Born at the Right Time Read online

  In late 2011 Mary, plus another senior academic, myself and a researcher, commenced research into refugees and asylum seekers who are persons with disabilities. We were initially told that there were no refugees with disabilities, because persons with disabilities don’t travel. Our research took place in Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Uganda, Jordan and Turkey, and our findings were published in book form in 2017. We found the percentage of refugees with disabilities mirrors that in the general community, that being at least 15 per cent in any given population.

  Initially when I held my first smartphone with its glass screen, I had the same reaction as I did when I touched my first Apple computer way back in 1984—I wondered how this type of phone could assist me. Immediately after Christmas in December 2011, Mary bought me my first iPhone and I got lessons on how to use it. Nonetheless, during the first couple of weeks I was a little embarrassed because our grown-up children, who had been texting with their thumbs for years, thought that Dad was rather slow. My natural competitiveness came to the fore. Each morning for the next week or so, I would get up at about 1 a.m., slip into my dressing-gown and go to our kitchen, where I would sit with my iPhone and earphones, practise the commands for about two hours and then creep back to bed being careful not to wake Mary.

  On occasion, Mary feels my ears in the middle of the night, and there is nothing at all romantic about her action. If she finds that I am still listening to my earphones she says, ‘Darling, if you don’t stop reading you’ll be grumpy in the morning.’ I then tersely reply, ‘I’m never grumpy!’

  I was invited by the International Paralympic Committee to attend the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. We attended the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium. It was very cold as we sat in the evening open air, and Mary asked if I would like to go inside, but as Queen Elizabeth II was sitting in the Royal Box not too far away, I said that we really needed to experience all of the ceremony from out in the open.

  We attended many events, and Mary helpfully described them all to me. War veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq who had lost legs used prosthetic devices to compete in running, track and field, and basketball.

  One special memory was going to the Paralympic Village and placing messages on the disability wall. Mary and I were accompanied by our now daughter-in-law, Virginia, whose father Tom is in a wheelchair.

  I was given the great honour of handing out the medals for the women’s and men’s fifty-metre swim for visually impaired persons. Mary was given the medals by an official and she assisted me in putting them around the necks of the victors. The recipients were up on podiums, so I needed a little help so that I could find their heads over which to loop the medals. I had never before held an Olympic medal, and they were quite heavy.

  One of my delights was to present the bronze medal to Prudence Watt from Australia. Prue and I had briefly met previously. ‘Oh, it’s you, Ron,’ she said and we both laughed.

  At the close of 2014, my mandate as a member of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Committee concluded. I had joined the Board of Foresight Australia, which seeks to prevent blindness by providing medical services in the Asia–Pacific region. Around the same time, I became a director of the Board of Ability First Australia, which is a strategic alliance of disability service providers.

  Most of my recent teaching has been confined to teaching labour law units in the postgraduate program. However, very recently, owing to a shortage of staff, I taught Administrative Law once again, a subject I first taught in 1974. Oh, how the years have flown by.

  There has been one other, major way that ensured my administrative law expertise did not gather dust. In August 2013 I was sworn in as a part-time member of Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a five-year term. I sat on the podium with an associate beside me and presided over the matter before me. I heard matters involving welfare, workers’ compensation and citizenship. One reason I was appointed to this tribunal was to hear appeals concerning our National Disability Insurance Scheme.

  I believe that I was the only member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal at the time who was a person with a disability. In my view it is important for persons with disabilities to participate in such senior decision-making. After all, courts and tribunals should be microcosms of society, where all groups are represented.

  Around this time Mary gave me the Kurzweil National Federation of the Blind (KNFB) Reader app. I can now use the camera in my mobile phone to photograph a page, and then the KNFB app will read it out to me in reasonably good speech. I use it to read the addresses on letters when they arrive at our home, or to read short pieces of only a couple of pages. If I am on my own in a restaurant, the KNFB app enables me to read the menu. If I want to save the pages, I can do so to my Dropbox. Did Ray Kurzweil imagine in 1976 that his scanning invention would fit on a smartphone app?

  Through Assistance Dogs Australia, Mary obtained Risky for me as a Christmas present. Risky, who is part labrador and part kelpie, was rescued from a dog pound. He was trained to be an assistance dog, but he failed several of the tests. He is now my special buddy and also a beloved family member. His presence adds to my calmness and equilibrium.

  As long ago as in 2002, Daniel had decided to follow a musical career and enrolled at Sydney’s Conservatorium High School. While his interests have always been in composition, he had to learn a musical instrument to be considered and so he learned the oboe. Upon the completion of year twelve, he obtained an undergraduate scholarship to study composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and in August 2008, he left for the United Kingdom. A young American woman named Virginia Rockwell was also just about to begin her studies of the viola at the Royal Academy. Daniel and Virginia met on their first day of classes and have been together ever since.

  On 18 July 2014, Daniel married Virginia in Los Angeles. Before the big day, I went down to the beach to be with my two sons and a number of Daniel’s friends while Virginia and her girlfriends held their bridal dinner. I felt like an elder statesperson as we drank beer and ate barbecued sausages. The next day I was a little nervous about having to give one of the wedding speeches, but once I got into my stride it was all fine.

  Kate qualified for her Bachelor of Laws degree with Honours from the University of Sydney. Kate was overseas for the afternoon tea Mary threw for my sixty-eighth birthday, but her partner, Sally, was there. Kate joined in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ over the phone.

  Gerard is pursuing his calling as a surfer in international competitions, and as a trainer of elite sportspeople. One of his more interesting and perhaps exhausting tasks is to take schoolchildren during their holiday periods and to introduce them to skateboarding, surfing and related forms of exercise. He also coaches surfers in exotic locations overseas.

  Mary and I sometimes listen to the CD recordings of the Sydney Children’s Choir and Gondwana Voices in which Kate and Daniel participated. When I hear them singing on the CDs, and when songs by Paul Jarman, such as ‘Ancient City’ and ‘Shackleton’ come through the speakers, I get goose bumps and wonder whether those small but special voices actually were those of our children. Kate and Daniel received an extraordinary musical education in the choir, and music will always play a significant role in their lives. Kate is now a fine cellist, and Daniel has gone on to make a career as a film composer.

  As I take our dog, Risky, on his morning walk, I listen to the birds and other sounds around me. As I breathe in and out slowly, I deeply appreciate my time in this world.

  When I wake early and feel Mary beside me and listen to her steady breathing, I realise what a miracle it is to be in a loving relationship, which is still continuing on after more than three adventure-filled decades. From humble beginnings, I have had the rare privilege of living a rather extraordinary life.

  Epilogue

  The Colour Blue

  Can you explain the colour blue?

  When I was growing up, people used to describe colours to me i
n terms of particular objects. They would say that blue is like the ocean, that green is like the grass and that red is fiery like my own hair used to be.

  To be honest, such descriptions didn’t really give me any meaningful sense of colour. For me, the ocean is the taste of salty spray, the feel of water whipped by wind, the sounds of crashing or gently lapping waves. Do any of those things sound blue? Grass, on the other hand, can be soft underfoot or hard and spiky. It can be long, dry and rustling or short, spongy and squelchy. Is any, all or none of that green?

  Like blind people everywhere, I had to learn to live with the limitations of not truly understanding the whole content and context of the world around me. Colour, proportionality and visual descriptions continue to have different meanings for me compared to those with sight.

  I have always found it difficult to describe people in ‘visual’ terms—even those I know well. If I am honest, I would struggle even now to describe our children’s appearances. In early 1987, I recall meeting with a labour law friend, Colin Wood, in downtown Melbourne. Mary was going to join us at the building where Colin worked, so I walked with him down to street level.

  ‘Can you describe your wife to me?’ Colin asked. I stood there tongue-tied, saying simply, ‘Well, Mary is about five months’ pregnant.’ Colin responded gleefully, ‘Do you want me to go up to every woman who I think is about five months’ pregnant and ask them if they are your wife?’ Thankfully, Mary saw me and I was able to introduce her to my friend.

  People think it’s the big things that annoy me about being blind, such as not being able to drive a car or see a sunset. I don’t quite understand that. But do you know what really annoys me? The little things. I dropped something yesterday and I had to call Mary. That’s what really annoys me.

  Most blind people I know are very aural people, and much of my life is connected to what I can hear. On the other hand Mary, who is a portrait painter, is quite visual in her approach to life. It’s a little difficult to explain our differences, but when I come home I almost always switch on the radio for music or for news. For Mary a release comes when she goes into our garden and looks at its wonders. Another way of noting our differences is in getting to new places. For Mary her best way is to see a map, whereas for me it’s easiest to be told the exact directions.

  They say that hearing is one of the earliest senses to develop in babies. I was blessed in my youth with particularly acute hearing. One by-product of this is that I had no difficulty learning to speak. The ability to communicate orally is a critical advantage in society. I often wonder why blindness elicits sympathy responses while people who are deaf or hard of hearing often meet with impatience and frustration. Is it because our societies depend so heavily on the ability to connect through speech and sound?

  The next sense that has always been of crucial importance is that of touch. My fingers are in a real sense my eyes. But touch has its own security. I loved it when Mum held me, and even today to be held by Mary is very special. I think that touch has a lot to do with why I have always felt soothed and secure in the bath. It is the sense of being enclosed and touched all over by the warm water. Having said this, like many blind people I know, I do not like being touched unexpectedly. When this occurs it makes me tense. I find crowds difficult, especially when I have people coming at me from all angles wanting to touch me or shake my hand.

  I do not feel that my development has been hampered by being blind since birth. However, I think my lack of visual stimulus means that my brain is less used to dealing with several issues at once, and I don’t simply mean that this is because I am a male. For example, when our children were small and were in a row of car seats, Mary could drive, have the radio on, occasionally speak sternly to a misbehaving child and talk to me. All of that stimulus would be too much for my mind. With one sense less, I find it easier to do one task at a time.

  Of course my mum and the premature-baby carers could never have guessed that I had been born in the right place and at the right time. I lived in a developed nation, and I was able to take advantage of the huge technological advances of the 1980s and 1990s that opened up my life in unexpected ways.

  The computer-based assistive technology began altering my life when Mary and I were raising very small children. Sometimes I can’t help wondering how different my life might have been, had this assistive technology been available to me in 1971 when I completed my law degree. Would I have chosen to be a barrister instead of an academic law teacher? If my life had taken a different course, would I have met Mary? The truth is that asking these questions is a little like asking what my life might have been like if I had been a full-term baby and been born with sight.

  When I lived on my own in my twenties and thirties, when letters arrived I had to wait for my mother or for Lois or someone to come by in a day or two and look at them for me. I didn’t get upset about it, because there was no alternative. Now, it is all so different.

  If I had not had all of these technological changes, Mary would have felt compelled to do much more reading to me. I think she would have resented that after a time; after all, she has her own life. I think not only did the technology liberate me, but it also allowed her space in the marriage.

  Of course Mary helps me. I guess what I am saying is that the technology allows me to operate more independently than I once ever thought possible. My independence has added to the strength of our marriage. It is very clear to me that it has allowed us to work in the same field, legal academia, without getting too annoyed with one another.

  This is not my story alone, because the assistive-technology breakthrough has altered the lives of many other blind people just like me. The iPhone has also become a new icon for deaf people, through an app that allows you to use sign language. Of course, this type of assistive technology is still far more readily available to those living in developed countries such as Australia than it is to the millions of my blind or deaf sisters and brothers who reside in the developing world.

  There are a number of iPhone apps that are of enormous assistance to me and to blind people generally. Let me tell you about some of my favourite ones. There is the LookTel Money Reader app. When I point the iPhone camera to a note, such as an Australian ten-dollar bill, the voice will tell me not only the amount of the note, but also the currency, be it Australian, American or Canadian dollars, or in Euros or British pounds.

  Another app is Color Identifier from GreenGar Studios. When I point the camera at an object, it will tell me its approximate colour. You may ask, why do I need to know the colour of things? Well, I do the family washing. On occasion I have washed one of Mary’s light blouses in with the darks. Mary has said, ‘Darling, that was an expensive shirt.’ Now if I have any doubt about whether a garment is light or dark, I can use this app and all will be well.

  One afternoon I was riding on a bus in downtown Sydney. I plugged in my earphones and switched on the BlindSquare app. The voice began telling me the names of the shops that we were passing. I thought to myself, ‘Is this like seeing out the window?’ Then I further thought, ‘I guess it isn’t really like seeing; but whatever it is, it’s surely fantastic.’

  Once when I was walking our dog, Risky, I got lost. I phoned Mary, who was out shopping with our daughter, Kate. Mary suggested I use my AriadneGPS app, which is like a GPS system used by people with sight, and if I had no luck, then to call her back. I did use this app and got myself back home very easily indeed.

  I also use the TuneIn app, which enables me to listen to radio stations from around the world, provided those stations are streamed on the internet. I love listening to the BBC’s Radio 4, and also to WNYC in New York.

  Another app is Be My Eyes. This one allows you to sign up as a blind person, or a person with visual problems, or as a sighted helper. By May 2018, one million sighted volunteers had signed up to the Be My Eyes app. If I go into Be My Eyes and say I want help, it will find someone else who has got the app on and put me in contact with them. For ex
ample, one day Mary went out and I had to attend a lunch. I didn’t want to wear the wrong colour tie, so I laid out six good ties in a row on our bed. Through the Be My Eyes app I was able to ask the helper to look at me by holding the camera.

  ‘I’ve got this suit on and this shirt,’ I told the helper. ‘On my bed I’ve got a lot of ties. I want to know the best tie that will go with this shirt.’

  ‘Move over,’ replied the helper. ‘Get close to where you’ve got the ties.’ She looked at them and then said, ‘Second from the left.’

  Another very helpful app is FaceTime. Once it came to my rescue at my first conference for the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. I didn’t know where the kettle was in my hotel room. ‘Do I go out the door and ask some of these judges to come and help me find the kettle?’ I wondered before quickly deciding I really didn’t want to do that. Instead, I called up one of my researchers via FaceTime. She said, ‘Move the camera … there!’ Together we found the kettle.

  This is what I do with students and people in lectures to illustrate the accessibility features of the Apple iPhone. I tell them to open their phone and then go into ‘Settings’. From there, go to the item labelled ‘General’. And scroll down to ‘Accessibility’. Have a look at what is there.

  ‘Voice Over’ on my phone is always switched to ‘on’. All iPhones have a voice. Once Voice Over is switched on, I can touch items on the screen and the iPhone will announce them, such as messages and emails. If I want to open my emails, I tap on the email icon twice with my finger and it opens. It is exactly the same for Mac computers, which also have voice-over technology.

  As well as a voice for blind people, the iPhone has the capacity to alter the text for low-vision users. ‘Assistive touch’ and ‘Touch accommodation’ will assist someone with cerebral palsy work such a phone by changing the tapping of the glass screen for those with limited hand mobility. It then goes on with options for deaf people. This is what we call universal design. It’s there for everybody. But if you don’t need it, you don’t think about it.