ST DUNSTAN’S VILLA, the training centre in Regent’s Park. To the left is the clock, removed from the Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West when it was demolished in 1828 and installed at the Regent’s Park mansion. The charity took the name St Dunstan’s from the clock.
St Dunstan’s Guiding Lights David Castleton tells us about the organization and the people who have given a helping hand to generations of war-blinded men and women n 1960, looking for a new job and a change of life, I found an ad for Appeals and Publicity Assistant at St Dunstan’s – the charity set up in 1915 to help men and women blinded on war service. I had never given much thought to blindness, but I had heard of St Dunstan’s. I applied and reported for my interview. It was only after I had answered several questions that I realized, to my surprise, that the man behind the desk was blind. His name was Robin Buckley and he had developed the trick of turning his head towards the sound of the voice he heard. He was blinded while serving in the Royal Navy when dismantling an Italian explosive motor boat. He became my boss. I soon discovered that Robin was not the only war-blinded head of department. In addition to the Publicity Department, three others were headed by St Dunstaners, as they were called: the Industrial Department, responsible for finding employment and supporting St Dunstaners in their work; the Estate Department, which found and maintained homes; and the Research
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Department. They all reported to their chairman, Sir Ian Fraser, who had been blinded on the Somme in the First World War. I began to realize I had joined a rather special organization, little knowing then that I would work for the charity for the next 33 years.
Changing attitudes Ian Fraser was only 18 in 1916 when he arrived, totally blind, at Regent’s Park, where the founder of St Dunstan’s, Sir Arthur Pearson, had established his training centre. Within a year, Fraser had become Sir Arthur’s assistant. Later he would succeed him as chairman. Arthur Pearson was a successful newspaper proprietor, owning Pearson’s Weekly, the Daily Express and the London Evening Standard. He became blind through glaucoma. When his sight failed, Sir Arthur is said to have to have told his wife, ‘I will never be a blind man, I will be the blind man.’ He lived up to his words by becoming president of the National Institute for the Blind after achieving great success in fundraising. When the First World War began Sir Arthur was quick to recognize
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that there would be blind casualties and he led a committee that brought about the foundation of St Dunstan’s. His aim for the blinded soldiers was: ‘They should be taught to read and write in the embossed type [Braille], assisted to acquire some occupation and generally trained to become active, self-reliant and self-helpful.’
Turning lives around In my work I had many opportunities to meet with those who had lived through the early years of St Dunstan’s. Some you might describe as ‘living history’, like Tommy Milligan, the second man to join St Dunstan’s, who in my time was a resident in Pearson House, a St Dunstan’s home in Brighton. A tall, urbane, retired businessman speaking French and German, Tommy was a young pastry cook when he volunteered for the Irish Guards on his 18th birthday. He was blinded in action at La Bassée in December 1914 and was among a convoy of wounded men that arrived in Cardiff. On hearing that Tommy was in hospital there, Pearson travelled to Cardiff himself w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t
Social History
St Dunstan’s guiding lights
THEY’RE OFF! The start of a walking race around Regent’s Park for St Dunstaners and their sighted escorts in 1923.
to take Tommy back to London. Tommy told me, ‘I had great trust in him because I had often read Pearson’s Weekly and I knew he was a man of distinction. He was a man who inspired confidence as soon as you met him. He told me about his blindness going up in the train.’ Tommy’s words sum up Pearson’s achievements in reshaping the lives of some 2,000 young men facing the trauma of blindness. He was famous, he inspired confidence and, above all, he too was blind. As well as learning Braille and typing, Tommy trained as a masseur. He also told me about the sporting life in Regent’s Park. He was a keen oarsman. ‘We used to get up at six in the morning, if we wished, have a cup of tea and go to the lake in Regent’s Park and row. We had a lot of nice girls; some of them were shop girls and they used to have their breakfasts early, get there about seven and take us out rowing, coxing our boats. Rowing was all I was good at really.’ As well as rowing there was race walking around the park, penalty shooting at goal kept by Arsenal’s goalkeeper, Ernie Williamson, and athletics. The favourite event was the 100-yard sprint. The best time was 10.8 seconds, running blind over rough ground and guided by a rope! A drawing of a handsome young blinded soldier being guided by a small girl became a potent symbol in fundraising, but this was not an invention. Ruby Smith, the gardener’s daughter, had the run of the grounds and, young as she was, recognizing that all these men in her world could not see, would take their hand and guide them. ‘I used w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t
to go up to them and chat and we’d just walk around holding hands,’ she said many years later as Mrs Ruby Crane. ‘If they wanted to go to a certain workshop I knew them all by heart. I always remember how my little hand felt so small in theirs.’ One of the sisters who taught Braille was Grace Stacey. She had become Grace Hollins when she told me that teaching was on a one-toone basis. ‘In the Braille Room there were a number of instructors at different tables. You could do this as you liked. I mean, if a man was fussing you didn’t make it worse if you could help. I taught them the same way as I learnt myself, showing the foundation of six dots.’
Pearson soon recognized that feelings of helplessness in a newly blind trainee could be helped if he realized that his instructor was blind himself. Able pupils nearing the end of their training began to be used in this role. One of them was Tommy Rogers. ‘I had helped some of the fresh trainees to type their own letters,’ said Tommy, ‘with the result that when a new typing teacher was required the post was offered to me. When I accepted the light began to disperse the mist of frustration. Once again, I was a useful member of society.’ Tommy went on to work for St Dunstan’s for 26 years and taught a new generation of St Dunstaners in the Second World War.
Wartime move In 1938, St Dunstan’s opened a new home high on the cliffs at Ovingdean, near Brighton. It was designed for the comfort and safety of blind people. With war looming, a small eye hospital was added for eye casualties. Neither was used for very long as the German advance to the other side of the Channel necessitated evacuation. Fraser and his staff found a place for their wartime centre in Church Stretton, a small town in Shropshire, and an invasion of war-blinded men and women began to descend there.
IN 1943, the whole town turned out to welcome the blinded ex-prisoners of war to Church Stretton.
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St Dunstan’s guiding lights
ST DUNSTANERS WITH two of their nurses stroll out of the gates of Tiger Hall, their wartime hospital in Church Stretton, using the wire at the side of the path to help guide them.
Just as in Regent’s Park, a small girl became a guide for them. Pauline Trebble was five years old when St Dunstaners came to her father’s pub, The Plough. ‘We used to be packed out with them. We had a piano and they used to like to sing.’ Pauline Haycock, as she was when remembering those wartime days, told me that St Dunstaners were based in the Longmynd Hotel. From there a wire was put across the field as a tactile guide down to the town and their workshops and classrooms for Braille and typewriting, training in industrial work and much more. ‘One of my jobs was showing them how to use it,’ said Pauline. ‘They would call in
for their lunchtime drink and when I was going back to school I would take two or three and put them on the wire. They were all special; St Dunstan’s and the boys, as they were known, brought life to the town. I think Stretton would not have been such a happy place during the war if they had not been there.’ ‘Stretton was one of the happiest years of my life,’ said Bob Lloyd – a surprising statement, perhaps, from someone recalling his first year of blindness. After his arrival in Church Stretton, Bob Lloyd had ‘five operations on my eyes but unfortunately they were not successful. I went to see the
ophthalmic surgeon to decide whether I was qualified for St Dunstan’s. I’d made up my mind I wasn’t going to stay. He took the wind out of my sails, saying, “All right, you can go now but you can’t stand. If I were you I’d wait until tomorrow morning,”’ When greeting him, Bob’s new colleagues soon discovered he could still see a little. ‘“Can you take us to the pub?” I said, “I can’t walk!” “Don’t worry, we’ll carry you”, they said.’ So they did, and after that Bob changed his mind and became a St Dunstaner. He completed his training and became a successful chartered physiotherapist. During the war and afterwards, back at Ovingdean St Dunstaners learned many different types of job, enabling them to work in industry on capstan lathes or testing components, or as telephonists, shopkeepers, physiotherapists and other occupations, living independently in a sighted world with the support of St Dunstan’s. Their recollections, as well as those briefly recorded here, are the basis of a full account of achievements of two generations of war-blinded men and women in my tribute to them, a book entitled In the Mind’s Eye (Pen and Sword, 2013). I
The support goes on In 2012, St Dunstan’s changed its name to Blind Veterans UK because they now offer training and assistance to all ex-service men and women who have become blind for reasons of age or disease, while there is still an influx of those blinded in action in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. • Visit www.blindveterans.org.uk to find out more about the organization and how you can support their work.
READER OFFER In the Mind’s Eye: The Blinded Veterans of St Dunstan’s is available to Discover Your History readers at £15.99 (a saving of 20% off RRP), with FREE UK postage and packing.
POTENTIAL MASSEURS need their sense of touch. In Regent’s Park, a group pose as they feel skeletal bones studying anatomy. 30
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• Call 01226 734222 and quote code 261519 or visit www.pen-andsword.co.uk and enter the code.
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