00:00:41
S1: Well, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome to the program. Bev Walker, who's a client of Vision Australia. And Bev is going to share a little bit of her story with us. Bev, welcome. Great to meet you and thank you for your time.
00:00:51
S2: That's all right. My pleasure.
00:00:53
S1: Yeah. Well, you had a life as a teacher.
00:00:55
S2: Yes. Uh, probably about 50 years of that.
00:00:59
S1: What sort of things were you teaching?
00:01:01
S2: Well, I trained as an infant teacher. That's perhaps one and two in the language of the time. And, uh, got married, and they told me you weren't allowed to teach if you were a married woman, so I had to resign. Okay, so things have changed a little since then, of course.
00:01:20
S1: Thankfully.
00:01:21
S2: And, um, when the kids I have two children when they grew up and, uh, went back to work, a principal from Ballarat North Tech knocked on my door in Ballarat where we were living at the time. And, um, he said, I've heard about you. I want you to come and work for me. So, um, I went to the tech school, and for the next 40 years, I became a tech teacher, having trained Littlies with a bit of a shock to the system. But, um, the principal said to me, do you want to teach English or maths? And I said, well, not very much good at maths so I'll try English. He said, well the must be or I, the boys here need to take off their boots to count to 20. So I thought, oh all right. But I took English. So I became an English teacher in the tech division. And um, I taught mainly year eight and year ten. And then I graduated after an extra couple of years of study. And um, I taught year 12 English, which became my forte. I had a marvelous time and had massive success with my kids or students, then young adults. One of them came up to me at my table in the classroom and said, I'm 18 now. Can I call you Bev? And I said, no, I'm Mrs. Walker, thank you. So she turned and sat down and we went on with the work.
00:03:04
S1: I then a few years ago, you were diagnosed with a sight impairment or your sight started to go on. You.
00:03:11
S2: Yeah. I had cataract surgery, which was abominable. The eye bled and I lost vision. And about eight or so years later, I had the other eye cataract surgery. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Beautiful. I could read the tiny little numbers in a crossword puzzle for three days, and then the vision disappeared again. So cataract surgery for me was just not there. And the low vision became my life, which was really horrific for me as an English teacher or ex English teacher at that stage.
00:03:56
S1: What were some of the things you missed? I guess your independence was probably top of the list pretty much.
00:04:03
S2: There's um followed by reading. Um, just the daily newspaper was out of my reach. Book reading, which I truly loved. Couldn't do reading anything like, um, a recipe, reading instructions on a box of tablets for medication. All those things. Just just an impossibility. And having to rely on other people to tell me what I should have been able to read was a real headache to me.
00:04:36
S1: I'm sure a lot of people can identify with that. So kind of eventually you found Vision Australia and they've been able to help you with some of the things that they offer.
00:04:46
S2: Yeah. My, uh, optometrist in Horsham sent a referral to them and, uh, within a fairly short time, a couple of months, perhaps Katrina arrived on my doorstep with a whole pile of stuff of Aids to help people with low vision magnifiers of all different types, handheld and book ones, A4 size and all that. And, uh, she spent a lot of time talking with me. She gave me books, sold me a little credit card size with a slit in it so I could lay it down on a document and sign my name, because otherwise I had to get some to the point where I'm supposed to sign for legal Documents, etc.. Um, so she was tremendous. Uh, ultimately from there, I moved on to, uh, Michelle, who had a weekly fortnightly monthly chat with me, which really helped me. It was a, a shoulder to lean on, so to speak. She understood the difficulties and emotions I had being deprived of sight. Um, yeah, she was great.
00:06:04
S1: Now, when you're in country Victoria, I guess that presents challenges in some way or some challenges in, well, I guess different ways to maybe some people in the city or suburbs. Well.
00:06:16
S2: We have distances to travel. I mean, if I want to see Vision Australia personally, I have to travel about 180 K and I don't drive now, of course. Uh, so I had to rely on my daughter or a friend to take me there or just to go. Shopping is difficult. Most of my banking and business are 75 K away from home in Horsham. So you've got to plan ahead. Um, I have a bit of aged care help, but most of that is, uh, dealt with by my daughter who visits regularly. But, you know, relying on other people is a, it's a real bugger, to be honest.
00:07:05
S1: No. Well put. Um, now you've kind of really done well as far as, uh, embracing new technology goes. Uh, you talked about, uh, you know, something living on your doorstep with stuff, but you've done remarkably well in terms of, you know, you're right up with the latest stuff. Yeah. You're a bit of a, you're a bit of a cool dude.
00:07:24
S2: Uh.
00:07:25
S1: Well.
00:07:26
S2: I've had so much help from Vision Australia with Scott, the technician who visits me on a regular basis. He organised my mobile phone to talk to me, so I press on the little accessibility button on the right hand side. A little man as he's known as, and I can read my emails on my phone, I can send a message via this little man on the bottom right hand corner. Uh, so my phone is an absolute magic tool for me. Uh, Scott has also organised for my computer to talk to me. He sat down and fiddled with a few buttons and the computer talks to me. When I press a key, it tells me whether it's an I o or a a Z. Um, and I've also got a beautiful little device that lets me read books, which I've organized for democracy, to be a leader of the books that I read. And I don't use television at night anymore. I put my little device on and I listen to a book every night.
00:08:49
S1: Is that the envoy?
00:08:51
S2: Yes. The envoy. It's just magical. There's 20 books that they load on. I read them some books are 20 hours. Some are 17 hours. And I'm just so enthralled that I can listen to books again.
00:09:11
S1: But you've also got something that, you know, many people probably have heard about, but maybe not many use or, uh, have had much experience with the metal glasses that you're into that as well.
00:09:21
S2: Oh, I love them. Uh, the funniest thing I've had. Oh, no. I'm sorry. There's two funny things. I've had one of them, I was in my local supermarket looking for a container of ice cream, 2 litre or 4 litre of ice cream. I wanted vanilla, so here am I with my glasses on in the supermarket, and I'm leaning into this freezer and I pick up a container of ice cream and I say, hey, meta, is this vanilla ice cream? And before it enters, a woman behind me says, yes, it is. And I thought, what's going on here? Anyway, I looked at the woman and she sort of looked at me and we thought, oh, you know what's going on here? Anyway, I realised that I'd picked up the right ice cream. She'd told me never had told me as well. So then I thought, oh This one must think I'm stupid. I'm walking to the ice cream. A couple of miles away. I saw this lady, which I didn't know her at all, and I said, oh, excuse me, are you the lady that told me about the vanilla ice cream? And she said, oh yes, that was me. And I said, well, I'm not stupid, but the special glasses I'm wearing are actually talking to me and answering my questions. And she said, what? And I said, yes, they're special ones for people who have low vision. She said, oh, isn't that marvelous? And we chatted a little bit about the weather and something else, and off she went. And so did I. But the other funny thing I had with these glasses on, able now to go to my letter box, pick up the mail and say, whether it's for my husband or it's for me. I've always had the idea we don't open each other's smile because it's often personal anyway. I picked up this envelope and I just said, read it. Well, my glasses read it, and I said, Babe Walker, Pennsylvania. I said, what the heck's going on here? Because my address is not Pennsylvania. Obviously I'm in Australia. Anyway, I got pretty cross with these glasses and what the hell are you doing? I said, I'm reading your address. I said, it's not my address. What are you doing? Where did you get this address from? And I said, the internet. And I said, you stupid thing. You're supposed to read this address here. Anyway, what I realized later is that I didn't say to the class, look and read. I just said read I k.
00:12:31
S1: So.
00:12:33
S2: You know, there's a few technicalities that you've got to be a bit careful what you ask the glasses to do. But funnily enough, a few a few days later, my son in law I was telling him about. And he said, oh, perhaps there's a Bev Walker in Pennsylvania.
00:12:52
S1: Yeah.
00:12:53
S2: Do you know what? There are over 210 walkers who live in Pennsylvania. Okay.
00:13:01
S1: Well, there's only one Bev Walker that we care about, and that's you. I bet you kind of touched on this a bit earlier, but you talked about medications. I mean, you talked about personal. You talk about keeping your well, you talked about independence, being able to read your medications. And the instructions must be really important as well.
00:13:17
S2: Oh, that is because sometimes it might tell you to take a particular tablet three times a day or four times or whatever. And you know that that's really, really important. Um, for your own sake and for, for your condition, you know. Uh, so that's, that's really, really important. But Vision Australia have just been fantastic for me. They've provided equipment, they've led me to trial it to see if I really want it. Certainly some of them have cost a little bit. But what's that when you can see and you can read and you can listen and do all sorts of things. One of the other main things I found with the glasses was using my electric stove. You know, you've got the dials across the front. Yeah. And that's great. Give me a little sticker or she put a sticker on for to show 180 degrees on the temperature dial. And that's great. But if you want it more or less than 180, there's no sticker there, so you can't see it. So you ask the glasses or I ask the glasses, what is the temperature on the on the dial? And my dial for the temperature is on the right hand side of the stove. So I ask, what is the temperature on the right hand dial on my stove? And it tells me it's 180 degrees. Well, I wanted it 200. So I said to my glasses, do I turn the dial to the right or to the left to get 200 degrees? And it said I had to turn to the right, just a small amount. It told me. So I did that, and then I asked, all right. Better look and read the temperature in our players. And it told me it was 200 degrees.
00:15:25
S1: Beautiful.
00:15:26
S2: Actually gave me the directions to find the correct temperature.
00:15:31
S1: It confirmed it. Bev will at a time. I could chat to you for hours. And I shouldn't tell tales out of school, but we were messing around, trying to get you to air for about three quarters of an hour or so. And I've got to say, I'm most most impressed at your patience and how you handled things so very well. It was well worth the messing around. Thank you for speaking to us. We wish you well. And who knows, maybe we'll catch up again someday. But thank you for your time today.
00:15:59
S2: I'd love to do that again. Thanks.
00:16:01
S1: Peter Walker there. What a what a lovely, lovely person. And, well, great, great endorsement of the great service of the Vision Australia offer.
00:16:09
S2: Well they're fantastic.
S1: Well, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome to the program. Bev Walker, who's a client of Vision Australia. And Bev is going to share a little bit of her story with us. Bev, welcome. Great to meet you and thank you for your time.
00:00:51
S2: That's all right. My pleasure.
00:00:53
S1: Yeah. Well, you had a life as a teacher.
00:00:55
S2: Yes. Uh, probably about 50 years of that.
00:00:59
S1: What sort of things were you teaching?
00:01:01
S2: Well, I trained as an infant teacher. That's perhaps one and two in the language of the time. And, uh, got married, and they told me you weren't allowed to teach if you were a married woman, so I had to resign. Okay, so things have changed a little since then, of course.
00:01:20
S1: Thankfully.
00:01:21
S2: And, um, when the kids I have two children when they grew up and, uh, went back to work, a principal from Ballarat North Tech knocked on my door in Ballarat where we were living at the time. And, um, he said, I've heard about you. I want you to come and work for me. So, um, I went to the tech school, and for the next 40 years, I became a tech teacher, having trained Littlies with a bit of a shock to the system. But, um, the principal said to me, do you want to teach English or maths? And I said, well, not very much good at maths so I'll try English. He said, well the must be or I, the boys here need to take off their boots to count to 20. So I thought, oh all right. But I took English. So I became an English teacher in the tech division. And um, I taught mainly year eight and year ten. And then I graduated after an extra couple of years of study. And um, I taught year 12 English, which became my forte. I had a marvelous time and had massive success with my kids or students, then young adults. One of them came up to me at my table in the classroom and said, I'm 18 now. Can I call you Bev? And I said, no, I'm Mrs. Walker, thank you. So she turned and sat down and we went on with the work.
00:03:04
S1: I then a few years ago, you were diagnosed with a sight impairment or your sight started to go on. You.
00:03:11
S2: Yeah. I had cataract surgery, which was abominable. The eye bled and I lost vision. And about eight or so years later, I had the other eye cataract surgery. Fingers crossed. Yeah. Beautiful. I could read the tiny little numbers in a crossword puzzle for three days, and then the vision disappeared again. So cataract surgery for me was just not there. And the low vision became my life, which was really horrific for me as an English teacher or ex English teacher at that stage.
00:03:56
S1: What were some of the things you missed? I guess your independence was probably top of the list pretty much.
00:04:03
S2: There's um followed by reading. Um, just the daily newspaper was out of my reach. Book reading, which I truly loved. Couldn't do reading anything like, um, a recipe, reading instructions on a box of tablets for medication. All those things. Just just an impossibility. And having to rely on other people to tell me what I should have been able to read was a real headache to me.
00:04:36
S1: I'm sure a lot of people can identify with that. So kind of eventually you found Vision Australia and they've been able to help you with some of the things that they offer.
00:04:46
S2: Yeah. My, uh, optometrist in Horsham sent a referral to them and, uh, within a fairly short time, a couple of months, perhaps Katrina arrived on my doorstep with a whole pile of stuff of Aids to help people with low vision magnifiers of all different types, handheld and book ones, A4 size and all that. And, uh, she spent a lot of time talking with me. She gave me books, sold me a little credit card size with a slit in it so I could lay it down on a document and sign my name, because otherwise I had to get some to the point where I'm supposed to sign for legal Documents, etc.. Um, so she was tremendous. Uh, ultimately from there, I moved on to, uh, Michelle, who had a weekly fortnightly monthly chat with me, which really helped me. It was a, a shoulder to lean on, so to speak. She understood the difficulties and emotions I had being deprived of sight. Um, yeah, she was great.
00:06:04
S1: Now, when you're in country Victoria, I guess that presents challenges in some way or some challenges in, well, I guess different ways to maybe some people in the city or suburbs. Well.
00:06:16
S2: We have distances to travel. I mean, if I want to see Vision Australia personally, I have to travel about 180 K and I don't drive now, of course. Uh, so I had to rely on my daughter or a friend to take me there or just to go. Shopping is difficult. Most of my banking and business are 75 K away from home in Horsham. So you've got to plan ahead. Um, I have a bit of aged care help, but most of that is, uh, dealt with by my daughter who visits regularly. But, you know, relying on other people is a, it's a real bugger, to be honest.
00:07:05
S1: No. Well put. Um, now you've kind of really done well as far as, uh, embracing new technology goes. Uh, you talked about, uh, you know, something living on your doorstep with stuff, but you've done remarkably well in terms of, you know, you're right up with the latest stuff. Yeah. You're a bit of a, you're a bit of a cool dude.
00:07:24
S2: Uh.
00:07:25
S1: Well.
00:07:26
S2: I've had so much help from Vision Australia with Scott, the technician who visits me on a regular basis. He organised my mobile phone to talk to me, so I press on the little accessibility button on the right hand side. A little man as he's known as, and I can read my emails on my phone, I can send a message via this little man on the bottom right hand corner. Uh, so my phone is an absolute magic tool for me. Uh, Scott has also organised for my computer to talk to me. He sat down and fiddled with a few buttons and the computer talks to me. When I press a key, it tells me whether it's an I o or a a Z. Um, and I've also got a beautiful little device that lets me read books, which I've organized for democracy, to be a leader of the books that I read. And I don't use television at night anymore. I put my little device on and I listen to a book every night.
00:08:49
S1: Is that the envoy?
00:08:51
S2: Yes. The envoy. It's just magical. There's 20 books that they load on. I read them some books are 20 hours. Some are 17 hours. And I'm just so enthralled that I can listen to books again.
00:09:11
S1: But you've also got something that, you know, many people probably have heard about, but maybe not many use or, uh, have had much experience with the metal glasses that you're into that as well.
00:09:21
S2: Oh, I love them. Uh, the funniest thing I've had. Oh, no. I'm sorry. There's two funny things. I've had one of them, I was in my local supermarket looking for a container of ice cream, 2 litre or 4 litre of ice cream. I wanted vanilla, so here am I with my glasses on in the supermarket, and I'm leaning into this freezer and I pick up a container of ice cream and I say, hey, meta, is this vanilla ice cream? And before it enters, a woman behind me says, yes, it is. And I thought, what's going on here? Anyway, I looked at the woman and she sort of looked at me and we thought, oh, you know what's going on here? Anyway, I realised that I'd picked up the right ice cream. She'd told me never had told me as well. So then I thought, oh This one must think I'm stupid. I'm walking to the ice cream. A couple of miles away. I saw this lady, which I didn't know her at all, and I said, oh, excuse me, are you the lady that told me about the vanilla ice cream? And she said, oh yes, that was me. And I said, well, I'm not stupid, but the special glasses I'm wearing are actually talking to me and answering my questions. And she said, what? And I said, yes, they're special ones for people who have low vision. She said, oh, isn't that marvelous? And we chatted a little bit about the weather and something else, and off she went. And so did I. But the other funny thing I had with these glasses on, able now to go to my letter box, pick up the mail and say, whether it's for my husband or it's for me. I've always had the idea we don't open each other's smile because it's often personal anyway. I picked up this envelope and I just said, read it. Well, my glasses read it, and I said, Babe Walker, Pennsylvania. I said, what the heck's going on here? Because my address is not Pennsylvania. Obviously I'm in Australia. Anyway, I got pretty cross with these glasses and what the hell are you doing? I said, I'm reading your address. I said, it's not my address. What are you doing? Where did you get this address from? And I said, the internet. And I said, you stupid thing. You're supposed to read this address here. Anyway, what I realized later is that I didn't say to the class, look and read. I just said read I k.
00:12:31
S1: So.
00:12:33
S2: You know, there's a few technicalities that you've got to be a bit careful what you ask the glasses to do. But funnily enough, a few a few days later, my son in law I was telling him about. And he said, oh, perhaps there's a Bev Walker in Pennsylvania.
00:12:52
S1: Yeah.
00:12:53
S2: Do you know what? There are over 210 walkers who live in Pennsylvania. Okay.
00:13:01
S1: Well, there's only one Bev Walker that we care about, and that's you. I bet you kind of touched on this a bit earlier, but you talked about medications. I mean, you talked about personal. You talk about keeping your well, you talked about independence, being able to read your medications. And the instructions must be really important as well.
00:13:17
S2: Oh, that is because sometimes it might tell you to take a particular tablet three times a day or four times or whatever. And you know that that's really, really important. Um, for your own sake and for, for your condition, you know. Uh, so that's, that's really, really important. But Vision Australia have just been fantastic for me. They've provided equipment, they've led me to trial it to see if I really want it. Certainly some of them have cost a little bit. But what's that when you can see and you can read and you can listen and do all sorts of things. One of the other main things I found with the glasses was using my electric stove. You know, you've got the dials across the front. Yeah. And that's great. Give me a little sticker or she put a sticker on for to show 180 degrees on the temperature dial. And that's great. But if you want it more or less than 180, there's no sticker there, so you can't see it. So you ask the glasses or I ask the glasses, what is the temperature on the on the dial? And my dial for the temperature is on the right hand side of the stove. So I ask, what is the temperature on the right hand dial on my stove? And it tells me it's 180 degrees. Well, I wanted it 200. So I said to my glasses, do I turn the dial to the right or to the left to get 200 degrees? And it said I had to turn to the right, just a small amount. It told me. So I did that, and then I asked, all right. Better look and read the temperature in our players. And it told me it was 200 degrees.
00:15:25
S1: Beautiful.
00:15:26
S2: Actually gave me the directions to find the correct temperature.
00:15:31
S1: It confirmed it. Bev will at a time. I could chat to you for hours. And I shouldn't tell tales out of school, but we were messing around, trying to get you to air for about three quarters of an hour or so. And I've got to say, I'm most most impressed at your patience and how you handled things so very well. It was well worth the messing around. Thank you for speaking to us. We wish you well. And who knows, maybe we'll catch up again someday. But thank you for your time today.
00:15:59
S2: I'd love to do that again. Thanks.
00:16:01
S1: Peter Walker there. What a what a lovely, lovely person. And, well, great, great endorsement of the great service of the Vision Australia offer.
00:16:09
S2: Well they're fantastic.
