Fred and Etta: honoured for charity work film transcript
Helen May, Community Partnerships Officer at the University of Warwick: The University of Warwick chose to give honorary degrees to Fred and EttaReid this summer to recognise their amazing contributions to the lives of blind people through setting up the Kenilworth Readers for the Blind Service.
Fred: I went blind at 14 when I got detached retina.
Etta: I was a full-sighted child and I got involved in an accident.
Fred:I was very aware that there were lots of other blind people who were getting no help at all. We knew a lady here in Kenilworth, an elderly blind lady, and she actually had to ask the butcher to read her mail to her.
The Readers Service was set up on the basis that any blind person could register.
Richard:Now this is this holiday I’ve booked.
Volunteer:Yes, the Essential East Coast Cities [sound of brailler].
Richard:My name is Richard Bignall. I have RetinitisPigmentosa.
Volunteer: So you fly directly to from Heathrow to Boston.
Richard: A person comes to read to me every Tuesday afternoon. Different person, incredibly nice people.
Fred: We have about three readers for every client so that there are enough readers to give the client a reader at any time they want.
Volunteer: You want me to read from chapter five…
Fred: Even just if you, you know, wanted to sit and chat for most of the time and just read a postcard or whatever.
Etta: Even somebody who is blind, and they have sighted people living in the house they’ll tell you what’s in your ink print letters or whatever, but there’s no way that many families would actually sit down and read a book to you.
Fred: That’s right, yeah.
Etta: So it’s just marvellous that somebody else goes in there and does just that, whatever you want done, they’ll read it.
Richard: It’s been absolutely fantastic; it’s been like a social service provision for me because in so many ways it’s done so much for me. So many of the readers have actually become my friends.
Fred: We didn’t know anything about it, we were totally gobsmacked when she came in and said the university would like to aware you a joint honorary degree.
Helen: We award our honorary degrees to a whole range of people who have made an excellent contribution to their field from former SecretaryGeneral of the UN, to people who have made an amazing contribution to the civil service, but also people who have made amazing contributionslocally as well.
Fred: We don’t want to be told what we can’t do; we don’t even want to be told what we can do! We want to be given a leg up to achieve what we know we can do.
Helen: I was also really impressed with Fred’s ability to pop into his speech some really good take-home points for all of the students and staff including the unforgettable line that we should just see people’s ability and not disability.