Learning to live with blindness (From Stroud News and Journal)

Learning to live with blindness

Losing our sight is a is something many of us fear. The thought of coping in a world of darkness can be very daunting but Sue Allard who lost her sight because of a hereditary regenerative disease ten years ago was determined life as she knew it would continue.

Reporter Rachel Pegg spoke to this remarkable woman who has refused to accept that a disability such as blindness should change the way she lives.

STUDENT mum Sue Allard, 49, has an impressive number of achievements. She is partway through an Open University degree, she co-edits and publishes a magazine and she is a mother of two.

She also carries out charity work with disabled people and recently completed a sponsored triathlon. In her spare time, Sue is a keen gardener and cook and enjoys going to the gym.

But because she is also blind, some of these accomplishments have been hard to win - even down to being able to work in the garden.

All her life Sue has battled with vision problems.

She was told at school she was stupid because she seemed clumsy and in recent years she has become almost totally blind.

It has meant giving up her job as a conservation assistant at Stroud Museum and even having to fight to join her local gym after being told she was a health and safety risk.

But Sue does not give up easily and after a year of persistence she is now a regular at the leisure centre.

She refuses to be told she cannot do things other people can just because she is unable to see.

"People think if you're blind, it's the worst thing that can happen," she said. "All it really means is that you don't see very well so you do things in a different way. "You can still do everything everyone else does."

Sue was born in the new maternity ward in Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and brought up in the county. She moved from Longney to Ebley, where she lives now, at the age of 11.

Her parents sent her to Stroud High School the year the grammar school merged with the adjacent technical school and she has vivid memories of the pink, grey and fuchsia uniform and draconian rules governing how the girls dressed.

"I remember you used to get told off if you didn't wear your hat out of school," she said. "Once I had taken mine off because it was pouring with rain. "I had it in my bag and I was just walking up Beard's Lane when I was given an order mark."

It was while she was at school that Sue met her future husband, Paul, who was two years older and worked in Cirencester. Within a few years they were married at St Matthew's Church, Cainscross and have been together ever since.

Sue said: "My husband is very supportive. "He treats me like a human being. A lot of people don't."

During our interview Paul returned home after helping set up a computer for a 95-year-old blind woman who had never used one before. A lot of people who cannot see find such technology indispensable because the computer reads emails aloud, meaning they can stay in touch with family and friends.

Sue left High School at 18 after doing Chemistry, Biology and Maths A levels. She had wanted to do French but in those days arts and sciences were not allowed to be mixed.

She got a job as a laboratory technician at Stroud Technical College, where she stayed for five years, until she had her first baby.

Son Richard, now 26, works as an environmental technician in Stoke Orchard, Cheltenham and is studying for a master's degree. His younger sister Gillian, 22, is at the University of Gloucestershire.

Sue gave up work in the early 90s because her vision was deteriorating. Her sight problems are due to Retinitis Pigmentosa, a hereditary degenerative disease.

Luckily the genes are rare and recessive and neither of her children have the condition. Sue said: "I have always been very short-sighted. "I can't remember ever seeing in the dark and even as a child when I walked into a room I couldn't tell if anyone was there until they spoke."

Sue was originally told she would be blind by the age of 25 but it did not actually happen until around ten years ago. "The first few years were very frustrating," she said. "But then I found out about a new course at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford.

"I started going there once a term. "It was great. We all had varying degrees of vision problems and they taught us how to cope. "I am still good friends with people from the course."

This was a real turning point for Sue. "The course gave us our lives back," she explained.

Next she went to Stroud College to take French GCSE and later A level - the subject she had wanted to do at the age of 16. Since then, she has completed part of an Open University degree.

With a friend, she set up Modern Eyes, a magazine in large print and Braille for visually impaired people in Gloucestershire.

The publication is also available by email or on floppy disc and aims to encourage people to enjoy a new lease of life despite their vision problems.

This year Sue succeeded in joining Stratford Park Leisure Centre gym after a battle with the previous managers about her membership.

And in October she rowed, raced and cycled 6,000 metres to raise £500 towards Modern Eyes printing costs.

"The old management didn't know what to do with people who were a bit different," she said. "They seemed to think I was a major problem.

"But since I started going in May the staff have been really helpful. "They put me on a machine and come back ten minutes later.

"They were really annoyed when they found out I hadn't been allowed to join."

Sue finds it easy to cope in Stroud without being able to see because she knows the town so well, though she is thinking about getting a guide dog to make going to new places easier.

She does things slightly differently from other people - like putting larger plants in her garden, so she knows that anything tiny is a weed.

And she deals with her mail by scanning it on to her computer, which then reads it back.

In the kitchen, she has talking weighing scales and a talking measuring jug. Both devices tell her how much they contain.

The thing she misses most, she said, is being able to read - though she has a talking book machine with which she can listen to a choice of thousands of texts.

"You just have to look after yourself," she explained, "and sometimes learn to ask for help. "I hope I can encourage people not to think they can't do things because they have a visual impairment.

"If you stick at it, anything is possible." To find out more about Modern Eyes contact Sue on 01453 757047 or visit the website at www.modern-eyes.co.uk.