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IN TOUCH – The UK's First Blind Overseas Ambassador; Travelling Tips & Tricks

TX:Ìý 21.05.2024Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Hello.Ìý Later, we’ll be returning to our travel panel from last week looking specifically for tips on where to get the best help when you’re travelling blind and how to avoid situations like this:

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Clip

I go up to the person, if I can find them, and say – Hi, I’ve registered for special assistance, I can’t see properly – and the first thing they say is – Oh, we’ll go and get you a wheelchair.Ìý And I’m like – No, my legs work fine, like I can walk, I just need someone to guide me to the gate.

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White

But first, a guest who almost certainly won’t need too many travel tips, she is, after all, just about to take up her post as the UK’s first totally blind ambassador.Ìý Victoria Harrison has already spent the best part of a quarter of a century working in the foreign and diplomatic service with postings in Helsinki and Sarajevo and working on our response teams to the situations in Afghanistan and Ukraine.Ìý Well now, she’s about to take up the position of Ambassador to Slovenia.Ìý So, how did she make it to this job?Ìý Before talking about that, though, I asked her just to tell us a bit more about her – about her early life, her education and the degree of vision she has.

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Harrison

I was born with normal vision, developed eyesight problems as a result of another childhood illness.Ìý My sight started to deteriorate more quickly, I suppose, around the time I was doing my GCSEs and A levels, timing’s great, isn’t it?Ìý And then I lost almost all my remaining vision between graduating and starting work.Ìý So, yeah, it was sort of a gradual process.

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White

I mean getting a job as a totally blind person is tough, we know what the statistics say about that, was this something in your mind before you lost the remainder of your sight, you know, was this something you were thinking of as a possibility?

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Harrison

Yeah, very much so.Ìý I think it really came about in my early to mid-teens, I was watching what was going on, the changes that were happening in Central and Eastern Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism around Eastern Europe and I remember lots of times on television news they kept talking about diplomats meeting and I asked my father what a diplomat does and what I understood from that was basically that you get to travel the world and learn languages and represent your country – sounds great.Ìý So, really, it was from, I suppose from my teenage years onwards that I’d wanted to be a diplomat and I don’t think it really occurred to me that my then partial sight would be a barrier.

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White

So, was it at all?Ìý I mean how difficult was it to get into the Diplomatic Service in the first place?Ìý It wasn’t an issue for you, was it an issue for anyone else?

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Harrison

So, because I sort of gone naively thinking well actually, I want to be a diplomat, I mainly thought that actually I wouldn’t get in because I just wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t intelligent enough, very competitive.Ìý The first time I hit a bit of a stumbling block was when I applied for an overseas work experience scheme with the Foreign Office back in 1996.Ìý There wasn’t anything on the form that said do you have a disability, so I didn’t put anything on there, it wasn’t a sort of calculated decision, it just wasn’t asked so I didn’t say anything.Ìý And then when I actually got offered the work experience placement, they phoned me up and I sort of thought well I better say something, so I said – Well you ought to be aware, I think, that I’m registered blind.Ìý There was just silence at the other end of the phone and a sort of – Oh, we don’t have blind people in our organisation.Ìý It wasn’t said with any sort of malice or anything, it was just that was the way things were.Ìý And so suddenly I thought – wow, okay, this is going to be trickier than you think.Ìý But my university career service were brilliant, they explained about the Disability Discrimination Act, they explained what the sort of provisions were within it and I did get to do that work experience placement which was fantastic – two months spent living in Moscow because I studied Russian, it was great.Ìý

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And then actually applying for the Civil Service, I mean, again, I think that I didn’t realise quite how lucky I was with my timings because while I’d been ready to apply a year early, which I wasn’t because I was at university, I may not have been accepted into the Diplomatic Service because at that point the Diplomatic Service had a requirement that you had to be able to serve anywhere in the world at any time, a global mobility requirement and, obviously, there were going to be places that actually it wouldn’t really practical for me to serve but because of the Disability Discrimination Act coming in, that actually [indistinct word] our global mobility requirement so I was allowed in.

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White

Well, they do say timing is everything in these things, don’t they?Ìý I’m just thinking of the questions they might have asked, so if you’ll forgive me from playing devil’s advocate, you know, but I would have… would imagine there’s a lot of hand shaking involved, people recognition is… to do in this job, plus there may be some risky situations as well where you will find yourself.Ìý Was that raised at all or those kinds of issues of will you be able to do the things that go with this job?

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Harrison

So, not so much that.Ìý I mean hand shaking, as you know being blind, it can be a bit of a tricky situation but actually it tends to be hardest when you’re actually trying to shake hands with someone else who’s blind, normally most people realise they need to sort of find my hand.Ìý And people recognition, again, I rely on other people to sort of help me with that, I mean occasionally I can do it with voice but, as you know, the number of people who say – Hello, it’s me – it doesn’t really help.Ìý So, I think the things that people were concerned about were things that are probably borne out of not really understanding and not knowing people who are blind.Ìý So, I had questions, when I was applying early on for jobs within the Foreign Office were things like – well, can you type – yes, I can type.Ìý And at one stage I was applying for jobs overseas and I talked to somebody and they said – Well, you ought to be aware that there are steps in the house that you’ll be living in – I was thinking, yeah, that’s fine.Ìý So, it’s that kind of thing that I think people were asking about much more than the things that you and I know are the challenges.Ìý There was one of our overseas embassies that was contacted about my suitability for a job there and the response came back saying – Well, Victoria will need to learn the language of this country and being blind she won’t be able to do that.Ìý So, it was things like that.Ìý It was other people’s misconceptions.

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White

We’ve talked about possible disadvantages, what about possible advantages, do you think there are some?

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Harrison

I suppose I’d say that I have to build a relationship with the people, say I’m doing a one-on-one meeting with somebody.Ìý The little things that happen like someone will put down a coffee cup and I might not know where it is, so the person I’m talking to may sort of guide my hand to it.Ìý That’s a bit of a human connection that other people may not have.Ìý Maybe when we’re leaving the room I might sort of ask to take their elbow so they can guide me out of the room.Ìý Those sorts of little connections can actually, I think, help to build relationships, they can help to provide a human connection that you might not otherwise have.Ìý You might have a really tricky meeting, you’re talking about political issues where you and the person you’re talking to have very different perspectives or our countries have very different perspectives but then you walk out together, there’s a bit of a human connection, I need their help, they offer their help, it builds the personal, it makes sure that there’s a person bond, even if professionally we disagree.Ìý It’s an intangible benefit but it’s something that can really break through a lot of the sort of nervousness.Ìý I mean people have maybe nervousness because the meeting’s formal, because of the position I’m in but also, there is sometimes that anxiety about meeting someone who’s blind and will I do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing and so can really, I think, break through both of those barriers.

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White

So, Ambassador, you start in August, is that it, you know, I’ve made it to Ambassador, or are there still ambitions for you to fulfil?

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Harrison

So, it’s an interesting one, Peter, it’s something where I’ve always said that actually what I focus on is the next job or the job I’m dong now, so for me, my ambition is to have a fantastic four years in Slovenia, really enjoy everything about living there, bringing with me my guide dog Otto, who’s part of the package for this so actually the focus is really about actually enjoying the next four years, making the most of the opportunity.Ìý Whatever comes next, comes next.

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White

Many congratulations to Victoria Harrison, hope we’ll be talking to her again.

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Not all of our travel experiences are likely to be so exalted, of course and I wanted to do a bit more picking of the travel brains of last week’s globetrotting guests – where do you get the best help and the worst and some tips for travelling.Ìý Well, I put these questions to prolific traveller Dawn Hopper, CEO of Traveleyes Amar Latif and first, Hayley Kennedy, with her startling record of having visited all 193 countries registered with the United Nations.

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Kennedy

The most amazing special assistance I ever had was in Mali, which I totally wouldn’t have expected.Ìý I got this very nice young man who came and held my hand and wouldn’t let me go until he’d found my guide and he helped me with my visa and everything.Ìý So, he was an absolute star.Ìý Countries I found quite difficult, I found Tahiti in French Polynesia incredibly challenging.Ìý So, I only carry hand luggage, like very, very light and my bag was eight kilos and their limit was five kilos for hand luggage, so after I’d taken my laptop and camera out my bag was below five kilos but they wouldn’t let me take my bag on.Ìý But they equally wouldn’t tell me how to get my bag back at the other end.Ìý So, I refused to check it in until I understood how I could get it back and they shouted at me and in the end, they threw my boarding pass and passport back at me and refused to provide any assistance.Ìý I just think they hadn’t maybe had any training on how to deal with people that had disabilities and they were so scared of doing something wrong that they refused to be flexible.Ìý But then again, I find special assistance in the UK particularly challenging because you never get any instructions on where to go and get your assistance from and you’re constantly told – Well, you need to look for the sign.Ìý It’s like – But I’ve just told you I’m blind.Ìý Yeah, but if you just follow the signs.

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White

I gather you, also, have had this problem of people not perhaps thinking of visual impairment… it’s not what they think of when they hear the word disabled.

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Kennedy

No.Ìý Quite often I’ll finally find check-in, but that’s if there is check-in because a lot of the times there’s just automatic machines now that give you your boarding pass, which doesn’t make things easier either when you can’t see a person.Ìý But I go up to the person, if I can find them, and say – Hi, I’ve registered for special assistance, I can’t see properly – and the first thing they say is – Oh, we’ll go and get you a wheelchair.Ìý And I’m like – No, my legs work fine, like I can walk, I just need someone to guide me to the gate or where I’m going kind of thing.

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White

Is that abroad or is that in this country as well?

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Kennedy

Predominantly abroad but in a lot of countries abroad.

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White

Right.Ìý Dawn, I mean you do travel quite a lot, as I said, you’ve got relatives all over the place, culturally, have you noticed big differences?

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Hopper

It’s interesting because the one place that was actually excellent, I have a very good friend that lives in Bristol and when you arrive at Bristol Airport there is actually a phone box there, that you ring, and the special assistance come out of the airport and they’ll meet you.Ìý When we went through security, they said – What’s the best way for us to get you through security – because Micky can’t walk through with his harness.Ìý But equally, when I was in France it was an horrendous experience.Ìý The security guards wanted me to take off Micky’s harness, his lead and his collar, so, essentially, having the dog with no way of me holding on to him or him being able to guide me.Ìý I always explain that the guide dog’s like a steering wheel for somebody in a car, you know, you don’t touch somebody’s steering wheel when they’re driving but it was really quite a cultural shock.Ìý And it does change your view of whether you would like to travel again to a certain place and these airports, going through security, can be quite challenging for anybody but when you’re visually impaired and you don’t know what to expect – are they going to rely on me to walk through, are they going to search me, what’s the machine like, put your foot in this machine – well put my foot where?

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White

There’s quite a lot of negative ones there, any positive ones?Ìý Not so much in the UK, somewhere else that you found a surprisingly positive experience?

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Hopper

Kindness and positivity goes a long way. Certainly in Spain, in Alicante, in the airport, you know I was trying to explain that if you have to be there three hours beforehand, the dog needs to spend – we would call it go to the bathroom – so you really have to work with the officials and if you’ve already gone through security you can’t go back out.Ìý And they have been excellent in terms of sort of working with me, allowing me to go out some back door and down stairs to make the dog able to relieve themselves before the flight.Ìý It’s just a shame there isn’t formal procedures and policies so that you have that consistency.

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White

Amar, rather like Hayley, you’ve been everywhere, or almost everywhere, not sure you’ve quite done the 193…

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Latif

Yeah, well it seems like Hayley’s done a lot of countries Hayley, very impressive.Ìý

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Kennedy

Thank you.

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White

But is there anywhere in particular that you have found… I think I’d like to hear another particularly positive one, if you’ve got one.

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Latif

Yeah, sure, I mean I found that Singapore Airport are very educated.Ìý You know the best way you can guide someone is ask them like how would you like to be guided rather than making assumptions or grabbing and they’re just amazing.Ìý So, every time I go through Singapore, they’ve always been great, the people have been wonderful.Ìý I mean in terms of like places I’ve travelled to, like in Peru, you know, we’ve gone to these floating islands where indigenous people never met any blind people before and after a few hours they’ve actually made models of their islands and let us touch them.Ìý We’ve gone into their museums, they’ve opened up the glass cases and let us feel these ancient Inca artefacts.Ìý And I was just going to say, you know, Dawn and Hayley, like, what I’ve found if you do need assistance at UK airports the best thing to do is get the number for special assistance and call them the night before and also then when you’re in your taxi, it’s quite good to just give them a call and often they’ll have someone waiting for you, so it’s not a known thing as much but that really, really helps.

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White

I want to explore tips for visually impaired people and Hayley you travel light, I think.

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Kennedy

Yes I do.Ìý I try and avoid checking a bag because that’s probably my biggest stress, trying to find it again.Ìý I guess some of my tips is I always keep my phone charged up because I use the camera as a magnifier to try and read signs or anything that I need to read, so I always carry a fully charged battery pack with me.Ìý Also, being quite clear on the help you need.Ìý Often people try and overcompensate because they don’t know what to do and actually if you give them clear instructions of what you need, they realise you don’t need as much help as what they’d suspect and they feel a lot more comfortable helping you.

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White

Okay.Ìý Dawn, top tips.

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Hopper

Give yourself extra time and even any medication or eye drops or anything like that, sometimes it helps to have a letter from the doctor just explaining what drops are.Ìý With the guide dog you allowed to bring an extra bag with his food in it.

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White

I must admit I learn something on every In Touch, I didn’t know you could carry an extra bag for the dog food if you’ve got a guide dog.

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Amar, let’s have the male view on this.

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Latif

I don’t carry a hairdryer because I don’t have any hair, so that’s good.

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Kennedy

Me neither, don’t worry.

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Latif

So, we’re both the same Hayley.Ìý I’d say like sometimes when you’re travelling you open up your suitcase, if you are taking even a small cabin bag or big one, and if you’re visually impaired or even if you’re sighted you can get confused, so sometimes having little bags with different items in them, like my sports gear goes in one bag, my underwear goes in another bag, you can feel, pull the right bag out.Ìý Oh god, there’s so many.Ìý If you’re going on a plane, I would say that sometimes it’s really handy to have a seat near the toilets, near the front because you get more attention as well from the staff when they’re bringing the food.Ìý So, sometimes it’s good to wait till everyone’s boarded and then you can go on and then just ask if there’s any spare seats.Ìý In terms of holidays, I’d say for a blind person it’s important to research what you want to do there, when you get out there, if you’re going to go solo just research whether you need to hire a tour guide or what do you want out of your holiday.Ìý But yeah, I’ve got loads of little guides but I think that should be enough for now.

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White

Yeah, that is a pretty comprehensive list, there’s still more we could have discussed because travel is an endless topic really but we do have to stop.Ìý But In Touch listeners don’t have to stop, let’s have some of your answers to those questions – where is best culturally, top tips – all those kinds of things, email intouch@bbc.co.uk, leave voice messages on 0161 8361338 or go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch.

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So, the much-travelled Hayley Kennedy, Dawn Hopper and Amar Latif, thank you all very much indeed.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Kelly Young and Jack Morris, goodbye.

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