17th
October
I was invited
by VocalEyes to a reception in the River Room of the House of Lords (The second
chamber in the UK Parliament). The River
Room is part of the area of the Palace of Westminster with a connection to the
House of Lords and the Lord Speaker. These apartments had reached some
notoriety when under the control of Lord Irvine of Lairg, a former Lord
Chancellor. Lord Irvine had supervised the
installation of some very expensive wallpaper in the River Room and which we were
able to admire during the reception.
Nowadays the
holder of the Lord Chancellor is the head of the Justice Ministry and sits as a
Cabinet Minister in the House of Commons.
The issue of “Lords Reform” is currently stuck in the stasis of the present
coalition government and the membership is appointed (for life), with some
residual aristocratic input of (blue blood) just under 100 being eligible for
election from a pool of hereditaries.
During the
State Opening of Parliament the Queen arrives in her coach which enters via an
opening of the Victoria Tower. The
Victoria Tower is at the opposite end of the Palace of Westminster from the
Clock Tower and the famous bell, Big Ben.
I entered the Palace of Westminster through gate 10, which is Black
Rod’s Pass Office. Black Rod is always
shown marching down the Lobby to the House of Commons where the door is slammed
in his face. This part of the building
harks back to many customs and yes, anachronisms, in the constitution which has
evolved. I went through security and
joined James White from Guide Dogs.
James had
just finished a gruelling 3 weeks at the political party organised conferences
in England - someone has to do the lobbying.
We chatted about items of common interest such as their anti clutter
campaign, noises for electric cars and shared space issues. We were soon joined
by Toby Davey the deputy director of VocalEyes, our hosts for the evening. I had met Toby at Sight Village last year and
also a couple of times at the Wellcome Collection. (We are pictured in the
Grand Staircase of the Wellcome Building - http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/wellcome-collectionbrainsthe-thing-is.html
)
After a few
more arrivals we were escorted through the courtyards inside the complex and
entered the approach to the apartments. We
walked along the passage way within the Victoria Tower which can take a coach
and horses in procession. I was greeted
by Marylou from VocalEyes and my name badge was pinned on. We were led to a lift and escorted to the
River Room by the verger of the chapel.
We entered
the River Room which is decorated by paintings and sculptures. There is a view across the River Thames
directly and with another window there is a view downstream of the Millenium
Wheel. I could make this out along with
Westminster Bridge. I touched a Nymph
(made of marble) as Roz Chalmers described it. There is also a statue of
Narcissus and Roz described him to me.
Roz
was scheduled to demonstrate audio description in practice to the guests, some
peers, some funders (Arts Council of England), other museums with interests in
audio description (The Imperial War Museum) and contributors to the London
Beyond Sight project. The room was
filling up and the VocalEyes supporters were introduced to me by Roz and Louise
Fryer, who quizzed me about my lunchtime talk at the Wellcome Collection on
synesthesia. (Louise is doing a PhD at
Goldsmiths and was interested in mirror neurons)
We were
served with drinks and canapés and I wore my new hat as my hands were full with
cane and glass. I prefer to stand at
networking functions and if I did not know to whom I was talking, I simply asked. I recognised some voices from the theatre so having
met Andrew Holland a few times at the National Theatre, I could simply greet
him on a prompt “it is Andrew”. Context
is everything and I recognised the voice of Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty, though
I had to ask Julia Neuberger who she was again.
I knew I was speaking to a member of the House of Lords but which
one?
The speeches
were started by Lord Harrison, who asked the Lord Speaker, Baroness d’Souza, to
say a few words. Toby Davey then gave an eloquent speech on access to
galleries, museums and heritage sites.
While access to some collections was excellent in some cases (Toby cited
the Wellcome Collection as being an exemplar), others were sadly either
inadequate or assumed something to touch was all that was required. We have both had some instances of
inappropriate action on someone seeing a person with an obvious sight
disability. (In case you do not know me, I am not deaf and do not respond to
hand waving or being told I can only be accommodated on the day for the
visually impaired which I should have looked up on their website before risking
life and limb to get there.)
Roz Chalmers
then described the skills of an audio describer by demonstrating these through
an example, in this case by describing an object from the British Museum
African collection. The object label
gave context but I had no idea what it looked like, let alone how it
worked. A playback with Louise Fryer
made the object appear to me as a two headed dog with a carved fur effect etc.
It was time
to continue ‘working’ the River Room and I was soon talking to Judy Dixey, the
executive director of VocalEyes. Judy
had promoted the concept of London Beyond Sight and I was aware of it through
both twitter and my local visually impaired group. For more details of London Beyond Sight go to
Next, I was
introduced to Lord Harrison and Lord (Earl) Howe. We were chatting about the Olympics and
Paralympic legacy and like many disabled people I expressed the view that with
huge funding and sponsorship, many disabled people can achieve their potential. Unfortunately not all of us can run 100
metres. I steered the conversation to
the cultural Olympic legacy and audio description in particular and asked Lord
Howe to describe his tie, which he did quite well.
The introductions
continued and I met Vidar Hjardeng who recently stepped down as the chair of
VocalEyes. Both Judy and Vidar can be
heard on an audio CD about London beyond sight.
Soon it was time to go and Marylou escorted me back to Westminster
Underground making sure I was on the correct platform.
Some of the
people I spoke to and was introduced to were as follows:
Shami
Chakrabarti
Roz ChalmersNeil Darlison from Arts Council England
Toby Davey, Deputy Director of VocalEyes
Judy Dixey
Michael Elwyn
Louise Fryer
Lord Harrison of Chester
Vidar Hjardeng
Lord Howe
Marcel Jenkins
Marylou Lousvet, Chair of VocalEyes
Julia Neuberger
James White of Guide Dogs
Many thanks to VocalEyes for adding me to their guest list. I have since added two of the London Beyond Sight audio descriptions to my Waterloo Sunset post (http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/waterloo-sunset-london-terminus-with.html). Both audio and text files on the site are useful in adding that piece of appropriate description for many London landmarks. Judy Dixey would like to extend the concept of London Beyond Sight to other geographic spots and I think personally some Science Beyond Sight should be within reach if enough enlightened people can be found to do it.
