I spent thursday taking photographs for the new Finer Catering site. Lisa is a brilliant cook and caters for major events and many weddings ie. Paul Robinson (the England goalkeeper). She recently served lunch to Charles & Camilla, and had previously cooked for Princess Diana.

Listening to Radio 4 this morning (whilst working) and the story of blind artist Sargy Mann, reminded me of when I was blind as a child. At the age of six I was playing in a pile of sand with my sister Jenny on the new housing estate where we lived. After a while I threw sand in her face and she responded by throwing the nearest thing to hand which was pure Builder’s Lime. The Lime is like an acid and burned through my eyes as it mixed with my tears! The pain was excruciating and I screamed like a wild creature. Doctors told my parents that I would never see again.

The point of this post is – the most fascinating part of the experience was my dreams. For several days, I had dreams with images but slowly they turned into sound only dreams. They were quite beautiful.

The other interesting part of this experience was that of trying to visualise as a blind person. Films and TV often show blind people navigating by touching part of an object and then seemingly visualising the entire object. When I touched the end of my hospital bed, it was the only part that existed and I could not visualise the rest of the bed. As I moved my hand, the previous area disappeared and only the new part existed. Maybe I would have developed these skills with time.

Over the course of a few weeks, my sight gradually recovered. It’s strange now to think my career depends on my sight and I occasionally wonder what I would now be doing if I had not recovered.