RNIB makes Harrogate stop on UK ‘Braille and Beyond’ library tour to celebrate 200th anniversary of braille

The event was organised by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and North Yorkshire library service and marks the second stop on a year-long RNIB ‘Braille and Beyond’ UK tour of libraries to mark the landmark anniversary.

At the event, braillists from RNIB and Harrogate and surrounding areas were able to share their experiences of the impact braille has on their lives.

Alan Thorpe, 60, from Sheffield is the UK’s only repair technician for Perkins braille machines – the manual braille embossers which were for many years the mainstay of braille writing and which are still widely used. He displayed a selection of his many braille machines to Harrogate.

He said: “People sometimes say, ‘why do you still deal with braille, when we’ve got audio books?’ But I reply, ‘well you can listen to audio books, so why do we print them for you?’ Bottom line is, why are we still teaching anybody to read and write? Just because somebody has to learn to read and write in a tactile format, should they be marginalised or thrown out of society? Without braille I can’t note down an email address or a postcode, make a shopping list or send a message. To give people the ability to make notes, write things down, send messages or read a bedtime story is vital and gives people all the tools they need to be successful in education and employment.”

Megan Hastings, 32, was born blind and is a writer, teacher and musician from Bradford. She read her moving essay ‘The Bumpy Road’, about her experiences of sight loss and braille at the event.

She says braille has been vital in her life and work: “Without learning braille there’s a lot of things I’d have to do very differently and a lot of doors that wouldn’t have been so open to me. My love affair with braille began when I was four. I learnt to read and write alongside my classmates. When they were practising joined up writing, my braille teacher would show me the difference between the ch and st signs and help me distinguish ing from the letter u. I remember reading my first book. It was about a rocket and I loved the story although I got the m’s and sh’s mixed up. It wasn’t long after this that I sat in front of the brailler, rolled in a sheet of paper, and started to write. It’s clear that being a braille reader gives you a different outlook on life. Who else reads all the boxes in the pharmacy just because they can? I will never get tired of asking for a braille menu in restaurants, even though the answer is usually ‘no.’ The pleasure I feel when I can read and write makes it all worthwhile.”

Sidney Tamblin, RNIB’s Community Connection Officer who is blind and learned braille from the age of three, said: “To me, braille is a fantastic resource for making me as independent as possible, whether that be from navigating buildings to identifying room numbers at hotels, reading tactile maps that have braille street names on or writing some notes for a presentation or a diary entry on a Perkins brailler machine. I use it on a daily basis for work and personal things. It’s well integrated into everything I do.”

Dave Williams, RNIB’s Inclusive Design Ambassador who is blind and a lifelong braille user, said: “Braille is reading designed for our fingers just like print is designed for our eyes. Braille enables my wife to identify her many medications and gave me the confidence to deliver a best man speech at my friend’s wedding. It’s a vital tool for professionals across a variety of fields, such as the politician or lawyer who has to rely on braille to deliver legally binding statements verbatim, or musicians like Stevie Wonder who told me how he uses braille to create and edit his song lyrics. Braille readers are more likely to be employed than blind people who don’t read braille and this highlights a critical need to expand braille education, ensuring that more children with vision impairment and adults with sight loss can benefit from this powerful tool.

“Supporting braille education and resources is a crucial step towards an inclusive society. We’re doing the RNIB Braille and Beyond tour to celebrate the story of braille so far and it will be up to blind and partially sighted people across the UK to write the next chapter.”