- How does a blind girl chop an onion?
How does a blind girl light a candle?
How do blind people dream?
How do blind people read and write?
We use braille, and braille is a system of raised
dots that I could feel with my fingers
and that's how I read.
I write braille by using this,
it's called a Perkins Brailler,
it punctures holes into paper for me.
This is a braille computer, and I know it as a Braille Note.
It has a braille keyboard on here,
and a refresh able braille display.
One braille cell represents one character,
and is comprised of six dots.
So for instance, if I wanted to write the alphabet
for letter A just dot one would be raised,
for letter B, dot one and two,
and for C, one and four.
How does a blind girl pick up her guide dogs poop?
Busy girl, busy girl
Busy, busy, busy
And I feel down,
down to her bum
and then I've got double bag, double poop bags
and then when she moves I feel her go up
and pick up the poop.
I feel the grass to where her poop is.
Very glamorous, can't believe
I'm doing this on TikTok.
And there we go!
How does a blind girl chop an onion?
Chefs always always use their fingers anyway
to guide a knife.
And they don't necessarily look at
the chopping board when they're chopping.
And it's just the same for me.
I use a serrated knife and it's very, very sharp.
So I'm not going to hurt myself.
(cutting sounds)
Chop the sides of the onion off.
It's rootage
And then put that outside the chopping board.
Chop a line down so then I can peel off the layers
because all onions have layers.
I chop in half
like that.
If the onions are flat against the chopping board
and I go with the grain bridging my hands.
(cutting noises)
How does a bling girl deal with a gas hub
while she's cooking an egg?
Pan in one hand, I'm going to feel
along the cooker while it's cold and off.
I'm going to place it in the center where
the flame would be and get it centralized,
have a good feel.
This is a water boil alert,
it rattles when the water in the pan
is brought up to the boil.
I'm going to place it in the bottom
with the heat still off,
a freshly boiled kettle,
I'm just going to fill up the pan.
(clicking)
It's boiling, yay, I can hear it!
I've lowered the heat, it's now simmering,
and it's calmed down.
I'm going to lower the eggs into the
water in the chip basket.
How does a blind girl light a candle?
I've got some extra long matches,
so when the match is lit, the flame is going to
be as far away from my fingers as humanly possible.
Also matchboxes, the side of them are so tactile.
So I'm going to strike the match away from me.
Wood wick candles are the best
because they have an extra long wick.
So this blind girl can feel with her one hand
and bring the match to feel with the other.
(upbeat music)
And this candle sounds like
the fire is on when it's burning.
So audibly it's amazing.
I always like candles on glass tables,
just in case anything happens,
nothing will ever set on fire.
How does a blind girl have a shower?
This is my shampoo and my conditioner,
but as you can see both bottles feel
and probably look exactly the same.
And this is to be honest the case with
most brands in the supermarkets.
I just do the hair bauble trick where
I just wrap around the hair bauble onto
the conditioner and there we go.
I know the difference between both of them.
Also, I'm very organized on my shower shelves.
As you can see, I have two shelves.
On the top is my shower gels
And on the bottom to the left is my shampoo
to the right is my conditioner.
I never mix these up, otherwise I will be
putting conditioner on first and shower gel on my hair.
How does a blind girl turn her shower on though?
It's very tactile.
I just turned the knobs and I know
what temperatures I have on and left is the on.
(shower running)
As a blind woman, I use these tactile markings to navigate.
You have probably seen them all over British streets
but what do they mean?
Equally spaced dots in a grid formation
mean you are coming up to a dropped curb.
If you see this type of paving and it's red, like this one,
you're coming up to a crossing with lights,
but if it's yellow you're
just coming up to a regular dropped curb.
Diagonal dots mean you're near a train station platform
or there's going to be a big drop.
Horizontal stripes along the path mean
you're coming up to some steps.
This lozenge shape paving means you're coming
up to a street level hazard or a tram.
Horizontal and vertical stripes next to each other
indicate there is a bike path next to a foot path.
And sometimes you will occasionally see
one tactile line to and from a destination.
This one is from Old Street Tube station
to Moorfields Eye Hospital.
I'm blind, so how do I type?
This is my iPhone keyboard and I swipe left and right
to hear the letters and I'm going to double tap to type it.
And then I'm going to find I
- U, Y, E, I
- Double tap, hey!
And on a laptop, I touch type
I've learnt my way around the keyboard.
Usually F a J also have tap toggles on the keys, as well.
I'm blind and this is how I
differentiate bank notes in my purse.
This is money reader a fantastic app
that I use to tell bank notes apart.
I'm just going to hover over each note,
there's two on the table, and we'll see what they are.
This first one,
- 5 pounds
- five pounds, love it.
And
- 10 pounds
- a 10er.
Also on 10 and 20 pound notes you can feel raised,
tactile bumps, similar to braille.
And that's how I, sometimes without the app open,
I tell that this is a 10 pound note.
How does a blind person know where their guide dog is?
She has bells on, so I can hear her.
How does a blind person cross the road?
I use the tactile marking to find the crossing.
I've navigated to the box and I can feel the button,
click it, it's very tactile.
I can't see the wait signs so I hear for the audible signals
but if there isn't any audible signals on a crossing,
which sometimes happens sometimes doesn't,
I feel for underneath, and there's a spinning cone.
(electronic beeping)
(cane scraping pavement)
How do blind people dream?
Not all blind people dream the same at all.
And for me as a completely blind person for eight years
and I was completely sighted for 17,
I dream as if I'm in a storybook,
I'm reading the words on a page,
I'm listening to the sounds,
I'm tasting things if I'm in a restaurant,
this imaginary restaurant,
I, you know, touching things.
I don't have visual memories anymore.
So it's just like that in my dreams.
I do have way more nightmares now, though.
How does a blind person film and post a TikTok video?
So when I'm filming TikToks inside and
it's just a chatty one, where I'm sitting on the sofa
I personally love to be quite independent with that.
First of all, Ollie here, my sighted fiance,
he's lovely, he sets up the tripod
for me and gets me in frame.
And then I can use voiceover
on my iPhone to click Start and Stop on the recording.
When I'm filming a TikTok video
where I'm moving around a lot more
or doing something, or I'm outside,
Ollie helps me because I couldn't
possibly keep track of the camera if I'm moving about.
So this is when I had it over to Ollie
to edit or turn voiceover off.
And then he saves it in drafts for me.
Thank you, sweetheart.
- Thank you, very much.
- Hashtag Blind
And then I click post.
Here are some myths about blindness
that you should stop believing.
When interacting with a blind person,
you shouldn't say, "Look at that"
or "Have you seen this?"
Never, ever change your vocabulary
when talking to a blind person like me
I personally always say, "Did you watch that great TV show?"
I can't technically watch it
But I listen with audio description
and I'm not going to change my vocab.
When talking to a blind person
you need to speak really loudly
otherwise we won't know you're talking to us.
No, just have a chat with me as you would
any other person my eyes are
the only things that don't work.
Blind people have superior hearing.
Hearing is my main sense but it's
not better than a sighted persons.
I have learned to hone in
on the sounds around me a lot more.
And obviously, because I've adapted to that way of life
it's the way I personally see the world.
How not to sight guide a blind person.
- Hi, I'm Billy.
I'm your passenger assistance.
Come with me.
(laughs)
Hi, I'm George.
I'm your passenger assistant
I've come to help you today.
- Hi, George, how are you?
- I'm doing well, let's go.
- This is the correct way to sight guide a blind person.
- Hi, I'm Billy from passenger assistance.
Would you like an elbow?
- Aw, hi Billy. Yes please, thank you so much.
- Let's go.
- What do you do if you see a blind person
out and about and they look lost?
What I would say is a lot of the time we're not lost
because we have a lot of accessible apps on our iPhone
like Google maps or blind square or Microsoft soundscape.
They're brilliant for navigation as a blind woman.
Also, we have usually had orientation and mobility sessions
with a qualified mobility instructor
and they have taught us how to use a cane or a guide dog.
So on the off chance that we do look lost,
which is quite possible.
The motto should be just ask, don't grab.
So for instance, if I'm in a train station
maybe your name is Sally and you're a passer-by.
I would love for you to introduce who you are.
So I am Sally I'm passer-by would you like assistance?
And I can say yes or no.
(upbeat music)