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IN TOUCH – Assistive Technology for Pupils; Comedian Jamie MacDonald

TX:Ìý 03.08.2021Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, the offer of high-tech help to thousands of visually impaired pupils.Ìý We’re going to be finding out who it’s from, who it’s for and what it can do.Ìý And why blind people insist on laughing at their blindness.

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Clip

I went from hating my eyes to grudgingly accepting them, to ultimately enjoying them.Ìý I had the same journey with olives.

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White

We meet stand-up comedian Jamie MacDonald.Ìý A few more of those gags as the programme goes on and we find out about the TV documentary he’s just made called Blind Ambition on ´óÏó´«Ã½ 2.

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But first, a recent survey by the charity Guide Dogs found that one in two parents of visually impaired pupils in mainstream schools said their children were not using up-to-date technology to help them.Ìý They say, home learning and homework is difficult because technology is often kept in school and many families can’t afford the necessary equipment for use at home.Ìý Well Guide Dogs is launching its Tech for All scheme which aims to supply three and a half thousand children with free iPads in its first six months, rising to 10,000 by the end of next year, if the pilot is successful.Ìý

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Well, in a moment, we’re going to be talking to one of those pupils and his mum.Ìý First, though, I’m joined by Peter Osborne, Guide Dogs Director of Operations.

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Peter, first of all, what’s the background to this scheme and what’s the information that it’s based on?

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Osborne

So, we’re absolutely delighted to be able to bring technology to children and young people.Ìý We think it’s so important for people to have the opportunity to benefit from technology.Ìý We’re not means testing the scheme in any way, so if a person has a visual impairment and if children or a young person has a visual impairment and can benefit from the technology then we’re enabling that for as many people as we possibly can.

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White

Is it specifically for people in mainstream schools, I mean is the assumption that people in the few special schools that are left tend to have that equipment?

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Osborne

No, this is for any visually impaired child or young person, so it’s not just aimed at people who are in mainstream education.Ìý The technology that is available can benefit people outside school, in fact that’s where there’s a great deal of benefit – people can use that technology to perhaps learn the guitar or, you know, look up their favourite sport or whatever.Ìý And so, we’re really looking to enable technology for people outside school, noting the fact that people do have access, quite often, to technology in school but are not always able to bring that home.

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White

There is a lot of tech about, of course, now, designed with visually impaired people in mind and a lot of variety of need – variation in vision etc.Ìý How are you ensuring that what people get is what they need?

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Osborne

We are focusing on iPads and iPhones because they have inbuilt accessible technology through large print recognition but also speech.Ìý So, we’re focusing on that technology and we also have a digital learning programme because we’re aware that not everybody is up to speed with what technology can offer.

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White

And why aren’t people getting this equipment?Ìý I mean it must be known in the schools that they haven’t got what they should have?

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Osborne

Yeah, I think sometimes the process can be quite complicated and people need to go through that process.Ìý And one of the things that we’re also talking to people about is ways in which we can support people to do that, so we’re very pleased that a large number of people that are contacting us about this particular service are also asking for additional information about other services, including ways in which they can get support whilst they’re in school.Ìý So, we hope that will be a benefit of this, as well, that people will learn about other services that they can use and benefit from.

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White

Well let’s hear from someone who is benefiting from this.Ìý We’re going to Zoe Bates and her son Will.Ìý Will, if I can come to you first.Ìý Tell me a bit about the difficulties you were having without the equipment.

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Will

It was harder to read text or send over work or access Teams meetings through the lockdown or home learning.

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White

And what difference has it made to you now and how is it helping your schoolwork?

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Will

It’s helped a lot; I’ve been doing better with my homework and I’ve been getting a lot of up to date.

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White

Let me go to your mum, Zoe.Ìý What were you noticing that Will was finding difficult?

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Zoe Bates

Well, when Will was at junior school he had the use of an iPad throughout his school learning there but when he transitioned into senior school, he found it quite difficult because the tech that they were sending and the books that he was using, they were enlarging them.Ìý It’s difficult for a non-visually impaired person to understand that bigger isn’t always better because it causes more strain on the actual eyes, when they’ve got say large books that they’ve got to read and focus on.Ìý And so, when Will had the opportunity to gain the iPad from Guide Dogs all his work now is downloaded on to that.Ìý Especially during the pandemic, the Team meetings easier because it’s easier to navigate than on a laptop for him and also he’s able to complete his schoolwork because he’s able to zoom in and out and change the contrast on the iPad much easier.Ìý So, I found it really beneficial academically but not only that, also, socially, he’s been able to interact with his schoolfriends and family members throughout the pandemic with the iPad.Ìý And he’s been using a variety of games on there as well.

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White

So, he’s using it to play games as well as schoolwork?

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Zoe Bates

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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White

Let me go back to Peter Osborne, finally, of Guide Dogs.Ìý No one is going to criticise the idea of getting assistive technology to blind and partially sighted children but they might be surprised that it’s your organisation that’s doing it.Ìý After all, you’re still called Guide Dogs, that’s a pretty clear remit, so why this very educational project?

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Osborne

Our remit is to support anybody with sight loss to live the life they choose.Ìý But also, the provision of technology is equally a part of that and indeed we’re working with people across the age ranges, really, to enable people to use technology more effectively through some of our orientation mobility programmes, for example.Ìý So, whilst we have some very specific services our remit is much broader than that.

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White

But I mean the money you get, because of your name, you know it’s a bit of a no brainer isn’t it, people think they’re giving to Guide Dogs and you’re doing other things.Ìý Does that mean you can do anything for your Guide Dog owner members that you need to do?

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Osborne

Yes, we’re continuing to invest in services and facilities.Ìý For example, we have over 60 trainees coming through the programme to create more guide dog partnerships and we remain very much committed to our objectives of delivering 1,000 partnerships as we go forward.Ìý So, it’s really important that we consider all of our services in the round, as enabling people to live the life that they choose.

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White

Okay, Peter Osborne and Zoe and Will Bates, thank you all very much indeed.

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Now, let’s meet Jamie MacDonald, the latest in a distinguished, if rather small, band of blind stand-up comedians.Ìý Jamie has the eye condition retinitis pigmentosa, which, as he says himself, is easier to have than to spell and he’s recently ended a four-part series of Radio 4 called Life on the Blink.Ìý It’s much easier to get a flavour of Jamie’s comedy by listening to it, rather than me trying to describe it.Ìý But as any blind person, who ventures out alone, will know, asking directions from sighted people is pretty much a waste of time – their landmarks mean nothing to us.Ìý And Jamie imagines the fun of revenge really, giving our kind of directions to a sighted pedestrian.

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Clip – Jamie MacDonald

What you want to do is you want to take 179 medium steps to the left, you’ll get to some bollards, when the third one cracks your knee, reach out for a plate glass window.Ìý From there it’s an eight-metre crab walk to the right into a rough wooden fence, now grab on and follow that till you get five splinters in your hand and you drag your head through three sticky out bushes.Ìý Now brace yourself, the last one’s holly!Ìý At the end of the alley there is a Victorian spiral staircase, now plummet down with about 1G and bust out at the bottom, dizzy, on to the main road.Ìý Now you want to hear the traffic coming down your left-hand side because if it’s coming down your right-hand side, you’re screwed because that’s you in the fast lane. ÌýTumble down a tiny embankment, twist your ankle, tear your trousers, let out an involuntary scream – arhhhh – and then turn right on to a tiny pavement.Ìý Now this is where it gets a bit tricky.Ìý

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White

I got a lot of recognisable laughs from your series but that was the biggest probably, that sounded like it came from the heart.

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MacDonald

Yeah, thank you very much.Ìý Yeah that was some of the relatable stuff I put in the Radio 4 show because my kind of mission on stand-up is not to enlighten or anything like that or inspire but it’s just to entertain with our day-to-days lives because I think if you’ve got a certain type of attitude, we do live quite funny lives.Ìý

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White

We do.Ìý What was the impetus though for you, not just to laugh at yourself but to laugh at yourself on the stage?

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MacDonald

Ah, well, I think the – I think a lot of people with the kind of sight loss we go through, the journey and I ended up – I was in denial for quite a long time, then I started using a white stick and then that was fantastic but with that freedom and liberation I felt I lost a lot of my identity, I went from being Jamie to just – oh look, there’s a blind guy.Ìý And that wound me up quite a lot.Ìý I was working in a bank and I was just fading into the wall – just, there’s the blind guy coming, oh isn’t he brave, oh god, oh… I couldn’t bear it.Ìý So, I’d been going to this comedy club in Shoreditch, in London and as I say in the show, the people that were performing there were weird and wonderful and I decided that society had classed me as weird, so why not try and be wonderful.Ìý And I signed up and I spent a month working on a set and worrying about how the hell I was going to the stage and then I did it, I went up and had a five cathartic minutes of blind banter, which the schadenfreude loving people of Shoreditch seemed to go for.Ìý And then it just – it just went from there.

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White

Now the series you’ve just done for Radio 4, it was very upfront about your blindness, could you, do you, do stand-up without reference to being blind or is the audience likely to be so focused on it that you feel it has to be part of the act?

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MacDonald

Yeah, I’ve struggled with that one a lot because I do, in the hour long shows, I do off into non-blind stuff about Scottish independence and Glasgow and various things about my own other – my non-blind life.Ìý And – but when I was first starting out and I was doing a fringe show in Edinburgh in 2013, my view is you’ve always got to be upfront and honest with an audience.Ìý And if you just turn up and they didn’t know you were a blind comedian, political correctness would say that they shouldn’t be annoyed but they would be furious – I didn’t sign up to a blind comedian, what’s this nonsense, I don’t want to go it, I want to see a normal person.Ìý So, I – I bit the bullet and just called this show That Funny Blind Guy and had my head poking through a venetian blind and I thought – well, if you don’t get it from that.

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White

Now your latest project is a TV documentary, it was on ´óÏó´«Ã½ 2.Ìý It’s quite hard to describe, so I’m going to get you to do that for me but, in essence, it’s a kind of road trip to discover how creative people adjust to their loss of sight.

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Clip – Blind Ambition

So, are you impressed Jamie – the people we’ve found, a really cool credible young rapper?

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If you got them by not just Googling blind rapper, blind photographer, in fact you probably got me by going blind comedian.

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Have you ever searched blind comedian?

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Do you know I don’t – I don’t think I have because I know there’s only a few of us and I know who they all are.Ìý Put Scotland in at the end.

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Scotland’s only blind comedian.

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Yehhh.

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Neil Skene.

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Oh no.

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Neil Skene – you’re not even Scotland’s blind comedian.

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That is outrageous.

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White

Was that genuinely spontaneous Jamie, that there was another comedian who claimed to be the only Scottish blind comedian?

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MacDonald

Yeah, it absolutely was, I’ve never heard of the guy.Ìý But fair play to Neil Skene, he must be doing very well, somewhere – somewhere else.

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White

Get in touch with us Neil, we’ll have you on.

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MacDonald

No, you can have us debate – stop picking a fight Peter, come on.

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White

Tell me a bit more, though, about the idea behind it because you had quite a range of creative people on didn’t you?

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MacDonald

Yes.Ìý So, Jamie Leary is the guy that created the show, he’s a TV director of note, he’s well established but he’s got myopia, he’s got serious myopia.Ìý Now I’m not up on that, I’m an RP man.Ìý But he’s now at the point where he’s facing surgery to maintain his eyesight that could go wrong and see him lose his sight.Ìý And that caused him a bit of concern and he thought, well, is this going to be the end of my creative life, should I lose my sight.Ìý Well, hang on, let’s see about what other creatives are out there in the blind world just being good, not being good because they’re blind but just being good despite being blind.

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White

Right.Ìý And you also had – you had a blind rapper, you had a blind wood turner and you had a blind photographer as well.

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MacDonald

Yes, we had a blind photographer, still a bit suspicious of that one.

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White

Well, can I just ask you about that – would it be fair to say that you play the role of the sceptic in this documentary really, I mean you struggled to understand, as I admit I do as a totally blind person, why blind people would want to take photographs.Ìý Was that how you saw your role as the sceptic?

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MacDonald

No, no, no, I was very, very, very un-sceptical about everything else apart from the blind photographer, Ian, who’s a lovely guy and he’s got 95% blindness but the 5% he has is basically quite a clear pinprick of sight which he uses to phenomenal effect, so he is actually taking photos and he’s seen what he’s taken and he’s seen the shots and he can go for everything a photographer needs to do.Ìý So – but he is still very much blind, so that settles it for me because I just thought – well any – any good photo I take just is an accident and I’ll never know.Ìý Then we had the rapper and the wood turner and my personal favourite, we went to see an opera singer, she was absolutely wonderful.

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White

Right, well, by very great good fortune, we actually managed to have the opera singer with us – Lizzie…

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MacDonald

No way.

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White

We do…

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Capener

Hi.

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White

Lizzie Capener, opera singer for the past 20 years.Ìý You’ve sung with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the King’s Consort.Ìý You’ve made recordings for Radio 3 and Classic FM.Ìý Appeared in the Three Choirs Festival and was a judge in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ 1 singing competition.Ìý What on earth were you doing with this rabble?

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Capener

I’m not sure, that was a great introduction, thanks Jamie.

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MacDonald

Pleasure.

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Capener

Yeah, they – so I presume Jamie and Jamie did their Google of blind singer, blind opera singer and came up with me.Ìý I know there are a couple of others but I was obviously a bit luckier than Jamie and came to the top of the listing rather than further down.

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MacDonald

There’s not a Mrs Skene out there that’s a good singer.

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White

I mean the concept is interesting, which is to find out what happens to the creative urge, as it were, as you lose vision and we’ve talked about the photography, as an example, is there a sense in which loss can actually be something that makes you more creative?

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Capener

I’m not sure that there’s a direct link.Ìý I’ve been singing all my life, I started singing for my dad’s church choir when I was five and I wasn’t diagnosed with my RP until I was 17 and already, by then, I was more or less on the path to wanting to be a professional singer.Ìý I mean it has, as I’ve lost more of my sight, it has driven me more, I can say that, but I’m not sure that there would be a direct link between the creativity.

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White

Jamie MacDonald, what conclusions did you come to – is there a link – did you come to any firm conclusions after your documentary?

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MacDonald

I think I just had confirmed to me what I already thought, is that there’s just amazing creative people out there doing their jobs who have bad eyesight.Ìý And it may drive them more, it may drive them less, it’s almost irrelevant to the quality of their work.Ìý Lizzie’s a fantastic singer and that’s nothing to do with her eyesight and it hasn’t been.Ìý I mean the only problem I think Lizzie has is trying to find the concert halls, like I’m trying to find them myself, it’s more arbitrary stuff that’s a problem in Lizzie and mine’s game.

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White

Jamie, what’s your next project and are we going to hear anything more of Life on the Blink on Radio 4?

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MacDonald

Well, I’m just waiting to find that out myself, Peter, we’re in for a second series but we’ve not had it confirmed yet.Ìý Yeah, we’ve got a couple of things in the pipeline – I’m in a sitcom up in Scotland where I play a horrible bigot, which I’m very much…

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White

Surely not.

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MacDonald

…yeah, absolutely.

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White

Well, we’ll try and find out for you about your series for you, if we possibly can…

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MacDonald

Oh that’ll be great, get the inside scoop.

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White

… well I enjoyed it and also Lizzie Capener, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

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Capener

Thank you.

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White

And the documentary Blind Ambition, which was shown on ´óÏó´«Ã½ 2 on Sunday, is still available on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer.

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And that’s just about it for today.Ìý Just a quick heads up – we’re planning to look more closely at audio description, whether there’s enough of it and if not, what you want more of.Ìý You can email us at bbc.co.uk or you can go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch where you can download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Chris Hardman and Jonathan Esp, goodbye.