What a difference a registration certificate makes
When I renewed my Disabled Person’s Railcard this year, I needed my registration document as proof of visual impairment. Born in 1951, neither my parents nor I had ever seen it. My sensory support person emailed me a copy, even typing out the handwritten parts that were hard to read.
What a revelation it was! I was six weeks premature, weighing only 3lb – or as dad used to say, ‘You weren’t weighed, it’s a guess’. The certificate recorded nystagmus at birth, though I didn’t hear that word until it appeared on a school report years later. Dad always blamed the incubator, bless him. He never got over the shock and sadly died before we learned it was because ‘something didn’t develop’ as it should have.
My birth vision was recorded as 6/60 in each eye individually, 6/24 together. Today, on a good day, I struggle to achieve 6/18 with distance spectacles in my stronger eye. The certificate also lists the ‘rapid blink’ that dad had too – this makes everyday life particularly challenging on top of the nystagmus.
At age 4, my notes said boarding school was essential – day school only if boarding was too far. I went to boarding school 20 miles away in 1957. My world changed completely. Those school friends became the family I couldn’t have and they know this.
After leaving school at 17, I did a secretarial course but soon switched to audio typing. A Disablement Resettlement Officer’s report – which I’d never seen until now – concluded: ‘She has done well and gained 7 ‘O’ levels. She must avoid jobs involving accurate vision. Audio typist would seem very suitable.’ And so it was. I spent 13 years in a railway audio typing pool before becoming a mum.
Since then, I’ve volunteered for 40 years with various organisations. Because I can type, I’m always wanted! I take minutes, compile newsletters and write about living with nystagmus. From these roles have come lasting friendships worldwide.
My boarding school friends and I never lost touch. We’ve shared everything – our daughters were all born in 1984 by chance! We’ve gone from letters to telephone calls to the internet and Zoom. In 2005, we found our old school lads had stayed in touch too. Now we meet yearly for weekends away – our highlight of the year.
Throughout it all, first employment and later the Disabled Person’s Railcard allowed me to meet friends old and new.
With this BD8 certificate in my hand, I know who I am. This matters enormously to me as an only child, motherless at 9, with a step mum who didn’t have children of her own. At 73, I feel like someone separated at birth who finally discovers who she really is. And all this from a certificate!