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This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.
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This week on Studio One, we're asking you to join our Choir of Angels.
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Oh. This is Studio One on Vision Australia Radio.
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Hello, I'm Matthew and I'm Sam, and this is Studio One, your weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view here on Vision Australia Radio. On this week's show.
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We're going to be asking you to get involved. We'd like you to join our Choir of Angels panel of experts with lived experience in vision impairment.
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As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio One, or if you think there's something we should be talking about. Uh, and of course, that's very important this week. You never know your story and your insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
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The best way is to email us Studio One at Vision Australia. Org, that's studio one at Vision Australia.
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Org, this.
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Is studio one on Vision Australia radio.
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Hello there Sam.
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Hello there Matthew.
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Um. How the devil are you? I've been away for a while. What's been going on while I've been gone?
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Oh, I've been getting around and chatting to a few people. Uh, we talked about travel a couple of weeks ago, and then I jumped on a bus and we travelled, so. And we also talked to people about awards. And I didn't get an award.
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No, neither did I. Um, while I've been away, I have decided it's time to reboot and refresh. Uh, it's time for us to get some new voices on the program. That's our job is to give a voice to as many people living with, uh, blindness or low vision, or around blindness and low vision as humanly possible. And if you've listened to the show before, you have heard that, um, Sam has come up with a genius idea, which is our choir of angels, our panel of experts, uh, on various, sometimes random matters that affect people who live with a vision impairment. And what we do is we find loads of people and we ask them our random bunch of questions. And then when we, uh, come up with one of the subjects that is involved, um, we cobbled it all together, don't we, Sam?
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That's right. And I often put some cool music. Cool music or, um, sometimes some very boring music behind it.
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Nah. Yes. Uh, now, listen, Sam, what we're going to do this week is just to show people how painless the experience can be. Well, I'm going to ask you the questions. So this is what it would be like if our gentle listener were to get in touch and say, yes, I would like to be part of your choir of angels. I would like to help. Now, obviously, this is going to sound not the same as it does when we are clever or you cleverly edit all the people together, but uh, yeah, it gives you an idea of what the process is like, and we really would like you to get involved. If you want to do what Sam's about to do, then please email us Studio One at Vision Australia. Org. Now, as you know, Sam, there are no right answers to these questions and they don't necessarily go in a particular order at this stage. Part of the job is to confound you slightly and and and genuinely get what comes out the front of your head and capture that moment, that first initial thought. So no right answers, first answer that comes into your head, uh, and, well, I'm sure you and I will end up having a little discussion around your answers.
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Well, I just feel it's going a little bit one way. How about we hear also from you on a couple of these?
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Well, yes, but that's if you don't start enjoying hogging the limelight too much then maybe we can do that. Pinging back at me. All right, so here we go. Question number one. And this is how it works. You sit down with us. We we put our microphone in your face. Uh, and the first question you will be asked is, you know, an important one to all of us. Employment. It's one of the common themes of this show that perhaps some of us living with a vision impairment have not been employed to their full potential for various reasons. Also, jobs like truck driver, uh, or Uber deliverer or driver are not necessarily open to us. So, you know, when we're unemployed, we don't necessarily have the options that other people do. So I've.
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Always wanted to deliver pizzas myself, but you know, that's.
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You need the prophets. I know you. Um, Sam, how has your career been? Do you feel you've been fully employed to your full potential for all of your professional life?
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Definitely not. And there have been these long periods of unemployment, and it's very easy to sort of lose hope and sort of get into this, uh, routine of, oh, well, nobody wants me, so I'll go and find something else to do. The interesting thing is, often finding something else to do is actually led to a job. So, uh, giving up on, uh, just general, uh, basic, uh, shuffling papers around led me to, uh, get it credentials, which, again, took a long time to get another get work, but eventually it paid off. And not being able to get work in the IT sector meant that I got fed up and decided to get back into radio. So, uh, yeah, I mean, that's, uh, been my history and, um, I think the secret of things now and what I've said. To a few people in the past. Now is when you get to a certain stage of your life. You start, start thinking, do I want to do something that I'm, in theory, can do? Because that's often what we start training ourselves up for. That's why you have a lot of people going for jobs as receptionists and working on phones. Or do I want to do something that I really want to do? And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing now. So how about you, Matthew?
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Uh, I really struggled, um, with, uh, getting and holding down jobs. I have to confess. And I'm always willing to take the blame on myself. But I do know that whenever I go to a for a job interview, and the majority of my career has been in London's very competitive media jobs market, I know that if it's a half hour interview, I'm going to have to gird up my loins at some point and explain to people what my vision impairment means, while other people are explaining, while they're still explaining why they're the perfect candidate for the job. So you've immediately got one hand tied behind your back there. And then there is the the doubt that pops into the interviewer. Interviewer. Slash employer's head. Uh, so yeah, I again, I blame, uh, in terms of getting a job. You know, I blame myself. I'm getting better at conveying, uh, what happens. I mean, this job amazingly that I got, uh, the ad said applications from candidates with a vision impairment are encouraged, but that's literally a once in a lifetime experience. It's always a little bit harder. There will always be doubt in the mind of the person sitting on on the other side of the desk to you. Which brings us to our question one B it's called on our list. Which is which point do you declare your vision impairment in the job application process?
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Sam to me, um, I can come across as normal and unless, uh, someone has actually worked within the industry, as we call it, then they're not going to pick it. So, uh, the job I got with HP, which, uh, was, by the way, my the first ever permanent job I'd ever had everything before that had been, uh, on contract. But I basically let them know I was vision impaired. The first day I rocked up and had a big screen under my arm.
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Yeah. You see, again, I'm. I'm more for honesty. I don't I don't have the advantage that you have. People think I'm on drugs because I, uh, my eyes wobble everywhere and I'm generally long lived and a bit clumsy. And particularly when you're nervous and when I'm nervous in an interview situation, these things become exaggerated. We had an example recently of a young lady on the show who wanted to work at McDonald's. She was 14 years old and had a not dissimilar amount of sight to you and me. She was legally blind and she didn't want to tell them either. And I thought, you know, you're going into a an area with sharp knives and hot, fat, uh, surely you should declare that in advance. But again, there are no rules. And actually, it was up to her to decide whether she wanted to do that or not.
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I think quite often if a job is unsafe for someone like us to work in, it's probably unsafe for everybody else to work in. Really. I mean, there are some things that I just deliberately would not be going for that I know I just can't do. So, um, you know, uh, brain surgery. I'm not going to be a brain surgeon. So even if I had the qualifications, I probably wouldn't be going for those jobs. Uh, so. And I'm. I nearly got a job in, uh, a factory, and it was a case of a lot of climbing up high places and, uh, and and all that sort of stuff. And I just thought, no, I'm not going to do that as well. So, uh, I think to a large degree, things that are potentially dangerous, that and that I think are very, very careful, um, able bodied worker, you know, able bodied boss would be looking at going, oh, I'm not sure. Well, we take a bit more care of ourselves. We don't get ourselves into this situation. So that's, uh, that's always been my opinion of it. We have to be able to, uh, look at these things and say, can I do it? And if I can, then what's stopping me?
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Yeah, I shall never get a job in needlepoint. Uh, our employment specialist friend, Belinda Wilson, who is, uh, Vision Australia's, uh, employment guru, helping people with low vision or who are blind into work. She mentioned a candidate of hers who was really interested in aviation, and he weren't never going to become a pilot. Um, but what she did help him to do was, uh, get a job in baggage handling. So he was around the industry that he loved. You know, there's always a way through, isn't it? There's always another way of thinking about it.
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Oh, I've known people that have worked. Yeah, I've been very much into law enforcement and of course worked for the police, including in the garage, for example. So that's you can you can sort of slightly pursue your dreams if you have a desire to do something. And if you, um, decide that you're going to think slightly differently.
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Indeed. Uh, I ain't never getting a job in needlepoint. Now you're listening to Studio One here on Virgin Australia Radio. Our job is to get the voices of as many blind and low vision people on the radio as possible to talk about their lived experience, as the hipsters call it, of living with a vision impairment. Um, and the reason Sam and I are wobbling on is because we're trying to encourage you to join our choir of angels to become one of our panel of experts, uh, talking about your experience of living with blindness and a vision impairment, and the idea being that actually something you might say might click in somebody else's mind and they'll go, oh, yeah, I've got that, too. Um, we touched upon cooking Sam a hot, fat and sharp knives. Uh, what are you, like in the kitchen?
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I think I'm pretty good. I toyed with the idea at one stage of actually becoming a cook. So, uh, I'm quite familiar with the surroundings, and I'm more than happy to just play around with things. The problem is, is I don't like reading recipe books. I can read a recipe book, I can follow a recipe. I just don't like following them myself. Essentially my own stubbornness, I think. But I don't find any limitations. Uh, really, as far as that goes, uh, you sort of follow your nose quite literally when as far as cooking things. Um, how about you?
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I have the palate of a 12 year old, and, uh, I am a great home cook. Uh, and looking after two young twins, I basically fallen into my element. I like pasta, and I like oven chips, so. So that's been fine. I am by no means a gourmet chef. I occasionally like to cook at the weekends for my friends. But the interesting thing that I've learned through this job is how to run your kitchen. And the answer is less stuff, not more. And to be organized and to let, uh, other people know that you've put things in a certain place in the kitchen because they're easy for you to find. You don't need a drawer full of fondue sets and skewers. You need the knives that you use. And, um, you know, the stuff that you use on a daily basis goes in the top drawer, and there should only be 5 or 6 things in there that's been really useful to me. And I would encourage anybody to listen to one of our shows with Tony Brown, who used to be a celebrity chef, and then he lost his sight and the ability to cook on high heat and aggressively. And and he does wonderful descriptions of how to cook using the other four senses. In fact, it's what he does for a job these days. He helps other people regain their confidence after in the kitchen after sight loss. So yeah, it losing sight or not being able to see is not the end of your culinary career.
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And yes, you get some interesting injuries every now and again. I've lost count of how many times I've burnt my finger just by touching the wrong side of the pot or, uh, or something like that, but, uh, well, they heal up.
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Actually, we need to get Tony on because I need to have a word with him because one of his mantras is sharp knife, sharp knife, sharp knife. And the theory being that which is safer cutting with a blunt knife or a sharp knife and. He says, well, if you're cutting with a blunt knife, you're pushing harder. You do your hand more damage. But in the last three weeks, I've bought a new sharp knife and I have sliced open my left hand twice. And I'm currently looking at, oh, I'm currently looking at an injury that yeah, it's a bit puffy and swollen. Uh, so, Tony, you need.
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To buy a glove.
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Yeah, yeah, he didn't mention that and actually.
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Buy special gloves. So, um, for for exactly that, that thing. Uh, Mike and I'll, I'll tell you what. I will send you a care package. We I actually saw these, um, cutting gloves. So you'll you'll expect them in the in the post. Thank you.
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Make them in an extra large. I have that thing where I've got quite big hands. And sometimes you put on a pair of gloves and it doesn't look very nice because the fingers, like between the fingers, it doesn't. The fingers don't quite fit, you know what I mean? You look like you've got webbed feet. Um, this is an example of a question where you and I are going to be able to demonstrate that there are no right answers to our choir of angels questions, and your answer and my answer are totally different. And you know what, Sam? I'm going to take your advice and I'm going to go first. Sport, what is your relationship with sport? And mine is not untypical and I cannot see very well, but also I have no depth perception. I my two eyes don't work together, so I can't tell how far away things are, particularly balls that are coming towards me or travelling past me. Uh, so I was the kid who, every week at school, without fail, was picked last in the the the lineup of choosing teams. I've always got picked last. And then when I went to university, I, uh, decided that there are other geeks here. I must be able to find some other people who were picked last at school, and maybe I can have a game. So I set up a five, a weekly, five a side football game for people who were picked last at school. And guess who got picked last? I'm the bottom of the pile, which is not your experience of sport at all, is it, Sam?
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It kind of is, though. Um, I've never really been good at team sports, and I think that's partly because I'm not really a team player. I'm a very. You know.
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I noticed that.
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My own way. Yes, yes. But, uh, no, I mean, it was, uh, in my, uh, mid teens where I started actually showing aptitude for something. I was actually good at something which was, uh, more a bigger surprise to me than it was to, uh, uh, anybody else really. And, uh, I mean, it's a good life lesson that you learn, uh, when you have a disability of some sort is to know when an opportunity falls in your lap and when to take it. And that's exactly what I did.
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What were you good at saying?
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Hey, I'm good at sport. I'm. You know, I'm good at track and field. Uh, I started out qualifying for Seoul at the Paralympics in 1988 as a as a jumper. I was, uh, jumping over 111 one meter 60 and in the, uh, high jump and, uh, over six meters in the long jump. But, uh, in the intervening time between, um, being 16 and being 17, uh, my body changed and they developed an attitude for aptitude for, uh, for middle, middle distance running. So for 400 and 800 meter track. So the career sort of took off in running and, uh, the, uh, jumping events just sort of disappeared because I found one I wasn't improving and two, I was getting injured. So but I'm probably one of the least sporty people I know. Really, a lot of this. Um, yeah, I think a lot a lot of, um, sport doesn't really particularly interest me. But, uh, being in a culture that we are, I pay attention to it. So I have a favorite football team, for example. So I will pay attention to it. At least I can have a conversation with other people at a barbecue. But apart from that, no, I mean, it's I. And, uh, what I found really, really strange was when I got to the Institute of Sport in Canberra, there were a handful of other people that are in exactly the same situation that, uh, would have preferred to geek out in front of Star Trek as opposed to, uh, you know, watching a basketball game or something like that. So, uh, the lesson to learn really is if you're good at something, build on it.
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Um.
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So as you can tell, I mean, Sam's being modest for once. Uh, I was the person who was picked last at university. Out of all the people who got picked last at school, my, my, I actively dislike physical activity. I don't like trying to perform physical feats in front of other people. And yeah, I've missed out somewhat. I'm a reasonable pool player, but, uh, but that's about it. Uh, whereas.
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I am the world's worst pool player, I am shocking at it, yes, but.
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The thing is, the thing is that you have a medal from the Paralympic Games in Barcelona. So you know what? You win.
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This is studio one on Vision Australia Radio.
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You're listening to studio one. I'm. Matthew that. Sam. Uh, this week, we are asking you to get involved with our choir of angels. So that's the the group of people who have lived experience our panel of experts on low vision and blindness. What we do is we sit you down and we ask you a series of questions. In fact, the very series of questions that I'm asking Sam at the moment, and then he chops them together in a clever way whenever the subjects in question come up on our show. So we'd like you to get involved. Please email studio One at Vision Australia. Org, and we'll get back to you and sit you down and hopefully you can be on the show within a matter of weeks. So the next question, Sam, is, is frankly, uh, yeah, it's one of our favorites, isn't it? Uh, and it's as much about how do you feel when you're asked this question as what your actual answer is? Sam, how much can you see and how do you feel when random punters come up to you and ask you that question?
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I will answer the first the second question first just to be difficult, but I like it when somebody actually is, um, builds up the guts to actually ask me about my disability. Um, it's sometimes been a pain in the neck because you never really know what to say about it, but I think there's just so much misunderstanding out there nowadays that, um, I think that it's nice that people do take an interest. And I think a big problem now is when with political correctness, actually, because political correctness is supposed to make you think differently and people don't want to think differently. So what they do instead of, uh, trying to understand something more, is they just don't say anything. So just simply asking the question of somebody, if, uh, I'm not a complete, not a stranger. I mean, that's a bit rude, but I mean, if you've got to know somebody fairly well and you're genuinely curious, just ask. And, um, that's always been sort of probably the best way, way. But I mean, um, quite often. Um, yes, of course. Um, the response would be, um, all right. So how much can you see? Which is probably the most relevant question because I've always had this eye condition. But I mean, you can go to the medical, um, dictionary and say, all right, this is my eye condition, this is how it affects my vision, etc., etc. but the way I always say is essentially I can't focus on things properly. So everything is slightly blurred. And also I can't see distances. So anything that's, uh, about 60 or so meters away or basically I can't see it.
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And yeah, my mind's a little closer up than that. Um, I, I answer in a practical way, or always used to before I, um, became, uh, before I started working in, in, in the field, as you put it earlier on, I, uh, when I was at school, I used to have to stand up next to the blackboard, and even so, I couldn't see the other side of the blackboard in. There is an issue about you're trying to blend in. You're standing in front of the blooming class being a blinding, which is not fun. And being a teenager is hard enough already. As discussed, I, uh, cannot, uh, judge distances. I have no depth perception because my eyes don't work in unison. If you walk past me in the street, I probably won't notice I'm not being rude. Sometimes I get people when they walk past me. I tend to identify people by clothes, gait and shape of hair rather than facial features. Um, I'm so far off being able to drive. It's it's not funny. Uh, and, yeah, I still don't feel I've adequately answered that question. And like you, except I phrased it slightly differently. My my answer is, if I'm having a bad day and somebody goes, how much can you see? Then my answer is, is again, how much can you see? Um, and uh, yeah. Again, because I, like you, have uh, always had the same eyesight condition, but that's not the same for all of our listeners. Some people lose sight later in life. We have one bloke who regained a bit of sight, which was a little strange. So there's no advantage to to losing sight, except for the fact that you have a better yardstick to measure, uh, against. But yeah, that's another question where you and I perhaps are not a, um, broad, uh, range of examples of how people's answers can be to that, that question. And some people answer, I can't see anything at all, which is, again, no advantage to that, except there's a quick and efficient answer to that question.
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And as we know, though, I mean, not being able to see anything at all can come in a number of different sizes, too. I mean, there can be somebody that can see no shapes, but can see colours and, uh, can just make out shapes but can't see colours. Uh, so it's a very wide and, uh, versatile world. And I mean, one of the things, I mean, I would think that we should be covering at some stage in the future is. What is it like to lose your sight? I think that's an interesting sort of topic, and because I've known people that haven't even noticed it, and they've just the first time they've noticed it is when they've gone and got an eye test and they've lost half their eyesight. So sometimes it's just so slow that, no, they don't notice it. And it's like thinking about it later. It's like, oh yeah, that's right. I used to be able to see that. Hmm.
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So these questions, by the way, are not just for people who have a vision impairment or are blind. They're also for the people who live around them. That's some of the people we like to support on this show. And the subject of parents and kids often comes up. So the two questions I've got written down here, which are, I think numbers ten and 11, Sam, are what was your relationship like with your mother? What role did she play in your life? That's one we always tend to ask around Mother's Day and then what's your relationship like with your kids? So so you can answer some of that. Um, because you have had a relationship with your mother, but, uh, yeah, again, there are no right answers and not everybody has an answer to all of these questions.
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So in the case of my mother, she's probably the most influential member of my family because I grew up in a single parent family. The other most influential person is my late grandmother, basically was my second parent. So yes, they had a lot of influence on me and they were nurturing when they needed to be nurturing and utterly disciplinary when they needed to be. They helped to make me what I am in that way. So, uh, it's not just I mean, not letting me look blind is one thing that is, you know, look up, look at what you're doing. Look where you're going. Uh, don't hunch that kind of thing. Which, I don't know, it sounds like nagging, but I think to people like ourselves, it, um, really does help us. It means that we can blend in if we want to.
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My mother was a tough cookie like that as well. But having had kids myself, uh, both of whom we thought my my eyesight condition was male only, we proved twice on one day with the twin girls that. No, it could be female, too. Uh, so I've I've seen this from both sides. And what you have to remember about mothers, and obviously you remember the discipline bits, but, uh, at that most vulnerable, exciting and frightening point of your life where you handed a newborn baby, that's hard enough to then have, on top of that, to be told that your baby is blind or nearly blind, particularly if you've had no experience of it, you know? And yeah, it's an incredibly hard moment. So the discipline comes after that shock, that grief, that worry. So again, this is why we like to hear not only people talk about their mothers, but we like to hear from mothers too. So email studio one at Vision Australia. Org and we will um, put you into our choir of Angels. We will ask you these questions. And yeah, parenting is one of the most important topics we talk about on this show. Now there are loads more questions. You've heard a few already, but, uh, we're running out of time. So, um, so yeah, we would like to say to, to you, please do get involved. Um, we always do this every week, but now we have something specific to ask you. We'll be back next week, but between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio One. If you think there's something we should be talking about, or if you want to join our choir of angels.
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You never know your story and your insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
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Email is best studio one at Vision Australia. Studio one at Vision australia.org.
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Virgin Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio One.
