MIKE Beale, 75, is secretary and treasurer of Swindon Blind Association, which is aappealing for the ‘shared space’ crossings near the Regent Circus Development to be replaced with conventional ones. The dad-of-one, a former teacher, who lives in Nythe, spoke to BARRIE HUDSON.

THE message from Mike Beale about the Regent Circus Development crossings is stark: visually impaired people are being discriminated against, 24 hours a day, every day.

Neither he nor Swindon Blind Association suggest the discrimination is based on prejudice. Rather, they put it down to officialdom’s ignorance of the needs of a sizeable section of the community, but the result is the same anyway.

“The problem,” said Mike. “is that now the lights have been taken away, it’s effectively a barrier to VIPs, as we call them – visually impaired people.

“It turns it into a no-go area.”

Some critics of the association’s stance say having two conventional crossings there would be confusing, as a visually impaired person might hear the wrong one bleeping and mistakenly cross.

Mike rejects this argument with a simple reference to a technology that has been around for several years.

“Where you have two crossings, the bleep has been taken out so blind people are not confused. Instead, on the box where you press the button, there’s a rotating bar underneath, so blind people put their hand there and as soon as the light’s green it rotates.”

Mike is disappointed with the official response to the association’s concerns.

“The planners have been told about it at Locality Group meetings. They’ve been asked why they’re treating people in this way and they’ve said, ‘Well, it’s like that in other places so it must be allright.’

“But what they haven’t said is that when you look at places like Southampton that have put a shared space in at one of their crossings, they were forced by public complaints to reinstate the lights.”

The number of people affected by the situation at Regent Circus is considerable; more than 300 people in Swindon are registered visually impaired, and a recent estimate put the number unregistered at about 600.

Mike describes himself as Swindon born and bred.

His father was a council painter and decorator who worked his way up to the position of building inspector with Swindon’s education department. By the end of his career he was responsible for the fabric of every primary school in Swindon. Mike’s mother was a housewife who became a typist.

“I wasn’t a particularly good student, achievement-wise. After I left school I worked on the railway as an office clerk for six years. As they say, I did six years inside!

“I then continued doing clerical jobs for ten years and ended up as a sales office manager. For my last two admin years I was office manager at Norman’s, the furniture business.

“Then, because my son was growing up and I wasn’t seeing him much at all because I had to work Saturdays, I decided to go to teacher training college for three years.”

Already a qualified music instructor, the accomplished pianist and viola player used his newly minted teaching qualification to secure a job at Even Swindon Junior School. He retired in 1994 and set up in business teaching music and writing backing tracks.

It was at Even Swindon that he met one of the founders of Swindon Talking Newspaper, and remained with the organisation as a reader and producer until 2011, when he had to give it up to look after his elderly mother.

Of his voluntary work, he said simply: “I like to think that I recognise a need when it exists.”

Mike joined Swindon Blind Association, which was a branch of Wiltshire Blind Association until becoming independent last year, in 1995.

His daughter-in-law, Helen Beale, who has been a committee member for more than 20 years, let him know that a secretary was needed.

Both were inspired – and continue to be – by the dynamic chairman, John Vickery. The organisation welcomes both sighted and visually impaired people. Mike and Helen, for example, are sighted, while Mr Vickery is registered blind.

The organisation is run entirely by volunteers and funded entirely by donations.

Currently one of Swindon Thamesdown Rotary’s official charities, it spent a recent donation by the group on computer mouse magnifiers, which allow partially-sighted people to read conventional print in books by greatly magnifying them on-screen.

Much of the association’s work involves helping clients find the things they need to reduce the impact of visual impairment on ordinary life. It can put people in touch with the providers of everything from talking microwave ovens, scales and clocks to writing frames for partially-sighted people who prefer to write letters in the old-fashioned way.

Some items are brilliant in their simplicity. They include sensors which can be hooked to the side of a mug and sound a buzzer when it’s full. There are tiny labels which can be attached to items in a food cupboard, programmed with a spoken description of an item and later read with a special pen.

One popular item is a simple disc of metal which is placed in the bottom of a saucepan and rattles when the contents come to the boil.

All can be tried out at the organisation’s headquarters, 145 Victoria Road, which is also the venue for a craft club on Tuesdays and a social club on Wednesdays.

According to Mike, businesses and public facilities generally show consideration to blind and partially-sighted people, which makes the issue of the crossing all the more glaring.

He worries about another planned development making things worse.

“When the new bus station opens and they close the underpass from Debenhams, Fleming Way is going to become shared space, so it will effectively ban our VIPs from getting a bus into the centre of town.

“They’ll have to use a stop somewhere else and then make their own way in.”

The association can be contacted on 01793 523374.

Mike said: “We’re all volunteers and we’re not open all the time, but I’m here most days and if people leave a message we’ll get back to them.”