The
Benefits of Braille
After losing my sight over forty years ago at the
age of thirteen, I had to go away to a school for the blind at
The only thing I can remember about learning
Braille was that I spent a lot of time in a class room with a teacher, a
Perkins braillor and some books. It felt as if I was learning to read and
write all over again.
I don’t remember how long it took me before
I was competent in reading grade two Braille, but I seemed to muddle through
reading books within a term.
There were no talking computers at that time or
any other means of reading or writing.
Louis Braille’s invention was a real life saver for blind
children’s education. After two years at
Whilst I was waiting to go away for my assessment
I was asked if I would like to go to the local secondary modern school to fill
the time. I went there for about four terms. The teachers were great they would
set me separate work if they thought I couldn’t follow what the other
children were doing. The children treated me like an ordinary class mate, they
were all impressed with how I would read and write Braille. I left after six
months of what should have been a twelve month course in
In 1972 I was home again working in a Bodmin factory as a machine operator, and using a Braille
micrometer and vernear gauge, this is where I stayed
for thirty three years until the factory closed in October 2005. It
didn’t come as a big surprise to the workers as over the years, work
began to be sent to other countries to be done. I prepared myself before I left by starting a computer course run by the W.E.A. at
the Sight Centre in
After leaving my job in the factory I wanted to
try my hand at something different.
So I put some of my computer skills into practise
by searching the web where I found some articles from elderly blind people who
had learnt Braille. This sowed a seed of
an idea; I asked family and friends to act as guinea-pigs to see whether I
could teach people how to read and write Braille, they all gave me the thumbs
up. So with lots of help from Alison Griffin and the W.E.A. a Braille class for
beginners was set up in February. It was a ten week course, and each lesson
lasted for two hours.
Coming in to the 21st century with the
technical advances of text readers and audio books, Braille is still used in conjunction with a
computer. You can have a Braille embosser, so that you can print any files or
information from the web in to Braille.
Sadly the older person doesn’t have much
encouragement to learn Braille because they are told that they don’t have
such a sensitive touch in their fingers as do children and the younger adults.
Everyone should be given the opportunity to learn Braille. Age should be no barrier to learning Braille,
with a little patience and help if only to learn a few letters of the alphabet
would make their lives easier.
By learning grade two Braille you can read books,
magazines and even the radio and TV guides and to reach that standard would be
a great aim for most people. By learning
the first ten letters of the alphabet and a numeral sign to enable those
letters to be used as numbers you could keep telephone numbers or account
details at the tips of your fingers.
How ever little Braille you learn you can always
use it in a practical way in the home. Braille can be printed on sticky
back plastic so it can be stuck on any
surfaces such as cookers, washing machines, the covers of dvd’s,
cd’s and tapes. There are a few manufactures
that put Braille on their products, such as frozen foods and wines. Utility servers will send bills in Braille if
asked. More importantly some medicines
are labelled with Braille telling you the name of the
drug, plus the dosage of each tablet. We will never see a great percentage of
foods and medicines being labelled in Braille by
companies. But, with a little learning in how to use a dymo
tape gun, hand frame or a braillor, you can label
your own products and equipment.
After the success of the first course, I will be
starting another course in September. So if anyone is interested in learning
Braille or they need to brush up on certain letters or contractions, or they
are just wanting to chat about what the class entails, contact me on Bodmin 01208 75291.
Phil
Harper, Bodmin