Linda's Story
Linda was born totally blind, but the rest of her family are fully sighted. She first discovered her love of books because her mum read to her so much. In 1979, at age eleven, she joined Calibre in its early years. Her number is 80, making her one of its longest-standing members.
“I’ve always loved stories. My mum is an avid reader. As I was born blind, she couldn’t do many of the usual things a mum might do with a daughter, so she read to me. She still does, but did much more often when I was a child. She likes crime fiction. That's the only genre I dislike! (I like thrillers, just not detective stories). The only genre we both like is fantasy, so we enjoy her reading me these books.
"At boarding school for the blind, which I attended from age five to eighteen, I learned braille and did everything using that. A braille reader cannot read as quickly as a sighted one, but I was by far the fastest reader in my class. It usually transpired that the girls in my dormitory hadn't read the section of the history book we'd be tested on the following day. Before bed and lights out, I ensured the braille history book was under my covers. I can't see light or dark anyway, so when the house mother had gone, I read the book aloud and stopped if I heard anyone coming. If someone checked on us, I'd get told off for talking, but they didn't know what I was actually doing because they couldn't see the book.
"I don’t know what I would have done without Calibre. I joined before my medical condition was diagnosed. As well as being blind, I have other health problems, including asthma, scoliosis, osteoporosis, chronic pain and fatigue and a severe hormone imbalance. Except asthma and scoliosis, they are all related to my medical condition. In 1979, I missed a year of school. I had no energy to read braille. Pretty much all I could do was listen to audiobooks, so Calibre was a lifesaver!
"Mum helped me pick books from their catalogue, which was a printed hard copy in those days.
“My health improved to a point where I could go back to school. I went on to do a BA Honours Russian and French degree at Strathclyde University. In my final year, I was the only student doing Honours Russian. As I got one-to-one tuition, I became very fluent in it. I then did a postgraduate teaching qualification in both languages at Sheffield University. Sheffield had previously supported another blind student to qualify as a teacher, so they felt confident they could help me. The Russian department was keen to have me because there was only a very small group of trainee teachers doing it. I absolutely loved it. It was hard getting Russian braille books. Once qualified, I couldn't find work teaching it.
"Instead, I got a job teaching French to sighted secondary school pupils and did this for eighteen years. I loved it, but my health started significantly deteriorating, so I had to take early retirement. It was my steadily worsening health, not blindness, which stopped me teaching. From 2022 to 2023, I tutored my niece for her National 5 French exam (equivalent to GCSE) and really enjoyed that. Although it was very hard work preparing papers (I had to adapt the resources), we had some good laughs together. French was her worse subject, so we were thrilled that she aced her exam with a band 1 result.
"Fortunately, I can socialise with friends from work because they are older than me, so we retired around the same time. Despite this, I have more time on my hands than I used to, so audiobooks have become an even bigger part of my day. I have them on a lot, such as when I’m getting dressed in the morning, tidying up, getting ready for bed et cetera. Over and above the books Mum reads me and the braille books I read, I probably listen to around four audiobooks a week from Calibre.
“Without Calibre, I wouldn’t have anything like the range of books to choose from. Now I can also download braille books from RNIB and ones in French from a library in France. I download them onto a machine with an electronic refreshable braille display. Before that was possible, physical braille books were big and heavy. My room’s packed with them: just my English-Russian ‘pocket’ dictionary alone comprises twenty-nine volumes!
"I wouldn't use any service which charged for books, but that's definitely not due to cost. That would probably include Calibre USB books, although I'd miss them so much! If Calibre charged for these, I'd download more books from free libraries. A benefit of services like Audible is that, once bought, you can access all titles in your library. For me, there's no point buying books, as I have very limited storage space. In addition, I rarely re-read books, except my two all time favourites, The Lord of the Rings and Jane Eyre. In Calibre's early years, there were two brilliant volunteer narrators, one of whom narrated The Lord of the Rings superbly!
“There are so many authors I love. If I really had to choose only one as my favourite, it would be Elizabeth Chadwick, who writes medieval historical fiction. Medieval history is one of my passions! I listen to a lot of fiction and non-fiction audiobooks about it from Calibre. It was through a chance conversation about this with friends I'd made through teaching that I found some fellow enthusiasts. I wouldn’t have discovered that shared interest or forged such a good friendship with them if it hadn’t been for audiobooks.”