all the time and quite often carry it neatly folded in my bag. So it must look odd when I unfold it and transform from sighted to blind.
So why do I only use it sometimes? And what does my using it signify?
After dark or around steps and other obstacles I use my cane to feel my way around. I sweep it in a wide arc in front of me to find kerbs, bollards, puddles and lamp posts. This is the kind of cane-use most readily associated with the blind but it is not the most important way I use my cane.
I have a long cane but mostly I use it as a symbol cane. (You know that a cane is being used in this way when it is carried so that it does not touch the ground). When held like this my cane has no practical function: it is purely symbolic, a sign saying "I don't see as well as you so you might like to move out of my way / use non-visual ways of communicating with me / expect me to step off the pavement in front of you if you are a car or bike / tell me who you are even if I know you really well or we had a conversation this morning." I tend to use my cane like this in busy or unfamiliar places and / or when I'm on my own. I'll always have it with me at conferences, in stations, airports, supermarkets and busy city streets. Once I took it with me to the library. This turned out to be pretty confusing for the librarian who couldn't quite grasp the fact that I needed help finding a book but that I was more than capable of reading it. I can see why my cane might cause a kind of interpretive panic: after all, I clearly have some sight (otherwise why bother with bifocals?) Stereotypical images of the blind always feature a white cane but actually only about 5% of cane-users have no sight at all. So a symbol cane says "I am happy to acknowledge my blindness to the world and in return you can feel free to talk to me about it."
It is a kind of visual shorthand which not only signals blindness, but also signals a willingness to talk about it. It is an offer of a conversation as well as permission to offer help. The problem is that the general public don't always know what my cane is trying to say. So every time I take my cane out and about I try and tell someone what it means. And now you know too.

Changing the Face of Disfigurement

Yesterday I saw a cinema advert that will stay with me longer than the film I watched afterwards. A man with a badly scarred face is sitting in a car. Outside it is dark and rainy. He is watching a house. A pretty woman enters the house. She is alone. She goes upstairs and starts cooking dinner. The man in the car can see her through the window. She doesn't know he is watching her. The music she is listening to on the radio is the same music that the man is listening to in the car. She pours herself a glass of red wine. The sound of the door knocker startles her. She goes downstairs and opens the door cautiously. She sees the man with the badly scarred face and stares at him in horror. If you want to see what happens next, watch the advert here.

What did you think was going to happen next? This ad is part of campaign for face equality on film. it is fighting against the ease with which the film industry uses facial disfigurement to represent evil. When a character with a disfigured face appears on screen, he or she is almost always a baddie. Cinema is incredibly lazy in the ways  it uses bodily appearance. Anything which departs from the perfect Hollywood body generally becomes part of the character's essence. But facial disfigurement is only skin deep: it doesn't change the way a person loves, laughs or thinks. How can the facially disfigured expect to be treated equally in the street, at school,  at work, or on the beach when there are no positive images of disfigurement at the cinema?

As the Face Equality on Film website points out: "these long-held and inaccurate beliefs are completely at odds with the reality for most people with disfigurements - who are lawyers, teachers, comedians, DIY lovers, parents, feisty teenagers, doting grandparents. They worry about their children, love cooking programmes, have affairs, worry about the rent, dye their hair, hate commuting - just as other characters do who are portrayed on the big screen."

This advert was shown at the cinema. But perhaps it should also be shown behind the scenes. For it is only when casting directors, producers and writers stop obsessing over stereotypical ideas of beauty that the cinema-going public will have the chance to see disfigurement presented in a more positive light.