The story of a blind man who appeared on the BBC show The Repair Shop touched the hearts of viewers as he told the story of why he wanted his eye-catching bar table repaired.
Nigel Garry, who now lives in north Wales, went blind suddenly when he was just 19 years old and had to adjust to an entirely new reality. His Bulldog Boozy Barman table, which cost him £300 and has lasted decades, has been close to his heard as is is so tactile, with different textures for him to feel. But in 2019 when he moved house with wife Karen, the unfamiliarity of his new apartment in Rhos-on-Sea meant he knocked the bulldog over, knocking off one of the ears and extensively damaging the back.
"When we moved to the apartment I've got to familiarise myself to get to know the place and as you know when you move there are boxes here, there and everywhere. Whilst the apartment was carpeted I walked in to Bulldog Boozy Barman. I think we paid £300 for him, I must have been mad, but I walked into him and knocked him over. I feared the worst and shouted Karen who come in from the bedroom and she said 'Oh Nigel, you've knocked his ear off and all down the back of his arm is cracked'."
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Initially he said he should be thrown away but Karen insisted they keep it. They emailed the BBC programme The Repair Shop, who called him back asking for him to film a video about the story. The following day he was told they wanted him to take part in the programme. They went to the first shoot in November, and in March had the reveal. "He's sitting proud again in the apartment and you wouldn't know he'd been damaged".
"It was such a fabulous experience and everyone was so kind to us," he said.
Nigel's had an incredible life story. Aged 19 and just married, he had been out for a couple of pints on a Sunday afternoon before going back to his mum's house for Sunday lunch. As it wasn't quite ready, he went upstairs to help his new wife Karen pack their wedding presents into boxes ahead of their move into their first home the following morning. He bent down to pick up a box, but as he stood up, he suddenly, and without any warning signs, couldn't see anything.
He describes it as like a white sheet had been thrown over his head. That day, in August 1977, was the last time Nigel saw anything.
He told his wife: "I said, 'Karen I honestly cannot see anything'. It was literally just like somebody had thrown a white sheet over my head but because I was so young, immature and frightened, I didn't go to the doctors or seek any sort of help until the Monday morning. It was summertime and I remember the light wasn't going through the curtains as it should be. And that told me 'Oh Nigel you're in big trouble'."
His first thought was it was a brain tumour. On the Monday, he went to the GP, and the first thing he did was throw a ball at him, which because he couldn't see, bounced off his chest. The GP took him across the road to the optician and all he could hear was them talking about the potential of a brain tumour. He was sent away with an eye ointment.
"All the time I'd developed a condition called Optic Neuritis which was inflammation on the main optic nerves that carry the messages from the eye to the brain. Sadly, he didn't get me to the hospital until October 17 by which time my own body's immune system had cleared the inflammation away but not without leaving the blood supply to the optic nerves cut off. While your optic nerves are a nice healthy pink colour, mine are completely scarred."
Then living in Sheffield, he kept attending hospital through to July 1978 having tests and examinations but the nerves were already too damaged. Nigel believes if things had happened quicker he could have kept his sight.
For the next three years, he had to come to terms with his disability and slipped into depression. He got his first guide dog in 1980. "I was determined not to sit with my feet in the water because if you do that, I'm a big believer that you'll definitely freeze. So I made the decision to get on with life and make some good things up out of a bad situation."
"It was extremely challenging and life changing," he said. He'd been in full-time employment for three years, but had to stop working.
He became official speaker of Sheffield and District branch of Guide Dogs in 1980 and carried out 142 speaking engagements, raised £168,000 - somewhere near £800,000 today. He then raised a further £150,000 at a new fundraising branch in Barnsley. They left that in 1995, switching their support to Royal National Institute of the Blind to 2003, raising £255,000.
They started visiting the Belmont Hotel in Llandudno, a specialist hotel for blind adults, children, friends and carers initially helping as volunteer fundraising but Nigel began delivering training to staff. For a while, he commuted from his home in Penistone, South Yorkshire, twice a week but for Karen, the 220-mile round trip twice a week was too much, so they decided to put their house on the market and moved to Wales. They bought a house in Mochdre. The Royal Blind Society disbanded shortly after their move so the couple decided to set up their own charity - North Wales Accessible Holidays for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
"We thought blind adults, children and carers were really really getting a really raw deal. In the past 20 years, three big national blind charities with pots of money have suddenly closed down no less than 13 specialist hotels."
The hotels were somewhere safe for blind or visually impaired people to go, with training for staff to think ahead and not leave laundry or cleaning trollies on corridors, there is specialist equipment there for guests. Wales was left with no specialist facility for blind or visually impaired people, The Belmont was one of the last to close.
The couple, now 64, set up their charity and got official status in January 2017 with a plan to buy accessible and specially designed caravans. To buy their first caravan they had to raise £85,000 and they wanted it to have as much specialist equipment as possible so guests could be as independent as possible. It had a ramp, tactile walkway, equipment like talking microwaves and book machine as well as sympathetic lighting, liquid level indicators so people can make a hot drink without fear of burning or scolding themselves and a special area for dogs to attend. There is braille dominos, playing cards and large print Scrabble and cards inside the van too.
They now have two caravans, the original one at Lido beach in Prestatyn and Robin Hood Holiday Park in Rhyl and despite a dip during Covid remain fully booked. They are already having to turn down bookings for next summer as there is no availability. Without the pandemic, they hoped to have opened a third caravan.
They regularly get feedback from guests about the life changing impact their stays have. In one, a little boy got to try low vision glasses, which meant instead of having to stand with his nose close to the television, he could see it from the sofa, not only allowing him to watch it properly, but his family too. Another blind child, called George, had been a fussy eater, but having experienced a talking microwave for the first time, was hooked and began eating a bigger variety of foods.
"Sadly we are a very small charity and we're always looking out for volunteers and while we do offer a number of absolute freebies to to blind adults, children and carers are living on a limited and fixed income of benefits. We're very limited to how many free means tested breaks we can actually offer especially since Covid broke out because 90% of our income came from supermarket store collections which had to stop., One in 10 did actually file for bankruptcy but we managed to survive."
People who are able, are asked to pay £250 a week in high season and £200 in low season. The couple need to make £31,000 a year to keep both caravans open.
While he is thrilled to have made such a difference to other people's lives, Nigel's own has taken a hit since his German Shepherd guide dog died. Since 2019 he has been waiting for a replacement, with the pandemic playing a part, but there has been a reduction in available dogs meaning people waiting longer. For Nigel that means that he has lost a big chunk of his independence because he can't go out for walks without Karen. He has one half mile route he can take with a cane that is obstacle free, but anything further Karen has to accompany him. He has lost a large percentage of his independence without a dog.
There was a further trauma for him. In December 2020, the couple moved to an apartment at Rhos-on-Sea and when moving, a combination of being somewhere new and boxes being in places he wasn't used to meant he damaged a prize possession, the Bulldog Boozy Barman. Bought 20 years ago, the eye-catching monument cost him about £300. He's fallen in love with it, because of the textures and tactile feel of it.
"Obviously when we moved to the apartment I've got to familiarise myself to get to know the place and as you know when you move there are boxes here, there and everywhere. Whilst the apartment was carpeted I walked in to Bulldog Boozy Barman. I think we paid £300 for him, I must have been mad, but I walked into him and knocked him over. I feared the worst and shouted Karen who come in from the bedroom and she said 'Oh Nigel, you've knocked his ear off and all down the back of his arm is cracked'."
Initially he said he should be thrown away but Karen insisted they keep it. They emailed the BBC programme The Repair Shop, who called him back asking for him to film a video about the story. The following day he was told they wanted him to take part in the programme. They went to the first shoot in November, and in March had the reveal. "He's sitting proud again in the apartment and you wouldn't know he'd been damaged".
"It was such a fabulous experience and everyone was so kind to us," he said. You can find out more on the charity's website.
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