SIMON SAID.

About fourteen years ago, when I was using an old Brailler, I had what silly people may call “Perkins” pals (penpals to you and me and anyone else who wants to treat blind people as normal and hate phrases which set us apart like touch tours and clock face descriptions of food).

In those heady days before the invention of a technology I can barely get to grips with, I established a friendship with Simon, a young man who now lives in Scunthorpe, north Lincolnshire. Through a friend of mine I have now re-established contact with Simon and this has thrilled both of us for many reasons.

Since age three months I have been blind but Simon, as well as being blind is deaf. Since my days at school and college I have known a few people who suffer this double sensory loss and, knowing how I rely on my hearing to compensate for my lack of sight, I wonder how I would cope were I in their shoes. The eyes and ears are the umbilical cords connecting us to the rest of the world. Without either your eyes or ears you are in an island state – Your body becoming a prison instead of a vehicle for mobility and social communication.

Many people have decided, from their positions of ignorance and stupidity that it is worse to either be blind or deaf. What I say is that it is worse to be both for then you suffer the problems of both and, just as the mixing of two colours make a third, so do the mixing of two disabilities make a third one, distinct from either of the other two.

Simon told me he had been in hospital – A scary and unnerving experience for anyone. My first thought was:

“How did the nurses communicate with you”? Or

“Did they even communicate with you”?

Hardly anyone knows the manual and the plight of the deaf-blind is never discussed on radio or TV. Where is Simon’s privacy when he needs typetalk to make a phone call?

My last thought as I drifted off to sleep last night was:

“How can I make Simon’s life better”?

The answer isn’t by tut-tutting and saying it’s a shame. The answer isn’t to cry into my pillow thousands of sentimental tears of pity. Today, Simon himself provided the answer and suggested I write this article, telling my story or should I say our story – The story of how we re-established contact, thereby publicising the problems of those doubly handicapped in this way. Words are my business since I am a writer with a blog who has won a short story competition. I love language and words, music and poetry and I cannot imagine life without them so I agreed to do what Simon said. He, from his position of darkness and silence has spoken loudly and clearly to me:

“Help me tell it like it is”.

That was an offer I just could not refuse. His courage, fortitude and sense of humour, displayed from a position of unrelenting adversity, gives me courage and inspiration of my own so let’s all do what Simon says – Namely make the world of those without hearing and sight a more bearable and deaf-blind friendly place.

(The end).