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IN TOUCH – A Gap in the Market, Para-cyclist Libby Clegg

TX:Ìý 09.08.2022Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening. Tonight, the organisation for blind people one of our listener’s thinks is missing.

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Clip

I thought that I was the only blind gay in the village.Ìý For some reason there’s no formal organisation to help people who are both LBGT and blind to get together to share ideas, to share conversations.

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White

We find out what he’d like to see done about it.

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We’ll hear your reactions to our items on corneal transplants and the possible effects of covid on vision and a postscript to the Commonwealth Games.

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But first, we often report on what organisations, which seek to represent us, are up to but Alex Scott wants us to draw attention to an organisation which he says isn’t there but should be.Ìý Alex emailed us about this but we felt we needed to hear his voice, so he’s been explaining to me what he thinks is a gap in the market.

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Scott

I mean I’d love to see some organisations emerging and provide a bit of networking, a bit of sort of social support.Ìý Most recently, of course, with Pride coming up, the fact that lots of big businesses have been getting on the bandwagon, big major supermarkets endorsing and supporting their gay employees, banks wanting to endorse all their gay customers.Ìý There’s absolutely zilch out there. ÌýI contacted gay Switchboard, RNIB, various local organisations and there just seems to be a shortage out there of anything happening.Ìý And the bizarre thing is that if you go to say the big Pride event in London, which I went to, I didn’t march but I was there at Piccadilly Circus watching the march go by and you had everything from gay police officers, gay firefighters, gay vets, you name it, but nothing to represent my form of disability.Ìý And it would have been so lovely to have seen a group of blind and visually impaired people either tapping away with little collective white sticks, banging away on the pavement or even better, some guide dogs barking away and maybe licking all the passers-by but just to show a. a bit of solidarity but also to show that we’re there, we’re proud of who we are, what we are.

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White

But raise as an interesting point – you could, of course, join these mainstream celebrations of gay Pride that you’ve talked about, why the need for a particular organisation for blind and partially sighted people who are gay?

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Scott

I think it’s the fact that it’s nice to be with other people who are like you when you’re making a bit of a political and social statement and also for a bit of companionship as well.Ìý No, I’m lucky that I’ve got quite a lot of gay friends and quite a lot of lesbian LGBT friends and I’ve got quite a lot of blind friends but there’s a very small cross-over between the two groups.Ìý And it’s only when you appreciate that part of social life and that coming in is so difficult, if you can’t see or if you’re visually impaired, that it makes a big difference to be with other people who are doing sort of similar things and understand where you are.

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White

So, why the gap?Ìý What’s going on and why do you think it’s not been put there, given how many other organisations there are of likeminded people?

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Scott

I guess because we’re a minority within a minority and maybe there’s something which has happened over the years that it’s been not talked about, it’s been a bit suppressed.Ìý If we’ve got a number of other Pride events taking place throughout this year, there’s going to be Birmingham, there’s going to be the big one in Manchester, there’s going to be Brighton, there’s going to be Cymru in Cardiff, that there must be some sort of lesbian and gay people who would love to sort of have a chance to participate and be part of that collective crowd.

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White

Alex Scott.Ìý Well, we’ve been looking into this and there may be a little more around than Alex is suggesting there, albeit not much more. ÌýFor instance, the RNIB does have a UK wide community support group which operates online, where people can discuss the kind of issues that Alex wants to see addressed.Ìý It’s organised and operated by Una Mulgrew, who is a part of the RNIB’s Northern Ireland Community Connection team and she joins us from Belfast.

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Una, first of all, I mean, tell me more about the group and I suppose, also, I need to hear your reaction to what Alex says because obviously he’s not aware of some of the things that are around.

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Mulgrew

The group is a group, just a social group, that meets once a month, it meets on the third Wednesday of every month virtually over Teams and we chat for an hour.Ìý So, the community leads the chat, so it might be music one week or gay/lesbian films or audio descriptions – it could be about anything.Ìý Obviously, we’re not promoting it well enough and if Alex has done his homework and he’s been in touch with RNIB, there’s a connection gone wrong there, a communication connection.Ìý So, hopefully, I would love to get a chance to have a yarn with him and…

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White

Well, you will in a minute.Ìý I just want to ask you – how many people are involved in this group?

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Mulgrew

Well, I have like an email list of maybe 25-30 people but you would maybe have eight or nine people coming on every month and it’s not always the same.Ìý Sometimes you would have more than that and sometimes – we didn’t do a July one because there’s was few people come in, in June, because of the holidays.Ìý But it’s just a nice cohort of people from different parts of the UK.Ìý It’s not a [indistinct word] group, it’s not a dating group or anything like that, it really is just to chat through.Ìý At the very beginning, when we first started about a year and a half ago, we did have people telling their stories, their coming out stories and it was quite powerful and emotive at times and…

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White

Because I think one of the things that came up was the fact that coming out could be more difficult for visually impaired people.

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Mulgrew

Well yes and that’s it and we had great conversations around just how people find – it’s nearly like coming out twice when you have to tell somebody that you’re partially sighted or blind and then you have to say that you’re gay or lesbian as well.Ìý

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White

And I think you have been involved with the Pride event in Belfast, haven’t you?

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Mulgrew

Yes, we have, we have – we had an absolutely brilliant day out last Saturday.Ìý RNIB in Northern Ireland had a Pride stand and we walked behind our banner donning our pink RNIB t-shirts and it was really, really lovely.Ìý That’s our first time ever being there.Ìý We would really want to be doing that again next year but with a better lead-in time.Ìý We worked with the community to make sure that the information they were giving out was as accessible as possible but in a short timeframe.Ìý So, next year we will be able to make sure that people are picking stuff up on their web pages or their Facebook pages.

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White

Well Alex has been listening to that, we invited him to.Ìý Let me bring you back in Alex, sounds like you ought to move to Northern Ireland.

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Scott

Well, I was going to say that I should be getting on the next flight to Belfast City and visiting parts of my family because it’s amazing, obviously, what’s going on over there in the north and all sorts of things that I wasn’t aware of.Ìý And I think the big problem comes down to it being part of the RNIB framework.Ìý Now I’m sorry to be almost biting the hand that feeds me but sometimes there’s information which goes in and out of RNIB and you seem to have had to signed the Official Secrets Act to be privy to it.Ìý It’s almost as if they’re hiding things away and things disappear into a sort of black hole of information.Ìý

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White

I think I ought to let Una have a response to that.

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Scott

Absolutely.

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Mulgrew

I don’t know that Alex is 100% wrong, at times, we’re just a very big organisation and we’re servicing an awful lot of people and I think that no matter who is at the other end of the phone, they can only impart the information that they know and maybe you just can’t know everything.Ìý But, I mean, I’d love the opportunity to work with you Alex, I would love it and maybe just roll some ideas on how can we promote it.Ìý And I would even talk with you, get to have a chat with you, around all the emails that I did send out in March of this year to as many UK-wide LGBT groups that I could possibly find.Ìý I’m sure it’s not an exhaustive list, it was a list that I got through our inclusion team and included in that was the Focus Birmingham, who do seem to work with blind and partially sighted people who are LGBT as well.Ìý So, that is another group.Ìý But Alex, where are you based?

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Scott

I’m based in Central London, although, as I say, I’ve got family over in County Fermanagh.Ìý So, who knows, you and I may be meeting up, this might be the start of a date of some sort.

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Mulgrew

I mean that’s what we want, we don’t want to be leaving people behind, we really want to be out there.Ìý I mean, if I could stand on the highest mountain and shout it and everybody could hear, you want everybody to know what it is that we’re doing because we really are doing some great work.Ìý But there’s great work getting done everywhere and there’s nothing to say that my peer, who works in your area, you know, maybe the three of us could have some sort of chat.

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White

Well, we’ll tell you what, we won’t act as an intermediary, you can talk to each other.Ìý Alex Scott, Una Mulgrew, thank you both very much indeed.

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And it’s also worth mentioning – the Pride season is far from over and amongst the towns and cities still to have their own events are Cardiff, Manchester, Plymouth, Southampton, there’s one in mid-Ulster and there are several more as well.

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Now, a number of you contacted us after our item suggesting that covid could have aggravated existing vision problems.Ìý This listener, who prefers to remain anonymous, says:Ìý

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Anonymous listener (read)

I’ve had the autoimmune disease, Sjogren’s Syndrome, since 1988.Ìý I have corneal abrasions and in April 2021 was categorised as partially sighted and diagnosed with early AMD.Ìý On New Year’s Day I tested positive for covid, I continued to show positive on LFTs for three weeks.Ìý I noticed that my eyesight was growing much more blurred than usual.Ìý My eyes were drier and became very painful.Ìý Since then, my sight has deteriorated at great speed and the photophobia has become so severe that I’m virtually blind in direct sunlight and will need to use a white cane in bright conditions.Ìý I have often mentioned my concern that covid might have something to do with my vision problems but no eye specialist, ophthalmologist or retina specialist have agreed, so I was very interested to hear, on In Touch, that research appeared to be finding a link.Ìý

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White

And Alison Evans has also got in touch about the possible reasons for the shortage of corneas to be transplanted.

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Evans (read)

My husband passed away in April after nine years of ill health.Ìý As it happens, the reason for his passing would have precluded any donation of organs.Ìý However, from when we first met, 30 plus years ago, he’d always been adamant that he was happy to donate any organs from his body, other than his eyes.Ìý He was a highly intelligent man.Ìý I’m sure that no amount of education would have changed his mind.

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White

Now the Commonwealth Games finished yesterday with a good haul of medals for the home countries, handsomely contributed to by the disabled athletes whose medal successes were, for the first time, included in the final medal table.Ìý Well, since last week’s report, a couple of notable performances by VI athletes – Zac Shaw from Grimsby got a silver for England in the 100 metres sprint and in the mixed para-bowls event Robert Barr and Melanie Innes won gold for Scotland and Wales won silver in the same event with Gordon Llewelyn and Julie Thomas.

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So, congratulations to them.Ìý Over the years Libby Clegg from Scotland has been one of our most successful and decorated athletes, a highly successful sprinter with, I guess, the highlight being two golds in the Rio Paralympics for the 100 and 200 metres.Ìý So, we wondered what these most integrated of games, so far, had meant to her where she’s competed as a cyclist rather than a sprinter.Ìý She joins us.

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Libby, first of all, about that, I mean you’ve made your name as a sprinter but you’ve competed in these games as a cyclist, why the switch and how’s it going?

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Clegg

Yeah, it is a bit of – well I’m not saying unusual switch but my body was giving up on me running, I had quite a lot of ankle and calf injuries, and it was time for me to call it a day running on the track.Ìý But I’m very competitive still and I do like a challenge.Ìý So, a lot of my rehabilitation was, my sort of lower limb issues, was being on a bike and I thought it would be a good thing to try out a new sport and that was cycling.Ìý Keeps no impact on my legs, so I thought I’d give it a go.Ìý

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White

Doesn’t sound the easiest way of rehabilitating your legs, endless cycling, was it as straightforward a switch as you thought it might be?

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Clegg

There’s definitely a lot more to cycling than I initially thought.Ìý I thought it was just simply pedalling your legs but there is a lot more to it.Ìý It’s quite technical and there’s a lot of things to learn about aerodynamics and that kind of thing, which I would never even have had the foggiest when I was running.Ìý This was my first event, competing at the Commonwealth Games, I’ve never competed in a track cycling event before and I tell you now, I’ve got a lot to learn, it was a very steep learning curve for me.Ìý

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White

We should say that kind of switch is more common in Para-athletics than with mainstream athletes, isn’t it, why is that do you think?

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Clegg

I’m not sure, you know.Ìý I know a lot of the Para-cyclists because they have done athletics previously.

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White

And some of the swimmers as well, haven’t they?

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Clegg

And some of the swimmers as well, exactly.Ìý So, there’s been quite a few that have switched but I’m not sure, I think it’s one of those sports that if you’ve got a background in sport already, it’s quite a good one to switch to.Ìý But, yeah, it is difficult in a different way, especially for me being quite an injury prone athlete, as I’m quite old now, it was better for me to go into that than another one that maybe had a bit more impact.

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White

Let’s talk about the integration aspect of it because it’s had a lot of publicity.Ìý How integrated is it though because I mean there aren’t anything like as many para- athletes in this as there would be in a Paralympics, are there?

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Clegg

No, there’s nowhere near as many events.Ìý For me the Commonwealth Games is just fantastic because it is the friendly games.Ìý You, as a GB athlete, you get to put yourself up against the nations, which is absolutely amazing.Ìý It’s just a shame that a lot of the para-events are taken out but, obviously, there’s only so much room in the schedule so they have to pick which ones they would like to showcase really.Ìý And that varies from games to games.

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White

But people are bound to say, aren’t they, well, if they can do that for the Commonwealth Games why not the Paralympics.Ìý What’s your view about that?

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Clegg

I feel like if the Olympics and Paralympics were integrated then…. sorry, I don’t know if you can hear that because I’m really sorry, one moment…

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White

You’re being called for, the other part of your life. [Laughter]

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Clegg

Sorry about that.Ìý It wouldn’t have stopped.

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White

We’d better give him a namecheck, now he’s got himself on the programme, hadn’t we?

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Clegg

Yeah, it’s Edward.

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White

How old is Edward?

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Clegg

Edward is three.

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White

Is he, right, well…

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Clegg

He’s very demanding, as you can evidently tell.

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White

And this is – sort of family life you have to integrate into your athletic life, presumably.

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Clegg

Definitely, yeah, it can be interesting at times.

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White

Well, let’s pick up where we were.Ìý You were just explaining why the Paralympics perhaps wasn’t ready and wasn’t able, perhaps, to go down the same integrated route.

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Clegg

Yeah, so in theory, like, it would be great if the Olympics and Paralympics were integrated.Ìý However, the Paralympic events would be then cut, there wouldn’t be able to be as many of them and I think it would take away from the Paralympics a bit.Ìý I think it’s great that events like the Commonwealth Games have integrated events, even though there is fewer events and you see less of the different various disabilities.Ìý A lot of the time with the national and governing bodies for sport, most teams are quite integrated – the Olympics and Paralympic athletes do train alongside one another and do feel like a part of a team.Ìý So, it is quite nice to then go to a major championships and still have that atmosphere, instead of going to sort of separate ones.Ìý It would be great if we could see it in other sports and in other events, not just at the Commonwealth Games.

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White

Right, well, Libby Clegg, thanks so much for joining us and thank you for introducing us to Edward as well.

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Clegg

Thanks very much.

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White

And that’s just about it for today.Ìý Remember you can contact us with any queries or just with things you’d like us to discuss.Ìý Email intouch@bbc.co.uk.Ìý Leave voice messages on 0161 8361338 or go to our website bbc.co.uk/intouch.Ìý

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Before we go, our producer, Beth Hemmings, has just finished a documentary about a topic we all know well on this programme – employment or the lack of it for visually impaired people.Ìý It follows totally blind, Claire Randall’s experiences of rejections on the grounds of disability and it looks at the wider state of the employment market for visually impaired people.Ìý You can listen searching My Name is Claire – C l a i r e in this case – on 91Èȱ¬ Sounds.

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From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Steve Thompson and Nat Stokes, goodbye.