Blind George of Anstey
Welcome to Weird in the Wade’s first Weird Wander.
A weird wander is where I take you on a journey further afield from Biggleswade and Bedfordshire.
We’ll travel to a different location. We’ll investigate a new and unusual story. We’ll explore aspects of history and the paranormal we’ve not looked at before.
Hi I’m Nat Doig, and today we are only taking a short trip. Just over the county border into Hertfordshire.
I’m going to tell you the tale of Blind George of Anstey, and why his ghost is said to haunt that place.
And I’m going to unravel some legends and myths old and new about blindness and visual impairment including extra sensory perceptions.
I really hope you enjoy this first weird wander!
Some time in the late 17th century
Below ground
Grenold George’s hand trembled as he reached down to stroke the silky ears of his dog Jem. Her warmth and calmness steadied his hand but not his heart that was pounding against his ribs like a hammer. He could hear the pub crew on the other side of the old wooden door laughing, stamping their feet against the cold. The cowards had swung the door shut as soon as he and Jem were in the tunnel.
The tunnel was bigger than he had imagined. He reached out his arms and could not touch the sides. But taking a pace to the left and then the right he was able to touch the cold and rough stone wall. If he reached up above his head, he could just brush the ceiling with his fingertips. It didn’t feel or smell damp which surprised him; there had been plenty of rain lately. Whoever had constructed the tunnel had done a good job. He took a pace forward, gingerly, and felt the gentle slope of the tunnel floor.
William Jordan’s voice from the other side of the wooden door cried out.
“Play us a tune then Blind George! Play us a tune so we can follow! We’ll follow you Blind George wherever you lead us!” More voices cheered.
Grenold lifted his violin to his chin and began to play the first few notes of a tune he particularly loved. He took his first few steps along the dry earth floor of the passage. He gestured for Jem to go on a head of him and he felt her warmth leave his side. Then there was the swish of air as her tail wagged in front of him and he followed her slowly. How had he got himself into this he wondered as the melancholy notes from his fiddle echoed and bounced off the walls within the tunnel. How had he ended up here?
There was one word for it and that was drink.
Grenold loved to drink almost as much as he loved to play the violin. And playing the fiddle as well as he did; he rarely needed to pay for his own liquor. All summer he’d travelled the local area with Jem. He’d played his music at fares and markets, wedding feasts, funerals, haymaking, and harvests. All the nearby villages and towns knew him as “Blind George the fiddle player.” The children petted Jem, dressed her in silky ribbons whilst he played his music for pennies, a hot meal, beer, and a bed for the night.
He’d returned home to Anstey after Michaelmas ready for a more sombre winter playing his music at the Chequers Inn and drinking and sharing stories with the usual pub crew. They were always keen to hear the latest tunes he’d learnt on his summer travels and the stories he’d picked up a long the way. But tonight, had been different and he couldn’t explain why.
Was it the change in the weather? It was the first cold night of the autumn. Winter was pinching at the heels of the year. The fire had been kept hot and lively all night and the company in the Chequers had matched it.
Whilst he was playing, he’d heard William Jordan arguing. His high voice raised intruding into Grenold’s thoughts. He’d eventually given up on his tune unable to concentrate and compete with William Jordan’s wining. Grenold asked the Meg the barmaid to fill his tankard with ale. When he returned to take a seat by the fire, William was still quarrelling with old Tom about the tunnel which led from the castle moat. The castle was long gone, but the moat and the heavy door into the side of the bank still existed.
“It was built by the roundheads in the war!” William was asserting.
“No, it wasn’t master Jordan. I can remember the war and that tunnel is far older than any roundheads I’m telling ye! They wouldn’t set foot in those tunnels. Superstitious they were back then. Saw the devil everywhere and in everything!”
Meg now collecting up ale pots interjected. “It was built by filthy monks, to sneak about in, that’s what I heard. Filthy monks that were in league with the devil.”
“I heard that too!” piped up Robert Radley “They say it’s a tunnel that leads down to hell. That old Nick himself lives down there. That’s why the entrance is locked, and no one has the key. A young boy in the time of Old Queen Bess went down there. Lord knows why. He was never seen again. That’s when they locked it all up. So not even Cromwell’s men would use it in the war. Old Tom’s right about that.”
Grenold slammed his pot of ale down, it was this nonsense that had interrupted his fiddle playing.
“You’re all a bunch of silly nanny goats, worse than children. The devil lives below Anstey does he?! Rubbish! That tunnel only goes as far as the Anstey manor. It was used to smuggle beer barrels in or brandy or some such luxury, to avoid tax.”
“And how do you know that!” demanded William Jordan.
“Because nearly every town and village I visit has a similar tunnel and story. The devil can not live beneath every English village or town now can he!?”
“Oh, I am sorry, Mr too good for Anstey Grenold George, Mr I’ve seen the world. Except you haven’t have you Blind George. You haven’t even ever seen the fingers on your own hand have you!?”
Grenold had heard far worse. But William Jordan’s words stung because he was practically family, engaged to Grenold’s sister Elizabeth.
“Shut your mouth, William Jordan! Are you willing to wager that the devil is in that tunnel because I say he is not! I say the tunnel leads to the manor and that is all.”
“Yeah I’ll bet with you, but how can we find the truth when the tunnel is locked you dimwit!”
Josiah the grave digger suddenly spoke up from his seat on the settle. He rarely uttered a word so the whole inn fell silent for his speech.
“There is a key, to the tunnel door. I has it. It is part of the keys in my keeping for the church. I has never used it. But if you lads are awagering, I am keen to know where the tunnel leads as well.”
And so, the plan had been hatched. Grenold would fulfil his bet by navigating the tunnel. He would be at no disadvantage in the dark with Jem, William Jordan insisted. Old Tom had suggested that if Grenold played his fiddle whilst he was down in the tunnel, they would hear it above ground and follow the sound to where the tunnel came out.
Only Meg warned against the dare.
“You’re pot Valliant and hot headed Grenold, I fear you’ll regret this. Don’t go down there please!” she pleaded but Grenold would not listen.
And that was how he found himself inching his way along the tunnel, playing his violin so that the pub crew above could follow the sound of his music and find out once and for all where the tunnel led.
Above ground
The pub crew were very pleased with themselves, especially William Jordan. He capered about to the music of the violin as the rabble set out to follow the sound.
“Stop your prancing William Jordan” old Tom snapped “We need to listen for the direction of the music.”
As Blind George had moved away from the tunnel entrance it was becoming harder to discern a direction for the music but the fiddle playing could still be heard all the same.
They followed the haunting music across the main road and into a field. It did indeed look as if the tunnel was heading in the direction of the old manor. Old Tom guessed that Blind George would have some explaining to do when he popped up in the manor house’ wine cellar and this rag tag rabble of drunks knocked on the squire’s door.
In the centre of the field the music faltered slightly, seemed to stop. The throng of pub pals stopped and quietened down.
The fiddle music picked up again almost directly below their feet but it sounded wrong, distorted. Then there was a bark from Jem and a screech from the violin joined by a scream and many swore they heard maniacal laughter as well. Then nothing silence.
The group turned and ran as fast as they could back to the tunnel entrance, they flung the door open and Jem emerged from the tunnel, yelping and barking, her fur singed and smoking. She ran off into the night and was never seen again by anyone in Anstey.
No one dared set foot in the tunnel. All knew that Jem would never leave her master’s side voluntarily. In fact they were certain that she would only leave if sent away by Blind George himself.
Josiah the grave digger called into the tunnel after George.
“Grenold George! Grenold George!”
But there was no response.
William Jordan wrinkled his nose and declared that he could smell sulphur. Others in the group said they could too, getting stronger, more pungent.
“Quick Josiah! Lock the door!” William insisted.
Reluctantly Josiah did as he was told, because even he could smell something hellish coming up from that tunnel.
Now there are two endings to this story, The first most common ending is that the entrance to the tunnel is now long forgotten, though there is a rumour that a world war II plane that crashed into the castle moat may have uncovered the entrance accidentally. But if it did it has again been lost to history.
But the tale of Blind George has not been lost because on dark nights in the village of Anstey the sound of a fiddle can be heard coming from deep under the ground. It is a lonely, haunting sound and is said to be Old Blind George’s ghost playing music to this day in the tunnel where he is trapped. And the path of the tunnel is sometimes discernible after it snows. Because when it comes to the thaw there is a narrow strip of land leading from the castle moat to the manor where the snow and ice always melt first.
The second ending to the story goes something like this
We’ll pick it up from where we left Grenold as he continued his steady steps along the tunnel. From the sound of his fiddle music he could tell that the tunnel remained pretty much the same dimensions, and makeup as it had when he first entered. It seemed to be moving in a straight line, which would he reckoned be taking him towards the manor as he had speculated. But he couldn’t be sure.
The air in the tunnel had been cool when he entered but dry, which had surprised him. As he walked, he felt the air getting warmer, so that he began to feel uncomfortable in his wool jacket and hat. Sweat was beginning to trickle down his back. The tunnel air was thick, stuffy, sticky almost.
Jem seemed to have slowed her pace and her tail was no longer wagging enthusiastically but instead jerked stiffly, until she stopped. Her hackles up she let out a low growl and Grenold George, stopped with her. He took his violin from his chin with a shaking hand.
“Who is there?” He asked
There was a slow hiss of air and a laugh.
“Hello blind George, you’re a long way from home, a long way underground I mean. Are you a mole?”
Jem’s growl grew more fierce
“I ask you again, who are you?”
“You know who I am, blind George. I assumed you had come looking for me. Sniffing me out. Looking for a deal maybe. A way to improve your rather basic fiddle playing?”
Now Grenold’s pride was pricked and his anger flared. He knew he was a good fiddler player, the best in the district. If this was the devil then he was challenging the wrong man.
“You clearly have never heard me play, Mr what should I call you?”
“Why don’t you call me Mr Scratch. And I have heard what you pass for music, Blind George and it is terrible. Feeble.”
Grenold knew what he must do. And so before he did it, he stroked jem’s silky ears and sent her away from him.
“Go Jem, now Go!”
She slunk away reluctantly but only a little way down the tunnel and lay down.
Grenold took a deep breath.
“I can play any tune faster and with more panache than you can Mr Scratch and I will show you! I challenge you!” If Meg had thought Grenold was pot Valliant earlier, she’d have been overcome to see him now.
And so Grenold George, blind George of Anstey challenged the devil to a fiddle competition. Above ground all the pub crew heard was a pause in the music that lasted a matter of seconds.
Below the ground it was very different indeed. This competition was held in a space between time, between worlds, in a place that was not heaven nor hell nor our planet earth. Grenold George’s stomach lurched, his head swam and it felt as if the tunnel walls around him shot outwards and he was standing dizzily in a vast, vast chamber.
A chorus of voices that sounded like nothing George had heard before spoke:
“You have done a foolish thing Grenold George. But this will be a fair competition. If you lose Mr Scratch here will claim your soul. If you win, you keep your soul, gain your life but you must lose something else instead of our choosing. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
And so, they played, the devil and blind George in this world between worlds and the judges of the contest were neither demons nor angels but creatures who are neutral in such things. After many rounds and many tunes, It was decided that Grenold George, blind George of Anstey, was indeed the better fiddler and so the winner.
The loser, the devil was cast back down into the tunnel below Anstey, where he arrived with a shriek of his violin and a scream.
Jem the dog who had been waiting faithfully even though she had been sent away, was singed in the devil’s angry fiery outburst and she ran as fast as she could to the entrance of the tunnel and out into the fresh air and the night as soon as Josiah opened the door. She ran and ran until she found her way to a near by town where a kind butcher had fed her scraps in the summer, and she was given a home with him.
Grenold George’s prize for beating the devil was to escape him, but as he had been foolish to challenge the devil in the first place he was also punished. He was banished from Anstey, forbidden to return. The judges of the contest took his dog and home away from him. But they had the power to send him anywhere in the world, and blind George chose a quiet corner of England near the Welsh border. He kept to his bargain and never returned to Anstey and never spoke of his experience to any living soul well maybe he told just one person. He also never drank alcohol again becoming an ardent campaigner for abstinence.
The ghostly violin heard on dark winter nights coming from beneath the ground at Anstey is not the ghost of Blind George, but that of the devil, still furiously practicing so that one day he might beat a mortal who challenges him.
Welcome
Welcome to this Weird Wander from the Wade. I’m Nat Doig and I hope you enjoyed the story of blind George of Anstey. I really wanted to cover a myth or legend and even better a ghost story that related to blindness but was convinced I wouldn’t find a story that I liked.
You see there’s a lot of blind characters in myths, legends and literature, right up into the modern day, but blindness is often depicted in a way I find problematic. Later I chat with my friend Paul about his take on all of this as well. But as a visually impaired woman it’s really hard to find interesting stories about blindness where the blind character has agency over their life.
In the early Greek myths characters are often blinded by the gods as a punishment Apollo blinds some poor bloke for doing a poor job watching sheep. Then there’s Tiresias blinded by the gods as a punishment though the story tellers can’t decide on what exactly he did wrong, but he was also granted the gift of second sight – being able to predict the future.
In Norse myth Hodr the blind god of winter is tricked into killing his brother and Odin’s favourite son by Loki, this trick only worked because Hodr is blind.
And here we have the holy trinity of depictions of blindness in myths, legends, and stories:
- Being blind is a punishment,
- Being blind grants you extra sensory perception or super senses,
- Being blind makes you more easily tricked and made a fool of because you can’t see.
Later Paul and I discuss how these stereotypes are still with us today and how attitudes are slowly changing.
But I was delighted to discover the story of Blind George of Anstey because it doesn’t really include any of those stereotypes. He’s a hero, if a foolhardy one, in his own right. His blindness doesn’t make him foolish, it’s the drink. He’s a talented musician who challenges the devil or dares to investigate a tunnel. Being blind is incidental, yet also does play a natural role in the story. He has no superpowers, but he does have agency. And whether he triumphs or fails in his quest, its not because of his blindness nor in spite of it. He’s not an inspiration, nor a figure of fun or mockery.
But was Blind George real?
Well, the earliest reference I can find to the story is a mention of a folk song from the first half of the 20th century. And Betty Puttick includes this tale in her book of ghost stories of Hertfordshire from the 1980s. She does a great job of not making the story about George’s blindness which was rare for then.
There was definitely a George family living in Anstey as far back as the 16th century in fact there’s far fewer of the George’s by the time we hit the 19th century. I’m guessing many of the George family migrated to the larger towns and cities during the industrial revolution.
There is no evidence that any of the George family were blind, nor musicians. But such evidence would be really hard to find. I chose Grenold as his first name because there was a Grenold George in Anstey during the late 17th century. I just liked the name.
So there could well have been a member of this prominent George family in Anstey who was a fiddle player and who might have been blind. We’ll probably never know.
The story has motifs which are found in other folktales. The deal with the devil or challenging the devil to a fiddle competition is a prevalent one, and made popular by the Devil Went Down to Georgia song. In fact two songs have been recorded about Blind George, there’s a Fairport Convention song called “Light of Day” which does have the rather unfortunate lines of
“He’s never seen the light of day,
He’s always had to feel his way.”
The other version is by the folk group Litha and is called Blind George, and I’m thrilled to say that the band have given me permission to play their song on the show. I’ll end the podcast with their track. I’ll share links on the blog and show description as always to where you can hear both tracks and find further information about the story.
The idea of tunnels running under a village or town, is also common in British folktales and urban legends. In the next episode of the podcast, I am going to start my investigation into Biggleswade’s tunnels. I recently ran a poll on Twitter asking UK residents if there were tunnels beneath where they lived. The results were that 53% of localities actually have tunnels of some kind whilst 46% claim to have tunnels. So it’s not surprising that there are so many ghost stories linked to these underground passages. Whether it’s smugglers, or monks and priest’s hiding in them or stories connected with the war, there are many ideas and myths around what these tunnels were used for.
Blind George is also a classic warning story, don’t go into the tunnels, don’t make deals with the devil, don’t drink so much ale that you become pot valient!
The pub in Anstey was indeed the Chequers Inn, I have found a news article from the 1840s which describe a terrible fire destroying most of the old inn. But the pub now bears the name of the Blind Fiddler in honour of Anstey’s famous son.
Blind George is not the only folktale or ghost story featuring a blind character but so far it’s my favourite and I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
News
Before I introduce you to Paul, just a heads up about some exciting news!
On the 1st May at 7pm BST I will be holding a live YouTube stream where I will tell you a weird and wonderful story and take questions from you about the podcast, Biggleswade and ghosts. It’s in celebration of one year of Weird in the Wade. You can submit a question in advance at weirdinthewade@gmail.com If you subscribe to the podcast YouTube Channel which is just Weird in the Wade on YouTube, links are in the show description on the app where you are currently listening, you will get an automatic notification when the event starts. I’ll also share links on social media and remind you a couple of days before the event on the next episode of the podcast which should be out on Monday 29th April.
On the 1st of May live event I hope to update you on my stay in a haunted house and pub. And I can announce that I will be staying in York for this challenge! I will be spending two nights in a house which is haunted and then the night in a pub which has so many ghosts associated with it, I’ve lost count.
I’m doing this challenge for a couple of reasons.
I turn 50 this week and I think it’s a real privilege to turn 50. I have friends and family who didn’t get to reach this age and I really wanted to do something to celebrate half a century of just being here.
But I also wanted to do this because there’s a lot of shows out there about haunted buildings where people get really scared and hysterical. And that’s fine if you want a bit of drama. But I wanted to show that haunted places don’t have to be scream out loud scary. And I’m not coming from a truly sceptical point of view here. Yes I think often there are logical non paranormal explanations for hauntings. But I also think there are some things we don’t have an explanation for yet, and I hope one day we will. I believe people who have experienced a haunting. And I know how stressful it must be to live or work somewhere where you feel scared. So I want to show a different side to experiencing places that have ghost stories attached to them.
And I love old places, the history, and the strange sensations and feelings you get in old haunted places. I want to go into this challenge with an open mind and just soak up the atmosphere and report back to you what I find.
I will record while I’m there, I’ll gather information and share my impressions for some future episodes and of course the live event.
To be honest the scariest part of the trip so far is that my local rail company have called a strike on the day of my journey so I’m having to pay out for a taxi for part of the way until I can get on the train that is running! How very British. I am raising some funds to put towards my travel expenses if you’re able to help. As always all funds a raise go back into making the podcast whether it’s travel expenses, equipment or the podcast hosting fees etc. The fund raising page is on Ko-fi and there’s links in the show notes.
And for those of you who have asked I will be launching a patreon very soon, and there will be more information on that and merchandise at the live event on 1st May!
Now lets move on to my conversation with Paul.
Paul
I decided that if I was going to explore the themes of blindness in storytelling, in modern myth and misconception and in the world of the paranormal I needed to do that with someone else who is also visually impaired. And I immediately thought of Paul. He’s local to Biggleswade, we’ve known each other over 10 years now and Paul spent the last part of his career giving advice to visually impaired people. Paul is also blind.
In our conversation, recorded in my kitchen on a dizzly day in March, we discuss our different eye conditions, cover modern myths and misconceptions about blindness, depictions of blindness in story, TV and more, we also discuss a neurological condition linked to blindness that some think may hold an answer to at least some ghost sightings by people who aren’t visually impaired. Paul also talks about a ghost hunt he went on as a teenager in an old tower with a spiral staircase!
So, grab yourself a cuppa, like we did and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Nat: Thank you so much Paul, for joining me today in my kitchen over tea and biscuits as we discuss, I don’t know, being blind and some of the myths that are out there and the paranormal and yeah, it’ll be interesting conversation. But before we start on all of that. Could you just introduce yourself to the listeners? Just say a little bit about yourself so they get a feel for, you know? Who you are.
Paul: Yeah, my name is Paul Day. I’m living in Biggleswade and I’ve been visually impaired since birth, but my sight was reasonably good then. And I’m a retired advice worker now, so I took early retirement a couple of years ago and I fill my time with lots of sight loss related, voluntary sector activities. So, and I’m also involved with our local railway society and Stevenage, which keeps me very busy these days.
Nat: In fact, you’re wearing a sweatshirt about one of the trains.
Paul: I am. Yes, I’m aware of my Sir Nigel Gresley locomotive trust sweatshirt in honour of the locomotive which came through here a couple of days ago.
Nat: It did. There’s some brilliant photographs. We’ve been really lucky, actually, with the old trains and special trains coming through Biggleswade lately, haven’t we? There’s a big old steam train a couple of weeks ago.
Paul: Yes, we had a Black 5 coming through there, yeah.
Nat: That’s the one some lovely photos on the on the local Biggleswade sites. Ohh, thank you. Anyway, thank you for introducing yourself, Paul. I’ve known Paul since I started working at RNIB in. So it’s over 10 years now. Sorry, first of all, if you’re happy. Can you explain a little bit about your eye condition and your level of sight? I know you explained just then about it being something that has developed over your lifetime.
Paul: Yeah, certainly. So it it remained reasonably consistent. Obviously, everyone’s sight gets a little bit worse as you get older, but it’s sort of going down, it it sort of went down very quickly after I was about 40. And the way I describe it now is I’ve got a very narrow sort of running track of vision all the way around and the rest of it is a bit well to say it’s impaired is understatement, but it’s it’s it’s a bit like the bathroom window with flashing lights, swirly patterns and it reacts differently to different lights. So I’ve come out today, it’s just normal daylight. I can see very little about where I’m where I’m going, so I’ve got no central vision at all. I’ve just got this little strip around the edge which I try and use to keep you in a straight line. Not very successfully, but yeah, so that’s where it is now. But as I mentioned, I’ve I’ve always had a visual impairment and the only difference you would have seen. For me, during my school days and younger days is when I was trying to read. So you just read a with a magnifier, perhaps not recognise people? Colour vision was always poor so I couldn’t recognise colours and now I can’t see colours well, can’t really see much anyway so I can’t really see much in terms of colour to sort of define anything so it all looks very great. Me.
Nat: Yeah, it’s really fascinating how people’s eye conditions are so different and also even people that have the same eye condition will experience it really differently, won’t they? And obviously my eye condition is very different to yours. I was born blind and I had cataracts, which most people usually develop when they’re older. But I was born with mine and back in the 1970s had pioneer. Surgery to remove the cataracts, but they also had to remove the lens in my eye and back then there weren’t artificial lenses that they could fit in a in a baby that young. And so I don’t have a lens and I don’t have an artificial lens in there either. So I’m kind of the opposite to you. I see colours really, really brightly. In fact, I see more colour than most people because our lenses. If you have a normal lens in your eye, philtre out UV, and because I don’t have a lens it doesn’t philtre out the UV so I can see a small about small amount of UV light and I haven’t yet thought of a way that this can be a superpower. But but yeah, so colours really important for me to understand the world around me. My issue is that I just don’t see anything in in particular detail, so everything’s a bit like a Monet painting. It’s all very blurry and I don’t have any detail at all, but I am. It’s a very pretty world around me with it being so colourful. One of the things that I wanted to explore today are about myths and legends around blindness. And I wanted to start with the kind of modern myths and misconceptions, so not the stories that we tell each other, but the things people get wrong if they don’t know anything about sight loss. And obviously, if you don’t know someone who’s blind or visually impaired and you’ve never met anyone in those circumstances. Why would you know about blindness and visual impairment? And so for that reason, there are a lot of misconceptions out there.
So I wondered if you, you were happy to share some of maybe your favourites that you’ve come across.
Paul: I certainly will. Yeah. No, you’re absolutely right. I think social attitudes are very good these days. And I I have no problems at all and. He going around people’s way. At all. You can see those social attitudes in action. You know, people are very positive and helpful, but it’s quite amazing that the. Older myths seem to cascade down, and they’re still very much with us. So I think the, the, the most prevalent one is the thing about hearing. I must have been asked this, I don’t know hundreds of times in my life is that you know, people expect you’re hearing to be a lot better because of your visual impairment and.
Ican. I can absolutely state that if you lose vision, or if you’re born with no vision at all, you don’t get an automatic upgrade when you’re hearing. No, what you do learn to do is use your hearing, and I’ve found this sort of by accident, really, because it doesn’t seem to be covered with any of the. Rehabilitation training.
Nat: No.
Paul: It certainly wasn’t in my case and I sort of realised this when I was navigating through Kings Cross underground and I could realise when I was approaching a wall I could hear the sound getting duller and duller, and this was a really busy environment with people flying in all directions and yeah, I sort of learned also when you’re outside is just stop and listen to where people are going. Where’s the traffic going and that helps you understand?
In the environment you’re trying to operate in, if you’re a little bit disorientated in a strange place that can be quite a useful strategy to deploy.
Nat: Yeah, definitely. And I think with the hearing thing, it is the most common one that I get as well is I have you got super hearing you know surely you’ll be good at that cause it involves listening. I can be a terrible listener. Everybody just to say, but I certainly use my hearing in a different way to other people and the latest research has looked at children who develop sight loss in very early age or, like me, were born with their. Weight loss and they’ve looked at their brains and how their brains develop and some of the wiring in your brain that usually would have gone to the visual cortex goes to the section around hearing. So our brains do rewire. If you’re young enough when you have your visual impairment. So both of us, Paul, probably have slightly differently wired brains. Which is just fascinating, but we don’t have any extra bits to our brains. We don’t have any special extra hearing, but we just, you know, learn how to use it differently and it becomes. Very important, and actually what’s really important to say is that there are many people who have a hearing impairment as well as a visual. Impairment.
Paul: Absolutely.
Nat: And so the way they use their senses is again is going to be adapted to the situation they’re in. I know I also use my sense of smell a lot as well. I think maybe more so than other people realise they’re using their sense of smell. And I have a friend and I love this story. She always says that she navigates around Norwich High Street by Lush and Gregs because they smell so strongly and she can work out how far away she is from gregs and how far away she is from lush and so orientate herself through that. So.
Paul: I think that’s right.
Nat: So I mean, do you think do you think you use your other senses as well maybe a bit more?
Paul: I certainly am aware of what’s going on underneath me now. So are you looking? I mean, we’re looking out. For tactile paving to cross roads, and yeah, that sort of thing. But nothing. And just obviously if the if the surface changes or if you’re wandering onto grass by mistake, you can obviously feel that. But it’s that sort of thing.
Paul: That much more conscious of, but in terms of smell. Yeah, I’ve I’ve done similar things. And I remember walking through Birmingham. I used to work between Snow Hill and New Street. And you walked down Corporation Street and there was a a shop with a absolute, you know, a very pungent smell of perfume coming out of it. And I sort of. And this is what I could see a lot anyway. So it was less interesting, I suppose. But I always knew I was on the right route. You know, you thought you expecting to smell that it was it.
Never let you down. It was always there.
Nat: So it is it. It’s funny, these little things that we use and everyone else will probably use these things as well, but aren’t as aware of them because they’re using their site and we see them as humans to be very visually oriented.
Paul: That’s right.
Nat: Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Are there any other myths or modern misconceptions about sight you think or loss of sight?
Paul: Yeah, I always think that we talk about blindness, we think about total darkness, absolutely nothing at all and that is effectively, you know, turning on and off the television. I think people expect it to be like that when in reality it’s anything but there’s only a very small, tiny number of people that are registered as blind or severely sight impaired have no absolutely no vision at all. So that’s a often the conception. So most sight losses is sort of way between the two and even people at registered blind can have a lot of useful sight to get. Around without a cane or anything like I used to.
Nat: Yeah. But yeah, I think that is a really common one. And then people get quite upset sometimes if they see somebody with a white cane, say, looking at their phone.
Paul: Yes, I think it absolutely people think you’re faking it sometimes and you’re absolutely not. I can just see the light on my phone. And because I’m listening to my phone because it’s got the voice over switched on, I’ve sort of always had the volume turned down. I don’t want half the world to know what.
I’m doing so I have it quite close to my ear and and it looks as if I could be looking at it and that’s can be misinterpreted but and I think that’s that’s another part of the myth is and that that causes that suspicion, I think, because people think it’s either total darkness or full sight. Whereas as I say, the reality is there’s a massive difference and. As we’ve touched on earlier, the different eye conditions can present lots of different characteristics. So lots of people can’t see at all in the dark. And can see pretty well during the day and that that’s difficult for people to to deal with and particularly those who’ve got it because it’s as if they’re two different people having.
Nat: Oh yeah, that must be so difficult to deal with.
Paul: Yeah, which I I’m. I’m better in the dark, so I’m quite happy in the dark. I’ve got be quite happy. If it was dark, although all the year round actually, which would be a bit miserable but yeah.
Nat: Be a vampire!
Yeah. So kind of tied to the idea of sort of myths or misconceptions about blindness and visual impairment. Do you find that people make assumptions about you poor because they know that you’re blind?
Paul: Yeah, I think I think one of the common ones is they obviously think I read Braille, which is quite logical, isn’t it? But you only tend to get taught Braille if you’ve been born blind or partially sighted and you can’t read print even in today’s technology world, you’d still get it.
It’s all get taught Braille, but for those people who have lost sight during their lives, which is the vast majority, don’t really get the opportunity to learn it anyway because there’s not many people teaching it.
Nat: Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. I think that is a common a really common one around people just assuming that you use Braille. The other one is just assuming you’ve got a guide dog.
Paul: Yes, indeed, yes, but you must have a guide dog and it must be there somewhere, or you must want one. Which?
Nat: Yes, even though if you say I don’t have a cute dog, people will sometimes be quite insistent that you must have.
Paul: Yes. So where’s your dog? I haven’t got one, but another one. We we talked about the technology and I think. Other misconception or assumption that I think people have made is about me is that I can’t use. A. Computer whereas a computer is an absolute lifeline, it’s it’s opened up access to information like nothing else during the 1990s with windows and, you know, screen reading software as I mentioned. So the computer talks to you. You operate the computer just using keystrokes. So you don’t use the mouse or the mouse pointer, you Chuck your mouse away, unplug it and get rid of it, turn the screen off.
And and of course it’s magnification software that can, yes, have got some useful vision as well, but I stopped using that about 2010 and suddenly realised I really wasn’t using the screen anymore. So I thought, well, let’s turn it off then.
Yeah. And I I think sometimes I think people assume that if they see me around perhaps town during the day, they assume that I don’t work or have never worked.
And of course, that’s true to an extent now, because I’m retired. But of course, the people that used to see me on the train know that I probably was working because that’s where I was going every day on the train. So I did that for 30 years. So into London anyway. So, you know, I worked for 37 years in total and thoroughly enjoyed it.
And I think that that’s a a big assumption that. People can’t work at all.
Nat: Yes. And I think I think the charities have a difficult job with this one because unemployment amongst visually impaired people is high. So I’ve never met a visually impaired person who didn’t want to work, you know.
But employers often find it very difficult to make adjustments, and that it’s very difficult. I think when you’re disabled with any kind of disability to, you know, get your foot in the door, we know that if you’re disabled, you have to apply for more than twice as many jobs before you get an interview. And things like that. So there’s all kinds of reasons why the employment market is stacked against blind and visually impaired people. So you know the. The charities want to change that. They want that not to be the case and so they they make a big thing of it. But what that then misses is the big chunk of visually impaired people who have worked all their lives, who do work, who have maybe struggled to not get the, you know, the adjustments they need. And some obviously have been very lucky and worked for places where their employers are brilliant and make those adjustments and things are getting easier with technology. But still the employment levels don’t seem to shift, so it is a really difficult one because I can understand that people seeing posts and information put out by, you know, sight loss organisations saying blind and visually impaired people you know are unemployed. And then they meet a blind person. They assume they’re unemployed and don’t realise that actually, no, they’ve worked all their lives. So it’s a real it’s a real difficult one.
And actually it’s something we’ve touched on that these kind of assumptions about all disabled people and whether they work or not or what they’re up to. Can we trust these disabled people goes right back? The last episode looked at an 800 year old story about an outlaw pretending to be disabled in order to rob people. And you know, so 800 years ago, there were those fears. About are disabled people really disabled or is it just someone in disguise trying to con you? So we’ve got a lot of history to fight against to kind of prove that no, actually, and we can just live normal lives. We, you know, we can work, we can do all these things. But what we do need is, you know. People and society just to make some adjustments.
Can you recall sort of growing up and you know more recently, any depictions of blind people in books or stories or films that you either really liked or really annoyed you because they got it wrong?
Paul: It’s mostly really, really annoyed me. I I I was struggling to think of some good things, but I can think of plenty of things that have made me just, uh, you know, there was an episode. This is a very long time ago. The bill. You remember the, the police, the police strong. That’s right used to be mid, you know ITV’s front and centre sort of.
Nat: Yes ohh. I used to love the bill. Yeah.
Paul: Peak viewing. Time, I know I can’t think this is whether this was their half hourly or their hourly format, but they actually had a blind actor, which was a good thing, which was the first time I think I’ve ever seen a blind actor playing a blind person, which was remarkable. But the way they were depicted as solving the crime as such by his sense of smell and hearing, and I thought it was a bit over the top and I just thought ohh, no, don’t, don’t, don’t tell people we can do that, you know.
Nat: It’s going back to that myth, isn’t it about us having these extra senses that we’re somehow superhuman, so we might not be able to see, but we’ve got paranormal abilities, we’ve got, you know, strange sense of, of hearing and smell. And yeah, were there any others that you can think of other than the bill?
Paul: Yes. Yes. Yeah, the sort of a couple of comedy things and comedy is, yeah, it’s not quite taste. I just remember watching a Mr. Bean DVD and I’m not a great fan of his anyway, but I watched it.
Nat: It’s very visual humour, so I never quite got it.
Paul: Yeah, I gotta say I struggled with it as well, but I just remember, I don’t think this could have ever gone out on television, but it, it was. It was a bus stop scene and he was obviously very embarrassed about being around a blind person at a bus stop. And I just thought, you know, I won’t go into the detail. I can’t remember all of it, but it was. It just made me cringe. I just thought you know, this just reinforces the stereotypes, and I I’m sure it’s like a double thing, isn’t it? Because he’s a bit of an idiot anyway, isn’t he?
Nat: So it’s kind of poking fun of him and people who do get awkward around people who are blind, but it’s also it can become really close to laughing at the blind person as well, can’t it?
Paul: Yes. That’s what really disappointed me and I’ve felt really uncomfortable watching that so.
And I think that there was a Ronnie Barker series years and years ago just after one of his famous one. And it was a series called Clarence. Yeah. And he was he had a visual impairment where he had a he was short sighted and he kept doing daft things. And funny enough, I found that really funny.
Nat: I remember. That’s right.
Paul: That’s good. I think my, dad and myself and probably my brothers, we found this quite amusing. And I thought, well, I wonder why I’m finding this funny. And it was just so close to home. I thought it was. These are the sort of daft thing. That I’ve done or would be very believable.
Nat: Yeah. Ronnie Barker was a very warm and brilliant actor, as well as comedian, and so I’m guessing he actually put a lot of empathy into what he was doing. Even if you know, we might feel a bit uncomfortable with it now because he’s not visually impaired.
Paul: Yeah, I mean, everything he did was brilliant. He was a fantastic. I think it was exactly that. If it been somebody else, it probably wouldn’t have worked, but he was just a brilliant comedian and made it work very well.
Nat: I think for me growing up, I remember things like Heidi and the blind grandmother. And the fact that they had to go and get soft rolls for the blind grandmother and you know, it was like she was a bit helpless and hopeless. And that was one of the few blind characters that I saw on TV kind of growing up with this blind grandmother in Heidi.
I think things may be are improving. Slightly, but I haven’t seen. Thing actually, there was an episode of Doctor Who that had a blind actress in it, playing someone who was blind. That was really good recently.
Paul: Yes, and I don’t watch Doctor Who. So I’ve. I’ve no idea how good or bad it was, but it’s taken a very, very long time. Yeah. And that’s really all that was needed to help everyone get a bit of context is just a blind person or a partially sighted person just appearing as a. Incidentally, just doing normal things. Just being there, you know, because.
You know they’re there. Absolutely. They’re not part of the the plot or they just happen to be there and it’s so. And I I’m struggling to think of anything that, that, that depicts normality.
Nat: That’s it.
Paul: Which is amazing really, given where we are now.
Nat: Yeah. Ohh definitely
So Paul. I was thinking one of the things that I wanted to. Cover today is. Around in particular, sort of the paranormal and spookiness and things like that and how they have been LinkedIn people’s minds to. Visual impairment and blindness and we’ve touched on the fact that there’s some very old and ancient myths going back to Greek time about visually impaired people having second sight being able to predict the future. That idea that because one form of vision has gone, people inherit another form of vision. So we’ve got those kind of links and there’s lots of myths. And legends that include blind characters in them, and they also tend to fall into those two extremes that they’re either about a blind person who’s got super human powers, or they’re about a blind person who’s very weak or has been tricked.
But actually there’s an even more interesting connection, I think, to sort of the paranormal and blindness. And that’s that. Now scientists think that one explanation for when people say they’ve seen a ghost could be connected to a condition that occurs to people who. Have experienced sight loss and that’s a thing called Charles Bonnet syndrome. So Charles Bonnet syndrome is a form of hallucination and they can take many forms. And I first of all, I just wanted to ask you, have you ever experienced Charles Bonnet syndrome?
Paul: No, I haven’t. No, but I I’ve in my professional capacity, I’ve spoken to lots of people who have.
Nat: And I’m guessing for many people, it’s quite frightening to begin with to to hallucinate when you’ve lost or losing your sight. You’ve got very little useful vision left, and suddenly you start seeing things that. There.
Paul: Yes, that is exactly it. And I think the first person I ever spoke to about it was really quite disturbed about it. And of course I was quite new to it. I’ve never heard of it before. And of course in my training before I started the job there, I I got to know about the different eye conditions. And I can I got it quite quickly actually I could understand why it happens. And how it happens, but it’s listening to people’s stories. So it ranges from, you know, frightening things, things like wild animals or lions or tigers, you know, leaping towards you just to just out of the blue. You know, just these things just suddenly happen. Two people see. Being long deceased relatives, which is really disturbing.
And then other things people would see the funny side of it. They just see random things that they couldn’t explain or they almost knew when things were going to happen and when it was going to start and stop. And they just sort of took it as part of their routine. And of course, a lot of people that experienced this are older with age-related macular degeneration.
That’s really what’s the spin off from that really. And of course people are quite reluctant to talk about it, because if they told anybody, they think they’re going mad. Yeah. So to talk about it and to get support around it. Now it’s a, it’s a really good thing. Yeah, because people can be a bit more open. But as I say, I’ve never experienced it myself, but I would be prime candidate to experience it with my condition. It’s all the other way around.
For me, it’s not being able to see what is there, let alone seeing something that isn’t. I mean, you see shadowy things sometimes, and you can misinterpret what you are seeing, so that that’s quite common. But no, I’ve never. I’ve never seen an image of something or someone or anything that has been out of context with what I should be seeing.
Nat: So, I wonder if these things that people see with Charles Bonnet syndrome like you say it is quite common for people to see long deceased relatives, could well have led to those myths around blind people having second sight and being able to see things that aren’t there. In the past, you can kind of understand if we go back to a sort of pre science time and somebody’s lost their sight as they’ve got older and suddenly they’re saying that they can see their father in the room with them, you know what your interpretation going to be back in the 15th century or even earlier. And of course I think. The explanation for it is that as those parts of your brain that usually were firing because you were using your eyes and that optical part of your brain is used to receiving information when it isn’t receiving that information for some reason, it just. Make stuff up a bit like phantom limb. You know where somebody has had a limb removed, but they can still feel it. It’s like that. It’s like you can’t see anymore, but your brain is so used to seeing it starts to generate these images.
It has become much more common for people to talk about it, which is brilliant because I know that 25 years ago, when I first started working in the slightly? Sector. It wasn’t something that generally people talked about and certainly now it is. There’s a lot of information online about it. There’s a lot of sessions about it, a lot of blind people don’t know what it is. My mum as a nurse worked predominantly with older people. And she remembers seeing that change as well begin to happen where in the past older people. Experiencing Charles Bonnet syndrome. Often. It was interpreted that they were getting dementia because they were seeing this. Or that it was mental health. And in fact it was just Charles Bonnet syndrome. So there was a big drive within the NHS and that still is to educate people who work with older people with sight loss to get them to understand that it, it’s Charles Bonnet syndrome. But I’ve heard everything reported from people seeing, like you say, wild animals, elephants, tigers. Lions to there was a famous case where somebody used to see troops marching through the room. So going off to war, another lady who was not from an Asian background used to see Bollywood dance.
You know, it’s gonna be really strange what that and what it makes me think is, isn’t that brilliant? What the brain can conjure up? It’s frightening and and distressing for many people that experience it. But it’s also kind of marvellous what the brain does.
Paul: Yes, it it, it’s. It’s obviously images that you’ve seen, it could be in a film, it could be in real life. It’s things that just suddenly randomly pop out when you’re not expecting it and how how can how do you explain that? It’s just so difficult is.
Nat: That’s it. It is and I know that some people begin to like you, say, recognise when it’s gonna happen, and I know of somebody who what will happen to them is they’ve still got a small amount of vision left and they might see something coming towards them. It might be a dog, but their brain will interpret. It as a dinosaur. And so that kind of can make more sense to people, but obviously there are many people where it’s just coming out of nowhere. You know, it’s not that there’s a dog walking towards them that they’ve misinterpreted as as a as something. Yes.
Paul: It gets to a point you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.
Nat: Well, that’s it. And that must be very frightening when when people don’t know. Most people I’ve spoken to now who’ve been educated about it and have have understand it say that it’s less frightening and intrusive than it used to be for them. So I think it is something people can kind of learn to live with, but it must be really distracting.
Where the ghosts bit comes in is not just the fact that you can see why in the past people might have thought that blind people had these extra senses because they could say that they could see these wild animals or spirits or long deceased. If it if it can happen to blind people, the scientists are like, well, maybe the brain in certain circumstances could do the same thing to someone who has got average sight. And so they wonder if sometimes, in certain circumstances it’s a type of Charles Bonnet syndrome that people with average sight experience. As an explanation for saying that you’ve seen a ghost and it’s really promising idea I think and talking about spirits and ghosts.
Have you, Paul ever had a paranormal experience?
Paul: Not knowingly, no, I I haven’t. I’m sorry to, but I used to be fascinated with ghosts, and I used to really believe in them. I probably still do. When I was a child. I had this fascination about death. It must have worried some people, I should think, but it was all about, you know, going to the Tower of London, for example, as we did, you know, hear the stories about the ghosts of the Princess in the tower and Anne Berlin and all this sort of thing. And it fascinated me and executions and all that sort of thing. And. And I like ghost stories.
Still do like a ghost story.
No, it was a really a strange thing to be fascinated with. But so no, I haven’t ever seen. And I did have to confess, I we did go looking for one once.
I went to a College in Hereford for blind and party sided students as the further Education College and and it was quite an old building and it was rumoured to be haunted. It must have been in 19th century building, so nothing particularly old, but one of the staircases was said to be haunted.
So one of my friends and I, we Saturday or Sunday night. Because the the buildings were open, yes, and everybody else was in the social bar or down the pub, as they usually were. You know, we were 16,17 year old. So we just went up there, we went to the top floor. We found the staircase and walked down there. It was all dark and spooky. But no, no nothing happened. Very disappointing, but we did it. I think we’re more scared of the scenario than actually what we found, but it was funny that we did that.
I might have done that more than once. Actually. But it was a it was an evening’s entertainment. When you’re a student, but no, it’s just part of that story.
Nat: I think I’ve heard about that story at Hereford College, cause obviously working in the visual impairment world. I’ve met quite a few people that went there. Is it the story that somebody came, fell down the staircase and cried? Yeah.
Paul: Yes, yes, that’s right. Yeah. I think it well, we think it was a, it used to be a teacher training College in its previous life before.
Nat: A former student or teacher. Yeah.
Paul: The college moved there in in the early 1980s, so it’s 81. I think they moved there. So yeah, we believe that somebody fell down the stairs or jumped or did something. And yeah, their spirit is said to be haunting those stairs. But it was just that one corner of the building. And it’s like, I think it was a spiral staircase, a stone and spiral staircase so it was quite it’s like a turret of a tower.
Nat: Oh. Lovely. That does sound very spooky.
Paul: So. It was, yeah, but no ghosts, I’m afraid.
Nat: There’s gonna be people listening to their thinking. You know, you were there with other biting impaired people. How would somebody who’s biting impaired or blind know that they’ve seen a ghost because you wouldn’t necessarily see it?
Paul: I think it’s gonna be the feeling around maybe a, you know, the air goes cold or or you can you start hearing unexplained sound.
Yeah, I know. When we were up in this building, I think we we obviously didn’t shut the door properly into the main and and. It just went click, you know. As it shut. And he. Thought oh. What’s going on? There. But it’s that sort of thing that that will alert you to. Maybe something’s there, but you wouldn’t want to see it anyway. So yeah,
Nat: You were on the hunt for that feeling. Of. Coldness. A presence.
Paul: Just something feeling something, yet a presence. That’s right. But it didn’t happen.
Nat: An atmosphere. Ohh never mind. Maybe. Maybe. Are you someone who would like to experience a ghost?
Paul: Well, yeah, I find it absolutely, absolutely fascinating.
Nat: So yeah, in that in that category that it’s something that you know? You wouldn’t necessarily run away from the opportunity to.
Paul: Ohh no, definitely not no. I must have been in loads of haunted buildings. Older buildings you know and and never felt anything but other people would have done and it’s quite I find that fascinating that they they.
Nat: But other people like you. Yeah. It is really interesting, isn’t it? About who feels that they’re sensitive to these things and why and and and who doesn’t. And quite often it’s the people that really want to experience that quite often. Don’t feel it. And those that do are the ones that actually don’t, would rather that they didn’t. Because it frightens. Anyway, thank you so much Paul, for joining me today. It’s been fascinating talking with you. Maybe we could go at some point to Hereford and see if we can visit the. Haunted staircase. So. And if they’d let us go in there and do the investigation.
Paul: Well, it’s worth a go. It’s worth a go.
Nat: Anyway, thank you so much.
Paul: It’s a great pleasure, Natalie. Thank you very much.
Close
I’d just like to thank Pual once again for joining me on the podcast today to talk about his experiences of blindness and the myths and legends surrounding it.
Paul and my experience of visual impairment are obviously unique to us, and I’d love to hear from you if you’re a listener who is also visually impaired, especially if you have an interest in the paranormal or social history. What stories have you heard about blind characters good and bad? What modern myths would you like to bust? You can contact me on social media or at weirdinthewade@gmail.com
Don’t forget the Blind George track by Litha will feature at the end of this episode just after I have thanked Julie and Bec for supporting the podcast on ko-fi, it really means a lot to me thank you!
As always today’s episode was researched, written, produced and presented by me Nat Doig
Theme music by Tess Savigear
All additional sound effects and music by epidemic sound.
And finally here’s the lovely track Blind George by Litha! Enjoy.
Weird In The Wade 