To mark World Sight Day, Stretford & Urmston Messenger deputy editor Ian Probert took to the streets to highlight some of the everyday problems faced by people who cannot see. Find out how he got on…

Imagine yourself suddenly stripped of one of your fives senses, finding yourself unable to see.

Suddenly the world might seem quite an intimidating place, full of perils and unexpected hazards.

That was the most striking part about the hour or so I spent being led, blindfolded, around Urmston town centre.

Your walking pace rapidly falls as you realise you are totally reliant on your guide – in my case former Urmston Lions chairman Jean Black. Go too fast when you can’t see and you are asking for trouble, increasing your chances of falling flat on your face.

Occasionally Jean would stop to let me bend down and discover the obstacles I narrowly avoided tripping over. Advertising boards placed at just the right height to cause an accident. Road signs, which warn of dangers, but can’t be seen. Small, low lying fences to protect trees from feet – just high enough to damage a foot or twist an ankle.

I’ll never look at a display outside a shop in the same way again. Jean asked me to bend down to look at one and it made hard contact with my face. The two of us shared a giggle at this unintended moment of slapstick, but for a blind person it would have been no laughing matter.

Rushing around busy streets, many of us don’t think twice about brushing against a fellow pedestrian, but the surprise of feeling someone you haven’t seen is not a pleasant one.

Without your eyes, other senses appear to be heightened. Urmston Lions club president Christine Hessing is a person I had hardly met before the walkabout. But when she arrived for a lunch an hour later I recognised her voice.

Smells from roadworks seemed more powerful and left me perplexed because their origin was impossible to identify.

Trying to eat is like an initiative test – I’ll admit to cheating and noshing with fingers because I couldn’t be bothered working out knives and forks.

And then there’s money – how long would it take you to distinguish between a 5p or a 10p coin if you were solely reliant on your sense of touch. And imagine trying to do it in a queue full or less-than-sympathetic sighted people at your local post office. One thing’s for sure – I won’t take my eyes for granted in the future.

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