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IN TOUCH – Holidays

TX:Ìý 30.05.2023Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý Well, after finally getting a UK bank holiday weekend with almost universal good weather, naturally enough that our minds should turn to holidays and In Touch is no exception.Ìý But if you are visually impaired there are often a few extra considerations to take into account when booking a break and tonight, we’re featuring two women who, in different ways, have addressed this, not only for themselves but in ways which might help other blind and partially sighted holidaymakers.Ìý

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Well, we’ll be covering walking, caravans, sailing but always keeping your independence in mind.

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When I’m down here everything is familiar and I’m not reliant on somebody else being able to point things out to me or help me find where to go.Ìý So, the benefit of having a static caravan, if you like, continues even after my husband’s death because there is that familiarity with it.

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White

We’ll be hearing more from Christine Thomas later in the programme.

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But we start with Dee Jones, who, when she began to lose her sight, started thinking what holidays would still be practical for her and is now running her own, not for profit company, Sense Adventures which offers bespoke breaks for visually impaired people.Ìý She joins us.

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Dee, first of all, in a nutshell, what sort of things do you offer?

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Jones

Walking holidays on the Malvern Hills.Ìý So, when I could see properly, I always walked on the Malvern Hills, walked my dogs pretty much daily as I’ve been starting to lose my sight I became aware that the hills are actually very accessible and safe as a blind person.Ìý So, I was motivated by the fact that I still wanted to carry on walking on the hills and what a great opportunity it would be to be able to share that with other blind and visually impaired people.

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So, the holidays that I’ve been doing so far, so, it’s always changing, as I respond to demand, are walking holidays for three nights.Ìý So, you come on a Friday, go home on a Monday.Ìý We do a full day walking on Saturday, a shorter walk on Sunday and go and visit somewhere of interest locally on Sunday afternoon.

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White

The interesting thing about this is that you did think about holidays quite early, I mean you would think, in a way, if you start to lose your sight holidays wouldn’t be the first thing on your mind.Ìý Were you aware, quite quickly, that things were going to get more difficult from that point of view?

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Jones

Oh absolutely, yeah.Ìý So, what I offer is what I would want to do as a sighted person and it’s not easy to find but it doesn’t actually take much to facilitate it for a blind and visually impaired person.Ìý I mean going for a walk on the hills, I find difficult now on my own but I just have a friend go with me or with Sense Adventures we have these wonderful volunteer guides.Ìý So, I’ve got around about 40 guides now.

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White

I mean people’s independence and the amount of help that they might need vary considerably, how do you match people up with volunteers, for example.Ìý I mean there’s the issue of how much stamina people have got, how far they want to walk – it’s quite complicated, isn’t it?

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Jones

Yes, it is but I like to talk to people a lot before they come and also – well I know from my own experience there are days when I’m more confident in walking and I might not need so much help as on other days, when I might be tired or if the light changes, you know.Ìý I do give training to the volunteers and I go through all of that and we do have some people that come regularly, so we all get to know each other but we quite often have new people.

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Adams

The first activity I went on was a walk on the Malverns.

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White

Patrick Adams, a regular enthusiast for Sense Adventures’ trips.

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Adams

It gave me the opportunity to meet a number of other visually impaired people I didn’t know and a lot of local people who were the guides.Ìý So, the first and obvious benefit was, of course, a jolly good walk – uphill and down dale – and then we stop or have a picnic and then we swap guides and you’ve got somebody else to talk to.Ìý I get a tremendous amount out of it.Ìý You know I can see things in my head and I can visualise where we’re going, even though the visualisation may be not accurate.Ìý You’ve got to keep moving in this life and a good Saturday’s walk, getting the old heart rate up and the blood pressure down, at the end of it all, it’s a great day out.

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Jones

Well, I always emphasise that it’s not a fitness competition, that it’s about being out for the day.Ìý We walk at the pace of the slowest people and I always have extra guides as well, so, if anybody is struggling or feels they want to go back down, which hasn’t happened, then someone can always go back down with them, so, it’s really not an issue.Ìý I mean a. they’re safe, they’re not like the black mountains or whatever, so, you can get down easily but also, I know pretty much most of the paths.

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White

It’s interesting, you’re talking about safety there, Dee, actually I have walked a fair bit in the Malvern Hills because I went to school at Worcester and it’s only just down the road from there, of course.

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Jones

Oh, of course.

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White

I didn’t walk that often.Ìý On one occasion I was almost hit by a boulder which seemed to get dislodged from somewhere way above me and came bouncing down the hill and…

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Jones

Oh, my gosh.

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White

…and the next time I went a swarm of bees decided to settle on us.Ìý So, I mean it can…

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Jones

Goodness me.

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White

…it can be risky from time to time, can’t it, I mean walking is not wholly danger free.

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Jones

No.Ìý I mean all I can think is don’t come for the third time, you’re due for a third one, aren’t you?

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White

Perhaps I’m just injury prone.

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Jones

Yes, that’s very unusual.Ìý I mean, to be honest, I’m very cautious.Ìý There are parts of the hills where it’s more the terrain really that is not so good and I avoid those bits.Ìý I do know it very well, especially now that I walk so much, you know, I have to be so careful myself.

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White

And have you expanded; I mean do you do walks in other parts of the country?

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Jones

Well, this is what I’m just looking at, at the moment.Ìý So, we have a holiday in Devon in September and I have local contacts, I’ve made a friend through sailing, actually…

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White

We’ll come on to that.

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Jones

…who lives down there.Ìý Yes, absolutely.Ìý So, it’s another thing it’s opened up for me.Ìý But some of the regular people that come on the holidays have been saying they love coming to Malvern but they want to go to other parts of the country.Ìý And so, all things are possible.

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White

Okay, now, as well as being director of Sense Adventures you’re also now the chair of VISA, which is the Visually Impaired Sailing Association.Ìý How did that come about?

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Jones

Well, I’ve always loved boats and I heard about VISA and then the opportunity came to go to Mallorca and spend a week on a yacht in Mallorca, it was just before lockdown.Ìý A space came available at the last minute and the membership secretary, Sue, called me and I was blown by it, it’s an amazing experience as a blind person.

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Montage

I’d never done it before and I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and do something that I thought most people would think is completely impossible for somebody with no sight to do.

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You’re always invited to come and join in and participate, so I’ve been on the tiller, I’ve been pulling up the mast, I’ve been putting buoys out the side.Ìý And it’s brilliant for my confidence.

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It’s fun, it’s expansive, I’ve learnt so much, not only as a sailor but as a person.Ìý The way we communicate, the way we interact, there’s real growth happens on these trips.

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White

And what kind of trips does VISA offer?

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Jones

This year we’ve got about seven trips.Ìý One is a warm weather trip in Minorca and the others are along the south coast.Ìý Well, we have taster sails for the day, we have four-day trips and we have week-long sails.Ìý So, for the four day and the week-long sails you live on the yacht and you cook and everything, which is a big part of the empowering thing, I think, you know, as a blind person to go into totally different environments, in a small galley cooking for seven people.Ìý And you sail, if you’re blind you can sail.

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White

Do you need sailing experience to come on these things?

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Jones

No, not at all.Ìý So, I went completely new, I’d never been on a yacht before.Ìý We have three sighted crew to four blind or visually impaired crew and if you haven’t been before you’ve got someone there all the time.Ìý It’s the same ethos really as Sense Adventures.Ìý As a crew on the yacht, you work as a team, it just happens that some are blind or visually impaired and some can see.Ìý So, you’re absolutely – you’re not a passenger, you’re doing all of the tasks.Ìý You take the helm, which is wonderful, you know, it’s very intuitive feeling how the boat is.Ìý You hoist the sails, you moor the anchor, you do absolutely everything.Ìý I mean I can’t get enough of it, it’s just wonderful.

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White

Anything particularly exciting coming up in the near future on the VISA front?

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Jones

Yes, so we’ve got a Milford Haven for a week in September, there’s still some gaps there and if we sail as three boats then that’s an extra sort of sociable experience because we get together in the evening – we have pontoon parties, if you like.Ìý And then we’ve got some Southampton, we’ve got some spaces in August, which is a four-day trip sailing up and down the Solent and we’ve got some taster days as well.

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White

Dee Jones, thank you very much indeed.

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And just while we’re on the subject of holidays on the water, we also heard from Susan Braemar and she told us about the Nancy Oldfield Trust, which provides holidays and water activities for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access the Norfolk Broads.Ìý They have a fully accessible bungalow on site and another house a few miles away, which is also accessible.Ìý In both cases water activities are included free of charge – cruiser trips, sailing, canoeing, paddle boats and paddle boarding – all accompanied by qualified instructors and safety boats.

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Now one of the aspects of going on holiday, which can get in the way of a good time, is the loss of familiarity with your surroundings and all your stuff, you know, knowing where everything is, something you probably take for granted when you’re at home.Ìý Well, it’s an issue that Christine Thomas has thought about quite deeply and she’s found an answer to this, although, as we’ll hear, recent circumstances have made it even more important to her.Ìý Christine, explain what your solution has been to keeping your independence while on holiday.

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Thomas

My solution has been to purchase a static caravan on a holiday park.Ìý It means that I know exactly where the cooker is, how it works, where things are within the caravan – they don’t get moved by other people – and things like being able to just leave our belongings here, so there is actually less to pack each time we decide to come away.

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White

And the point you made in the email that you sent us is with the static caravan you actually know the routes.Ìý Can you just tell me a bit more detail about that, I mean what has that actually meant to you?

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Thomas

Well, it’s quite close to a beach, so it means that I can actually walk over to the beach without asking anybody to drive me or to take me there.Ìý It’s a fairly quiet location and so, it’s a fairly quiet road to get over to the beach.Ìý I’m also fortunate that it’s in a small village in Cornwall, it looks out on to St Austell Bay, which is on the south coast of Cornwall and that has a one-way system, so I can get to some local shops such as the supermarket and the pharmacy.Ìý A lot of caravans, these days, have patio doors on the front of the van and there’ll be some decking.Ìý So, what is lovely is I can walk out on to the decking straight in the morning, without having to go somewhere else first, so you can sit outside in the sunshine straightaway.

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White

And I suppose the other point is that you can do that now as soon as you get there, whereas with other new holiday places, you know, it takes three or four days really before you really know the setup, if you ever get to know it at all.

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Thomas

Well, that’s right and I like your point there – if ever you get to know it at all – because sometimes you could be there a number of days and it’s only near the end of the holiday that you think – oh, there was an easier way to do this – or – we could have asked for this assistance, whatever it might have been.

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White

That’s right, well, you usually find out on the last day, don’t you, really.Ìý Now, of course, all that was true when you had a sighted partner with you, your husband, who sadly died a few weeks ago, how much has that changed your situation?

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Thomas

Well, he had been poorly for some time but we hadn’t expected that ending to it.Ìý However, while he was poorly and we were at the caravan site, I was still able to see to quite a lot of his needs because I knew where the pharmacy was, we could contact the health centre, it enabled him to feel that life was as normal as possible really.Ìý And he was in a nice location.Ìý In some ways, some things are still – well many things, really, are still possible to do.Ìý So, I can still do the journey down here by train.Ìý When I’m down here, I’m not reliant on somebody else being able to point things out to me or help me find where things are or where to go or how to get to the shops and things like that.Ìý So, the benefit of having the static caravan, if you like, continues even after my husband’s death because there is that familiarity with it.Ìý And I think what was nice for Jim, is he could come away and not have to keep monitoring me and keeping an eye on me and it gave him a little bit more freedom as well.

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White

Yeah, because presumably had you not had that familiarity it might have been tempting really, over this period, to sort of hide away a bit or not want to go somewhere unknown on your own.

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Thomas

Yes, indeed.Ìý For example, a member of the family has invited me to go and visit them and have a holiday with them and that’s a couple of hundred miles away on the train and I don’t feel I have the confidence to do that, certainly not at the moment because it would be too big a step to feel completely independent, to try something completely new.

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White

Not everybody can buy a static caravan, of course, for all sorts of reasons, maybe they don’t want to, maybe they can’t afford to.Ìý This has obviously made an enormous difference to you, the fact that you’ve got this independence so soon after you arrive.

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Thomas

Yes, and indeed a part of the pleasure is you get to know where the sun is coming up, where it’s going down, you then start to realise that there are perhaps trees and shadows and reflections that all add to the experience that you don’t necessarily spot when you’re just in somewhere for five or six days.Ìý And there is a harbour a few hundred yards away and for some time I really couldn’t work out how the little boats on the sea got into the harbour because all there was, was a wall, what appeared to be a solid wall.Ìý We’d been coming down here for about four and a half years before I was on the beach one day, the sun was at a particular angle and I was standing in a particular place and suddenly I could see the gap in the harbour wall as to where the boats were going in and out but it took that period of time before I could ever actually recognise where the gap in the wall was.Ìý It just feels as though it’s almost home from home.Ìý And we used to joke that this was our posh house extension because it has a gas cooker here, instead of an old Rayburn that we had where we lived, so it’s much easier to do some of the things in the modern caravans because they’re well insulated, it’s got central heating.Ìý So, the actual lifestyle, sometimes, is easier than things that you might have to, how shall I say, put up with at home.

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White

Christine, thank you very much indeed.

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Now, most of the tips we give on this programme come from other listeners, which is why we’re always keen to enlist your help.Ìý Two issues coming up on the programme soon.Ìý We’re going to be looking at the RNIB’s helpline, how it works, who it’s for and we’d like to hear your experiences, if you’ve used it.Ìý Also, we’re planning to look in more detail at the controversy surrounding the suggestion that some train companies are considering closing some of their on-station ticket offices, as a way of cutting costs.Ìý We want to hear about your experiences of buying tickets and whether you’re having any particular problems in buying especially the cheaper offers, such as off-peak advance tickets, from your local station.

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And just one more thing.Ìý We mentioned a couple of weeks back, a consultation that the Civil Aviation Authority, the CAA, is mounting about access for disabled people when dealing with airlines, in particular, what problems guide dog owners may be having leaving and re-entering the country with their dogs.Ìý Well, we drew the CAA’s attention to the difficulties some visually impaired people may have making their suggestions online, as a result, they now tell us that there’ll be a telephone line available between 9.00 am and 5.00 pm, Mondays to Fridays, while the consultation is going on.Ìý The number is:Ìý 0330 1385015.Ìý We’ll have that on our website as well.Ìý And the consultation is open until July 21st.

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As for us, you can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, leave us your voice messages on 0161 8361338 or go to our website, if you’re able, that’s bbc.co.uk/intouch.Ìý From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Amy Brennan and John Cole, goodbye.

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