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IN TOUCH – RNIB Closure in Bristol

TX:Ìý 29.01.2019Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý LEE KUMUTAT

Ìý

White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, blind people take to the streets to try to save their resource centre.Ìý And losing your sight while pretending you’re not.

Ìý

Clip – Blind School

Nina

Excuse me, what platform is this?Ìý

Ìý

Guard

Careful sir, let the people off the train first, please.

Ìý

Nina

Excuse me, is this going to Liverpool?Ìý

Ìý

Passenger

Are you getting on or what?

Ìý

Nina

Alright, give me a chance.

Ìý

Train announcement

Welcome to passengers joining us at Stafford.Ìý This is the 1620 service to London, Euston…

Ìý

Nina

What?

Ìý

Train announcement

…buffet is now open…

Ìý

Nina

London?Ìý Oh no.

Ìý

Passenger

Are you alright?

Ìý

Nina

I think I’m on the wrong train.

Ìý

Passenger

Ah, too busy looking at your phone, no doubt.

Ìý

White

We hear from the playwright who’s used her own journey from mainstream to blind school in a drama airing on Radio 4 next week.

Ìý

Mandy Redvers-Rowe is that playwright and our guest today.Ìý That was Nina trying to run away from her blind school.Ìý How close to your situation was that scene – are you Nina?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Well I’m not Nina but I did, at the age of 17, go to Chorleywood School for Girls with little or no sight, I remember.Ìý What a title.Ìý And I was there for three years…

Ìý

White

Did you ever run away?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

No.Ìý But I did get through my mobility, I think it took me about a year to get through all my mobility tests and so I did start to travel on my own on the trains from Chorleywood to Bognor Regis, where I was brought up.Ìý So – but no, I mean all of us have had very terrifying experiences, no doubt, on train stations and things…

Ìý

White

Indeed.

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

…so, I imagined that.

Ìý

White

We’ll come back to fear a bit later on.Ìý Much more to come from Mandy.Ìý But first, for visually impaired customers there’s no real substitute for hands-on experience.Ìý I mean how else can you judge whether a piece of equipment is going to be right for you?Ìý But in recent years there’s been something of a trend for closing down regional resource centres where people could get to grips with equipment such as watches, magnifiers, canes etc.Ìý The latest to go is a resource centre in Bristol, which, as well as stocking kit, hosts braille and IT classes.Ìý But now the RNIB is selling it to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.Ìý Visually impaired people from Bristol and the surrounding areas are furious at this decision and last Tuesday they held a demonstration outside the building to vent their anger.Ìý Our reporter, Tom Walker, was there and was given a tour of the building by Paul Sullivan, one of the organisers.

Ìý

Demo noises

RNIB keep your promise (repeated).

Ìý

Walker

So, this then, is the IT suite here, I’ll just turn the lights on and I can see one, two, three, four computers, over here there’s a printer and even a fan to keep people cool in the summer.Ìý But I guess, Paul, once RNIB move out of this place at the end of May this facility won’t be available?

Ìý

Sullivan

Absolutely not, like every other space in this building, it will be converted into a training centre for Guide Dogs and we will lose access to it.Ìý And this is where the braille lessons take place.

Ìý

Walker

Shall we go and have a look?

Ìý

Sullivan

Okay.Ìý

Ìý

Walker

Here we go, it’s on that side.Ìý Ooh sorry, you go on ahead with your guide dog.Ìý And this is it, this is the room where people learn braille.Ìý How well attended are the braille classes?

Ìý

Sullivan

They, I think, go up and down in popularity but for those who need braille, the severely visually impaired, they are a really valued resource because it’s very hard to learn braille on your own.

Ìý

Demo noises

RNIB keep your promise (repeated)…

Ìý

Walker

There are some 20, maybe 25, visually impaired people now gathered outside 10 Stillhouse Lane protesting against RNIB’s closure of the resource centre and other facilities.

Ìý

Demo noises

RNIB keep your promise (repeated)…

Ìý

Walker

With me now is Jo Healey, who’s a volunteer here at Stillhouse Lane.Ìý Jo, what do you do here?

Ìý

Healey

I help run the basketry class on a Tuesday.

Ìý

Walker

And what will happen when it closes?

Ìý

Healey

I think these people will be more isolated, stuck on their own.Ìý RNIB encourages people to use technology to use their services but these people cannot use that technology.Ìý

Ìý

Walker

Because as well as being a volunteer you’re also a service user, aren’t you?

Ìý

Healey

I am indeed, yes and I can use RNIB services but I often have to help these elderly people to even use the telephone service because it has a menu and they are not happy to use that telephone menu, they don’t have the confidence.

Ìý

Demo noises

RNIB – can’t be trusted.

Ìý

Walker

No one man who was very vocal on the demonstration is Barrington Chambers and Barrington, you obviously feel very strongly about what’s happening.

Ìý

Chambers

So, if I need a long cane now, I can’t get one.Ìý If I need a talking microwave, I can’t get one.Ìý If I need a level indicator, something that every blind person use in their cup to make a hot drink, they told us that they’re not going to close the resource centre, it’s being closed now.Ìý RNIB is leaving Bristol.

Ìý

Demo noises

RNIB – lies and cheats.Ìý RNIB – lies and cheats.

Ìý

Walker

Are RNIB really guilty of lying to you though?

Ìý

Sullivan

We have been lied to, no doubt about it, and kept in the dark for over a year now, 14 months or more, and we have tried every way possible to get RNIB to engage with us honestly and openly and all they’ve done is prevaricate and obfuscate and keep us in the dark.

Ìý

Walker

Most people now have gone inside to shelter from the cold but still outside is Anela Wood who chairs Bristol and District VI Voice.Ìý Anela, RNIB’s financial difficulties are well known so surely closing a building like this just makes common sense?

Ìý

Wood

Yeah, I suppose from their point of view, they probably think it does make sense but from our point of view it is the only building that there is in Bristol that provides a service.Ìý RNIB took the building on with the understanding that they would provide those local services and now it seems that that’s not relevant to them and they’ve just – it feels like they’ve turned their back on us.

Ìý

Sullivan

I can see if you’re in dire financial circumstances you need to cut costs and RNIB have been doing that for a long number of years.Ìý They sold the box at the Albert Hall, they sold the hotels they ran, they’ve been selling the family silver for quite a long time now.

Ìý

Actuality – Meeting

I’ll open it up so you can ask questions in just a sec but I’ll just – a couple of brief points from me…

Ìý

Walker

That’s the voice of Colin Whitbourne, who’s one of the RNIB’s managers here in Bristol and somewhat unexpectedly Colin and his team have decided to hold a question and answer session with the protestors.

Ìý

Actuality – Meeting

… you said we will a place and that’s different…

Ìý

Walker

Well the protest and the Q and A session are over now but with me still here is Sheila Austin, who’s a member of Bristol and District VI Voice.

Ìý

Austin

Yeah, it seems to me that the situation we’re in now has been unbelievably unnecessary because if they had actually had respect for the blind of Bristol in the first place and actually had worked out, right from the beginning, about the idea of asking what the visually impaired in Bristol wanted, needed, it doesn’t seem to have any sense that the blind are stakeholders in the RNIB.Ìý Somehow, we’re to be done unto.

Ìý

Sullivan

We were formed with one aim and one aim only and that is to hold RNIB to their promise to give us a new community space that’s as good if not better than this particular building that we’re losing.Ìý If, at the end of the day, that proves to be absolutely impossible we would like to sit down and talk to them about possibly funding community services through other channels.

Ìý

White

So, the voices of Bristol there.

Ìý

Tom Walker’s with me in the studio, what’s the situation, Tom, about other RNIB resource centres?

Ìý

Walker

Well yes Peter, two resource centres have closed recently, in Liverpool and now in Bristol.Ìý There are, however, five remaining centres still open, in London, Stoke-on-Trent, Edinburgh, Camelon in Scotland and in Belfast.

Ìý

White

Well after the meeting there, you had the chance to talk in more detail with Colin Whitbourne of the RNIB.

Ìý

Walker

Yes, Colin is RNIB’s head of network operations in the South.Ìý I started by putting it to him that once the centre has closed people in Bristol will no longer have access to local services.

Ìý

Whitbourne

There will be some premises where staff will work from.Ìý There will be community activities.Ìý We will work with our partner organisations, and they’re not just within the sight loss sector but other places where people can meet, hold events, do their activities and we’ll make sure that they’re accessible, people know where they are and all the rest of it.Ìý So…this is one building and I know there’s loads of passion here, I really do get that, but we’ve got to be able to make sure that people from all across Bristol can have the same services, the same experience and be able to build their confidence and all the rest of it that the people here have.

Ìý

Walker

You’ve heard the passion today and there have been some very strong words.Ìý RNIB have been accused of lying, of misleading visually impaired people.Ìý Are those protestors right to make those allegations?

Ìý

Whitbourne

I think that’s a bit strong, they’re making their point and I get that, I really do.Ìý Yes, we’re stuck with budgets, yes we don’t want to over commit, of course we need to do that but we’ll find a solution, I am confident we will get somewhere out of this.

Ìý

Walker

They’ve lost faith with the RNIB haven’t they?

Ìý

Whitbourne

Yeah, they have.Ìý Trying to redevelop trust is hard.Ìý We’ve got to clearly set out what we want to do and we’ve got to make sure that we do what we say we’re going to do.Ìý This again comes back and plays to what we’re trying to do as an organisation, is to not have little hotspots of activity around the country where people receive a really good service but to get that really good service out into the community so that we reach more and more people.Ìý People living in remoter places aren’t able, necessarily, to get to the centre somewhere where we’ve got those lovely resource centres, so how can we get that out into the community, that’s the challenge for us.

Ìý

Walker

The people who use this facility, however, say I’ve met people as a result of coming to a centre like this, I’m doing things that I wouldn’t have otherwise done.Ìý And isn’t the danger with sending services like this out into the community that visually impaired people are going to become more isolated?

Ìý

Whitbourne

I don’t actually agree with that Tom.Ìý If you think about the place that my colleague was talking about just up the road here, at Willmill Farm, they’ve got lots of activities going on there, so, it’s not just for people with sight loss, there are people with all different abilities and doing different things.Ìý So, my view is, that blind and partially sighted people will go out and meet friends whether they’re sighted or whether they’re blind.

Ìý

Walker

Isn’t the reality though, Colin, that once you move out of here fully at the end of May if you haven’t found an alternative then the people of Bristol can say goodbye to a resource centre like this?

Ìý

Whitbourne

What we’re trying to do is to find an alternative way to doing this.Ìý We may not have the same as the space behind me at the moment, that’s the reality of it.

Ìý

White

Colin Whitbourne of the RNIB ending Tom Walker’s report.

Ìý

Mandy Redvers-Rowe is our studio guest today.Ìý Just before we come to the main reason for you being here Mandy, what about buying special equipment, how much do you use local resource centres and if you don’t how do you know what you’re buying and how to choose it?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Yeah, well I have used resource centres, not as much as I’d like to because mainly I’m in work, or have been in work.Ìý And I think when you’re newly blind and a lot of people lose their sight as older people and start to really rely on those resource centres, I’ve got a particular friend who used the Liverpool resource centre and he’d only lost his sight about five years ago, he was devastated by that loss.Ìý But I think when you’re newly blind, to meet other blind people is really important.

Ìý

White

Right, well you very neatly brought us back to recent loss of sight and to Blind School – your play – which is about a teenage girl who’s losing her sight and has reluctantly gone to a special school for blind and partially sighted pupils. ÌýWhat comes across, not surprisingly I guess, is how scared she is.Ìý Were you scared?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Oh yes, scared of other blind people, before I’d met them; scared of my future.Ìý And I’d never really thought about it much.Ìý I think when you’re sighted you don’t think too much about your future, you just go forward.Ìý But suddenly, when everything changes, you panic about everything.

Ìý

White

And I remember, actually, our blind school was full of blind people that were actually hairing about the place, running down the corridors, all that sort of thing.Ìý Now if you’re – I guess – if you’re someone who’s losing your sight that must come as a terrifying…

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

It was a shock, you know, because I was finding it hard to walk at a normal speed because I was so scared of everything, losing my sight.Ìý I think the big problem was I was still trying to look, I sort of hadn’t got to the point where I stopped looking, you’ve got much more confidence then.

Ìý

White

And this ties in, doesn’t it, I think with one of the clips you wanted us to play.Ìý Just introduce that for us.

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Yeah, so one of the things I find really hard, now I really can’t see at all and I find it really hard now, is running, just running straight forward in front of you with no guide or anything.Ìý And – so this clip’s really exploring sports sort of running tracks.

Ìý

Clip – Blind School

Whistle blowing

Teacher

Places girls.

Ìý

Laura

So, we line up side by side but usually we run one at a time so we don’t bump into each other.

Ìý

Nina

What, just run?

Ìý

Laura

Course, if you go off the track you only get onto the grass.

Ìý

Teacher

Laura.

Ìý

Laura

Yeah.

Ìý

Teacher

³¢²¹³Ü°ù²¹â€¦[·É³ó¾±²õ³Ù±ô±ð±Õ

Ìý

Laura

See ya.

Ìý

Teacher

Nina.

Ìý

Nina

Yes miss.

Ìý

Teacher

±·¾±²Ô²¹â€¦[·É³ó¾±²õ³Ù±ô±ð±Õ

Ìý

Are you okay Nina?Ìý There’s nothing in front of you, just go for it.

Ìý

Nina

Sorry, I’ve got a bit of a dodgy ankle, should probably rest it.

Ìý

White

And I’ve forgotten me PE kit as well.Ìý It’s one of those excuses, isn’t it.Ìý Of course, it isn’t just the fear of losing her sight, is it, with Nina, she feels, I think, that this is an alien environment – suddenly being in this school where almost everyone can see less than she can.

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Yeah, it’s alien in so many ways, isn’t it?Ìý First of all, for her, she went to a standard comprehensive, like I had, and went home every night and now she’s gone to a residential quite strange posh place.Ìý Obviously, Nina is not me and Laura – it’s a completely fictional story – but I’ve based it in a world that I knew.

Ìý

White

And Laura is Nina’s friend…

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Yeah.

Ìý

White

She’s totally blind of course and they compare notes.Ìý And it’s interesting, although they start by being really very friendly to her, rather friendlier than I think we were to people who came in, but a lot of the tensions come out in this argument between Nina, played by Ellie Wallwork and her friend, Laura, played by Robin Kinnersley, both visually impaired.Ìý And this is not just Nina’s feeling of how strange it is but Laura’s resentment that Nina regards them as strange.

Ìý

Clip – Blind School

Laura

You don’t want to be like us.

Ìý

Nina

Did I say that?

Ìý

Laura

You didn’t have to.Ìý You can’t stand the idea of being like me and Ruby and all the other blind girls.

Ìý

Nina

That’s not it.

Ìý

Laura

It’s alright for us to be blind and use stupid canes and read braille but Nina, no she’s too cool.

Ìý

Nina

No.

Ìý

Laura

Yeah, you can’t bear to hang around with us, every chance you get you’re off ringing your mates and your boyfriend from home, telling them all how pathetic we are.

Ìý

Nina

You’re being an idiot.

Ìý

Laura

Oh right, I’m an idiot now, as well as blind.Ìý Thing is, you haven’t really thought this through, have you?

Ìý

Nina

What?

Ìý

Laura

You can’t cling on to your sight forever, sooner or later it’ll be gone.Ìý And then where will you be?

Ìý

Nina

Shut up.

Ìý

White

That’s pretty tough stuff.Ìý You’ve said that you weren’t Nina but I just wonder how much did you write this to get your experience out of your system?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Probably – probably more than I realise.Ìý

Ìý

White

I mean are some of the things Nina says, the things you’d like to have said at the time but didn’t?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Oh gosh, it’s so hard to remember teenage life anyway, you’re all up and down emotionally aren’t you.Ìý But those feelings, I think, are genuine feelings on both sides.

Ìý

White

What about the acting?Ìý I mean Ellie, who played Nina of course, has already been on the In Touch programme earlier this year because she was in Doctor Who and Laura is Robin Kinnersley and there’s an interesting comparison with those two isn’t there, there was a bit of a switch.

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

All the actors are just brilliant, I was so impressed by all of them.Ìý And obviously I had nothing to do with auditioning or anything, that was done by Sharon, the Director, Sharon Sefton.Ìý Well the interesting thing is Ellie is completely blind and Robin is somebody losing her sight, so they played almost opposite roles and they both found that quite fascinating because they were saying things that almost opposite to how they felt.Ìý But both really enjoyed that I think.

Ìý

White

But how did they react to that because, as you say, it had been the blind girl actually playing the partially sighted part and the other way round?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Well they found it really interesting and I think Robin said, when she’d read it, Robin and Gill, who plays the teacher, blind teacher, she’s also partially sighted and losing sight and both of them said to me when they first read the script, they felt very emotional.

Ìý

White

This is Gillian Dean, who played Miss Munroe, and I thought she was fantastic, she was a teacher down the ages, kindly but with a hint of menace.Ìý So, I thought she’d caught it absolutely right.Ìý Just one more thing, it was done on location, can you just explain about some of the things that you had to do to make that work?

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Yeah, that was brilliant.Ìý So, obviously Chorleywood no longer exists and although Chorleywood was a girls’ school we recorded at Worcester, which was the boys’ school, which is now the mixed school.Ìý And I think because I don’t know the dynamics of a mixed blind school, when we wrote this, we kept it as an all girls’ school.Ìý It’s a fiction, so, although that’s not true nowadays we felt that was okay.Ìý But yeah, so we went on to Worcester and we recorded it live and some of the students from Worcester are in it, and I think we got their Deputy Head Teacher’s playing a part, he’s a guard on the train.Ìý They were very generous, they really looked after us there.

Ìý

White

And the sound was great, I mean with the running you could hear the running shoes and their legs almost – almost hear their legs rubbing together.

Ìý

Redvers-Rowe

Yeah, yeah, I mean the sound people did that, so there was a team of sound technicians, one person recording and one person doing all the action and she stood next to the actors as they spoke and then she’d take off and so it was amazing to be part of it.Ìý Very cold when we recorded that scene actually, yeah.

Ìý

White

Right, well people can judge for themselves because the play goes out next Tuesday, 5th February at 2.15.Ìý So, Mandy, thank you very much for joining us.Ìý

Ìý

That’s it for now, although there will be an extended podcast this week, in which Mandy will continue discussing issues raised by the play.Ìý Tom Walker will also be there, our reporter today, and producer Lee Kumutat will shed her clock of anonymity to join in.Ìý

Ìý

You can download the podcast from our website.Ìý You can also make your comments on our actionline for 24 hours after the programme on 0800 044 044.Ìý Or email intouch@bbc.co.uk.Ìý But from me, Peter White, producer Lee Kumutat and the team, goodbye.

Ìý