SHARED FEATS.

I have just found a programme about the world famous blind savant Derek Paravacini who is, by anyone’s standards, a musical genius. How I’d love to be able to play half as well and more interesting still, would be to have a private audience with Derek. I know he couldn’t have an intellectual conversation with me about what motivates him and how music makes him feel or what thrills him most about playing to large audiences or small groups of friends. I also know that he couldn’t understand my written stories and articles and yet Derek and I share something not only with each other in terms of blindness and its cause because in our case we were both prem babies placed in too much oxygen which ruins the retinas but we share a deep and lasting love of that at which we’re good and the burning desire which drives us to want to communicate with others and share our abilities.

In no way do I see myself as the literary equivalent of Derek. However, the sheer joy and enthusiasm I get regarding writing and knowing someone has read and enjoyed that which I have written never wanes and remains the driving force which makes me want to write more, share more and interest myself in the written work of others.

A lover of music since I could first hear it and a pop music enthusiast who knows the words to loads of songs but can only pick out a tune one-handed on a keyboard, I can only marvel at Derek’s special abilities. When I’m not writing I’m listening to music for pleasure and sometimes wonder if the writer and musician are drawn to one-another because they recognise the creativity in their fellow artist. I can remember when I was a pupil at the same school as Derek. Another really good musician called Stephen, played his guitar and I sat in silence (a rare thing for me) at his feet as an eleven-year-old, begging him to play Beatles records on his guitar. Years later and not long before his tragic death, I sat with him again and he played James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” to which we both sang the words.

I am sure that Derek’s extraordinary abilities, Stephen’s abilities and my own writing ability does something very special both to us and for those with whom we share our work. I am equally sure that, were I to meet Derek, sit with him and sing the songs with him or just listen to him play, I would come home feeling better, more fulfilled and on a greater high than anyone drinking or drug taking.

Derek’s life is a life which is giving pleasure to millions. It answers the question as to whether people with his tremendous problems and enormous disabilities have a place in our world with a resounding “yes”. There was also a wonderful moment of serendipity when Adam Ockelford came into Derek’s life. Once more, this theory of mine that you need luck, ability, determination and help, comes to the fore since without Adam, so the programme presenter said, Derek’s talents would not have been realised. You would wonder perhaps where the luck was in a life so badly affected by the damage to Derek’s eyes and brain. The answer surely has to be that it was present in the meeting between Adam and Derek – A meeting which may never have happened. Just like Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, Adam and Derek have pooled their abilities – Adam’s as a teacher and Derek’s as a musician and brought forth the extraordinary musician that he has become into a world which otherwise wouldn’t have given him a second’s thought.

I make no secret of the fact that I am waiting for my “Annie” or “Adam” but for now I am pleased that I have come far enough along the path of success to have been able to share my writing with those kind enough to log onto the Guide Dogs volunteer site in order to read it and am thrilled to get feedback from those who do. It’s hard and probably unwise to contemplate what others may be learning from me as a blind writer but I know what Derek can teach us as a society and me as an individual and hope that what he can teach you is that our lives are worthwhile, that we do have abilities and that we need help to succeed. My personal lesson, derived from this talented yet damaged man is that I must keep going and not give up and not for the first time I realise that the human mind is mysterious and that the workings of the brain are complex. Derek may never be able to explain how he does what he does but in one sense perhaps that doesn’t matter except to scientists. What is important and very real to me is that he knows why he does what he does and it’s for the same reason that I do what I do – Because he loves it. I hope that if you get to hear him or have done so, you love it too and likewise with my writing when you read that. That is good enough for me, even if I never meet my “Annie” or my “Adam”.