What a brilliant email! I am all up for Braille so your enthusiasm is
really great.
Aleksandra
On 13/03/2018, Eleanor burke <eleanormarthaburke@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
excellent news Clive.** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
http://www.justgiving.com/Eleanor-Burke-Aniridia
On 13 Mar 2018, at 19:43, Clive Lever <clive.lever1955@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello all,
Last year, when I applied to renew my passport, I commented that, though
it was nice to have a Braille label on the front of my passport as per my
request, It would be more useful to have the Passport holder’s name, the
passport expiry date, and even the passport number on the front. Rachel
Pearce, the lady I spoke to at the passport office last year called me
today to say that staff at the Passport office received an email on Friday
saying that as from now, Braille labels on passports would show the
holder’s name and the expiry date. Apparently the email was silent on the
question of including the passport number. This will mean that:
1. People living in households with no sighted people and more than
one blind person will be able to distinguish between each other’s
passports, and those of their kids, without having to resort to makeshift
improvisations of their own. The expiry date will help to make sure that
we can renew our passports in time when travelling abroad close to the end
of the document’s life. The value of having the passport number available
is that sometimes companies ask you to provide it when you are making
online holiday and flight bookings, and this could be a pain if you’re
half-way through completing the form, and can’t complete until you can get
sighted help – that’s the on-topic bit, folks!
As a result of the change made by the Passport Office, it could become
easier to effect ‘a campaign for real Braille’, to make sure Braille
legends on other items are any use. Here are three examples where braille
is currently shown, but itdisplays information you could easily do without
instead of the genuinely useful info:
1. Disabled Persons’ Rail Card holders are given the option to have
a Braille label on their cards. The label simply says “Railcard. A second
line saying 20-11-2021 would be handy, so that you didn’t have to ask
someone else to tell you when you needed to re-apply.
2. Similarly, the expiry date would be useful on a blue badge, and
would be better written boldly on a label than very faintly on the card
itself. At present, all it says on the front is: Front. The legend itself
is so faint that I wouldn’t expect people with limited sensitivity in
their hands to be able to make it out easily. For example, some people
have reduced sensitivity in their fingers as a symptom of diabetes,
another symptom of which can be deteriorating sight.
3. We have a Recycling bin, a General waste bin and a garden waste
bin in our front garden. It would be helpful to have the legends
“General”, “Recycling” and “Garden” written on these bins, rather than, of
all things, the number of litres each would hold! That info strikes me as
eminently irrelevant to a householder.
Best,
Clive]
