| Description | Interview with operators at the Scottish braille press. They discuss the printing of foreign language bibles in braille for the British and Foreign Bible Society and readers demonstrate the dictation of text in foreign languages. They talk about reading phonetically and methods of correcting mispronunciation and errors, and their preference for working from the printed copy rather than a braille manuscript copy transcibed by sighted missionary workers. Operators discuss the use of the left and right hand in reading braille and explain the methods they employ. Charles Parker and Philip Donnellan are introduced to Jean Russell, a proof reader who is working on sheet music for transcription, and the operator discusses the decreased demand for braille music (tracks 1-4).
Interview with Jean Russell and Pat Duncan, proof readers at the Scottish braille press. Jean Russell talks about her interest in piano music and the need to memorise music to transcribe it into braille, while Pat Duncan talks about her work proof reading science journals and her need to understand some of the content, her feelings that sighted people are afraid of the touch of blind people and those with other disabilities, her own experiences with rheumatism and the attitudes of other people towards her. Jean Russell and other workers join the conversation to describe the prejudices of sighted people towards people with disabilities, comparing them with racist attitudes towards black and Asian people and attributing them to fear of difference. Jean Russell thinks there should be more programmes to educate sighted people about blindness and talks about the defensiveness of both blind and sighted people and the sensitivity of minority groups to comments, her family background childhood in a working class area of Edinburgh. Pat Duncan talks about her childhood in Manchester, her education at school and university, spending time in hospital because of her rheumatism, and experiencing flare-ups of the condition. She talks about her difficulties finding a job, how she maintains her self-respect in reaction to attitudes about her disability (tracks 5-12).
Total: 32.57 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF565D0997380 |