Lex Grandia

Some of my readers will know of the tireless work undertaken by Lex Grandia, doyen of the international deafblind movement. Lex was born in the Netherlands but spent recent years in Denmark. His indefatigable wife Ann is Danish and they lived in Aalborg.

It is with sadness that I report the death in late April of Lex. Ann has created a website which will give information about Lex's life and will contain photos, videos and even music. For the moment, I am just making this posting and giving you the link to the website:
http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/lexgrandia/homepage.aspx

With Ann's permission I might put some of the info on my blog. I will keep my readers up to date.

Colin

Visit to Westminster Abbey

I'm catching up on posts that I should have made previously. Here is an article I wrote for Talking Sense concerning the HSI visit to Westminster Abbey on 10 September 2011. I was then the Chairman of HSI.

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Saturday 10 September 2011 saw another successful social visit by Hearing and Sight Impaired (HSI) branch of Sense. We met at Westminster underground station, and crocodiled our way to Westminster Abbey. We were divided into 2 groups, led by guides Zillah and David, who were aware of our sensory problems. The tour incorporated a “touch tour”, which meant that we were encouraged to touch things, e.g. the effigies on the tombs. We did that with relish and thereby discovered a mystery. Christian orthodoxy has it that at death one’s sole is liberated and departs to heaven or the other place according to Divine discrimination. However, on feeling the feet of the departed knights and their ladies, we discovered that their soles were still there. Further, we discovered that these ancient people were not very ticklish, although we did notice a smirk or two on their faces.

During the tour, we stopped to hear a cleric address us in a prayer. She spoke clearly and into a microphone, but alas, there was no induction loop. We took this up later with the Dean.

We visited the normal spots such as Poets’ Corner, and on the way out, we passed the tomb of The Unknown Worrier. We heard the story of this tomb. By 1921, all the fighting services from WWI had been commemorated, but the vast army of Worriers who did their bit at home had not been recognised. It was decided to erect the tomb of The Unknown Worrier. On the night before the opening ceremony, no worriers had volunteered to fill the tomb. Bert Potter, a prominent Usher stonemason, realised that he had misheard T for C, and chiselled comb instead of tomb. He hurried back, only to trip over the Memorial and broke his neck.

The church warden, with admirable lateral thinking, worked all night, putting the inert Bert in the tomb and building a plinth on which was placed Bert’s Woolworth’s comb, which had fallen from his pocket. In the 1930s, that comb was replaced by the Fabergé one we know so well today, and ‘comb’ was replaced by ‘tomb’.

All that happened exactly 90 years ago, so our group moved to the Barley Mow, where we toasted Bert with our usual lemonade.

If you go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/hova/sets/72157627640431441, you will see some photos of the day.

Renaissance

Thousands of my blog readers have been clamouring for more news of me. I'm really sorry about my long absence but I have been engaged in serious matters of State. Here is a post containing my entry to the Sense Creative Writing Competition 2012. Unfortunately, it was not short-listed but J. K. Rowling (whoshe? - Ed.) also had difficulties with her prospective publishers. I wonder what happened to her. Enjoy "Turkish Delights" below. Devotees will also be interested to know that I am now also on twitter at www.twitter.com/colinhove.

Turkish Delights

Turkey is playing an increasingly important role in the world and I take an interest in it, as I do with all countries. It is more than 40 years since I have visited Turkey but I have some memories of exciting events that happened to me all those years ago. Here are some of them.

1. Only Half a Man

I had been sitting in the Orient Express (a misnomer on that occasion) and at last we pulled into Istanbul. The most interesting event on board had been the panic in the eyes of an American woman in the same carriage. We were travelling through Bulgaria and we were approaching a little salient of Greece into Bulgaria.The railway line crosses this little spit i.e. it goes from Bulgaria into Greece and then back into Bulgaria. The woman was terrified because she had been told that Greece was communist and she was worried something would happen to her during those few kilometres in that country. I explained that she had things a little wrong: we were travelling in Bulgaria, a communist country, and would spend a little time travelling across Greece which was a NATO member. She didn't believe me but that's understandable because from an American perspective all these countries are rather small and you can't be expected to know their politics!

Anyway, at the border the Greek immigration people came into the carriage and asked to see the American woman's passport. She handed it to them, quaking. They looked at it, smiled at her, clicked their heels and were gone. A few kilometres later the Bulgarian immigration people got on and they asked the same question and she complied with a big smile. They said "Welcome to Bulgaria", smiled and gave the passport back. The woman was so relieved… she looked out of the window at the Bulgarian farmers and said "You can see they're free; how happy they are compared to those in communist Greece!" I didn't say any more but perhaps somewhere in Indiana there's an elderly lady telling her grandchildren of her terrifying half-hour in 1960s communist Greece.

After our arrival in Istanbul, it was four hours before I could leave the platform. This was because the train was full of Turkish “gastarbeiter” who had been working in Western Germany and who had come home laden with mounds of luggage which all had to be checked.

It was 2 a.m. I was very tired and had no choice but to take a taxi and ask to be taken to a cheap hotel. I found one, had a word with the manager, established the price for the night and tumbled into bed.

When I awoke the sun was streaming in and I went down for some breakfast. When I was about to leave I was handed the bill and it was double what I had agreed! I protested and in his very limited English the manager explained that it was double because it was for me and for my woman. I explained that I didn't have a woman. He said "I know; that's why we provided one". I argued that no woman had come into my room and I hadn't asked for one. In those days most Turkish women were Rubenesque (no so much nowadays) and you would certainly notice one in your bed! I knew that if he wanted to he could summon up half a dozen women who would swear that they had spent a tumultuous night with me. The only way to get out of the situation was to use a little tact and humour – not to be confrontational.

I explained that Englishmen were so pathetic that they couldn't do justice to a magnificent Turkish woman. At that time everyone in Europe was talking about the Profumo Scandal in the UK and Christine Keeler’s name was everywhere (Ask your grandparents about this). I said it was well known that Englishmen were generally strangers to sex and he agreed. The outcome was that since I was so undersexed it was only fair to charge me for half a woman - which is what happened. So, I got away quite lightly.

If you ever stay in an Istanbul brothel, which is what it was although I didn't know at the beginning, and you see preferential rates for Englishmen, you'll know the reason why.

2. Long Distance Travel

I had boarded the train in Istanbul to travel to Erzurum and it cost me the equivalent of just £1 to travel a thousand kilometres. In those days travelling on trains with Turks was good fun (perhaps it still is). Soon after leaving Istanbul they all got out their food and began sharing it even though they didn't know each other. A samovar appeared and we were all drinking that delicious Turkish tea which is best savoured by sucking it through a sugar lump between your teeth. Because the journey was long and we were so crowded they employed a useful device. Every few hours one of them would climb into the luggage rack and would have the pleasure of a short period horizontal and unbent. Soon it was my turn and despite my protests (fairly muted) I was lifted into the luggage rack and that was the most blissful rest I can remember.

3. Beware of Wolf Whistles!

I was hitch-hiking east from Erzurum towards the Iranian border. It was bitterly cold and I could hear wild dogs barking. I was rather frightened and was very glad when an Army lorry pulled up and a voice in English said "What the hell are you doing?" I said "I'm hitch-hiking to Iran" and the officer said "You must be absolutely crazy - jump in". I was indeed very pleased to do that.

The Turkish Army is enormous and regards itself as safeguarding the legacy of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. It is a conscript army. The officers are well educated and I was able to have very good conversations with them. They said to me "You had better stay in our barracks" explaining that the wild dogs I could hear were wolves and that walkers don't often survive when encountering them. I heartily agreed. I had a very comfortable night in the warm barracks and resolved never to walk alone on eastern Turkish roads.

4. Interesting Border Crossing

I arrived at the Turkish-Iranian border just before nightfall and was allowed through the Turkish Immigration and Customs. They said I had to walk to the Iranian side to enter Iran. There was a white pathway around the building which I could just see especially as there was a lamp or two. Suddenly the lamps went out and the next thing I remember was waking up with the hot sun on me and feeling very dirty. As I became aware of my surroundings, I discovered that I was under the cab of a wrecked lorry. I crawled out and realised that I could not have been seen from the pathway. It came to me that I was in a pit full of abandoned vehicles. I realised that the pathway had turned left but I hadn’t and had walked straight into a pit, rolled down and knocked myself out under the cab. I got out, climbed up the side of the pit and made my way into the Iranian checkpoint. They stared at me: "Where have you been? We have been expecting you since Friday". I sad "Well, what day is it now then? Saturday, surely?" They said "No, it's Sunday!" They let me clean myself up and told me what must have happened. Friday is a holiday both in Turkey and Iran and on Friday night it had been the custom for the Turkish and Iranians at the border crossing to have a joint film show. There was not enough electricity to drive both the projector and the outside lighting so they turned off the latter, hence my accident.

5. No Fool Like a Young One

I had been travelling from Damascus to Aleppo and into Turkey. Historians will know that this area has been disputed between Turkey and Syria especially since the Ottoman Empire collapsed and modern Syria was founded by the French. Anyway, wandering around the beautiful hills near Antakya (Biblical Antioch) a young man came up to me and said in broken French that he had discovered something that might interest me. He showed me a very old corroded coin with Greek script on it. He said they were always finding these old coins round there and would I like to buy it. I felt a bit guilty at perhaps buying an ancient treasure but I did so. In the morning I went into the celebrated museum in Antakya and showed the curator. He said "What did you pay for this?" I told him and he said "Dear oh dear when will they ever learn?" He showed me a box in which there were hundreds of coins all very similar to mine. He told me it was a local industry to manufacture these seemingly ancient coins and to sell them to gullible tourists.

6. Turkey or Switzerland?

I was sitting in a waterside restaurant in Mersin enjoying the Turkish cuisine which I like very much. Grilled fish, goats cheese, olives, aubergines, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, rice, raisins, dates, figs, vine leaves, peppers of all colours, wonderful bread, rum baba, sticky pastries, strong red wine, cold clear water, thick strong coffee, sharp-tasting endless glasses of tea and the occasional raki. Have you got the picture? Yum yum! I was the only Westerner there and I thought "What a wonderful place to spend a holiday instead of, say, Brighton or Spain". Little did I know that Turkey would become a major tourist destination. I took one of those famous or infamous Turkish buses that have got all manner of mascots etc. hanging from the windscreen and painted in very gaudy colours driven at reckless speeds. The luggage forms a mountain on top of the bus and the inside is crammed with many people and some animals. Turks speak loudly (which is very helpful for me!) and drivers like to honk so you are always aware when there is a Turkish bus around.

We set off for Ankara, the capital, about 500km inland. We drove upwards and the scenery was spectacular. Beautiful forests, mountains, streams and meadows all in crisp, clean air, and attractive villages. You could have been in Switzerland. I know many people imagine Turkey as being hot and dusty, even barren, but, believe me, central Turkey is very Swiss. Turkey could be a very rich agricultural country again (as Asia Minor and Anatolia it did of course supply the Greek and Roman Empires with food). The problem is that it doesn't have enough rain.

About to Leave for Denmark

Tomorrow, 25 October 2010, I'm going by bus form Brighton to Aalborg, Denmark. I shall be attending the ADBN conference and the USG meeting before it. ADBN stands for Acquired Deafblind Network and USG stands for Usher Study Group. You knew that, didn't you? In the last few weeks, my new techie reader, Ash, has been updating my computer system and removing viruses. He has also updated my Flickr photo gallery and all my photos are now on it. I remind you that you can go to my Flickr photo gallery by clicking on this link: http://www.flickr.com/hova Over and out Colin

News Update: 19 September 2010

I must apologise to the readers of my blog (both of them) for my long silence. The silence is due to my having been out of the UK for many weeks this Summer. In June and July, I was back in Hungary and in August I went to the European Deafblind Holiday in Tubingen, Germany. After that Holiday, I went on a short coach tour with Annina to Austria. On returning home, I encountered problems with my computer which have now been remedied by my new reader, Ash. Alice, my wonderful reader for some years, gained her MA in Brighton and has moved away to Kent, although I do see her every couple of months.

The main purpose of this posting is for Ash to make himself au fait with the workings of my blog. I hope soon to post some photos and some articles on my blog.

Greetings from Hove. We have very pleasant early Autumn weather here at present. September is usually a nice month here in Brighton & Hove.

Colin Bennett

A Winter in Hungary

Most British people have some idea where Hungary is but would be hard put to place it exactly or to tell you much about it. They might know it has one of Europe's most difficult and "lonely" languages with no connection to its Germanic or Slavic neighbours and they would be right. It so happens that I am interested in all countries. Every year I attend the European Deaf Blind Holiday which in 2008 was held in Sopron, western Hungary. It was very well organised by the Hungarian Deafblind Association and I enjoyed it enormously. I gained some good friends employed or volunteering for the association and I made some vague noise about perhaps being able to do some voluntary work in Hungary in the future. I was told that this would be very difficult because Hungary is a bureaucratic country. In fact it is not particularly bureaucratic, in my view and by pulling one or two strings I was able to get a "job" in the city of Debrecen in eastern Hungary during the winter of 2009 to 2010. Debrecen is the second city of Hungary and a long way from Budapest which I was pleased about. I was pleased about this because Budapest does dominate the country.

It was agreed that I would start work at the Feher Bot Alipetveny which as we all know means the White Cane Foundation in late September 2009. In fact, events interpose and I was not able to start until 6 November 2009.

Dr Szabo Miklos (in Hungarian they always put the surname first) is totally blind and the founder and current President of the Foundation. He made this offer to me; they would provide board and lodging in the Foundation's main building in Debrecen but could not pay me any salary. That was ok by me. I would help by encouraging "clients" to learn or improve their English as part of rehabilitation work. I would also help the staff if they desired that. So, early on 6 November I took the National Express bus to Gatwick from Brighton where as always I had a very speedy passage through all the formalities right up until the departure lounge. In fact the driver of the coach had arrived at Gatwick a little early and left his machine and took me right into Gatwick airport right up to the check-in desk. I do get spoilt rotten but I suppose it does have something to do with the £50 tips I give! Seriously, I often send thank you letters to travel providers and I think these are appreciated. It was a beautiful sunny Autumn day and I was looking forward to arriving in Budapest at the scheduled time of 1pm as my friend Marta was waiting for me there at the airport. We all boarded and we taxied towards the take off and then the aeroplane had to go back to the terminal block because there had been some bomb scare on the plane. There was no real problem but an hour was wasted and of course I was an hour late at Budapest. I arrived at Budapest Terminal 2B which is the most inconvenient terminal for the Budapest airport railway station. You have to catch a bus and then mount interminable steps over a main highway, my suitcase was heavy and Marta is only slightly built. She is good at egging me on but not so good at carrying things. Hungarian trains are not the easiest to board especially if you have heavy luggage because there are several steps up. However, we found a burly man and his son and they hauled me up into the train and put me into my reserved seat. It is generally necessary to get a reservation on a long distance train in Hungary. The only problem for me with that is that if I am alone I cannot see the numbers of the carriages or the seat numbers. So, I never know where to wait on the platform. Anyway, as always things went ok. Hungarian long distance trains are very satisfactory they are clean comfortable and well lit and I soon found myself sitting next to an amiable Hungarian woman who turned out to speak good English. She had been working in London for 2 years but had hardly met any English people there so she was glad to practise her English on me. The journey to Debrecen took a bit over 2 hours and it soon became dark. I HATE DARKNESS and every RP or Usher person will agree. I was going to be met at Debrecen railway station but even so it is an ordeal for us arriving at a strange place after dark. I was helped off the train and my suitcase was taken away from me by whom I did not know. It was actually by Alex from the Foundation who had come to meet me. It was cold, rainy, windy and dark and I could not understand any of the people who were meeting me. Eventually I was bundled into a minibus (I couldn't see anything) and driven to the Foundation which I was told was only 5 minutes away. It took 20 minutes because of the fiendish 1 way system and then I found myself walking up a ramp into a kitchen where I was sat down and given cheese on toast and a bottle of red wine. Nobody else wanted any of the wine so I downed the whole bottle. I thought this was all right if I was going to get a bottle of wine every night but that didn't happen again. I think they wanted me to get a good nights sleep, which I did.

In the morning I saw that my bedroom was quite nice. It was blue, I was told, and was of a good size with two large windows overlooking the court yard in which there was a peach tree. No peaches in November though. I had a good sized bed, a new wardrobe, a work table, two chairs and a very efficient gas heater. That was my home for the next 4 months. I had access to a bathroom with 24 hour piping hot water and also to a kitchen with all the things you need. I never did any of my own cooking as people who know me will not be surprised to learn.

I would get up every day at about 7, potter around in the bathroom and kitchen until I went to the main part of the Foundation next door where I would begin my daily work at 8. This would consist of lessons to clients or staff for a few hours in the morning and afternoon. Quite often I would go to outlying branches of the Foundation in towns some way from Debrecen where I would give classes. This usually involved staying overnight in the buildings which I enjoyed. I was also able to go sometimes on their outreach work visiting and collecting clients. Of course it was winter and there was often snow on the ground and Hungarian winters are cold. However, all the buildings are warm, not to say overheated and my little flat was very cosy for those 4 months.

What I particularly enjoyed doing was visiting some schools in the City. One was for visually impaired children and was partly a boarding school. The classes were small and the children very polite and eager to learn. Hungarian children are quite well-educated and they all had some knowledge of English but had never spoken to an English person. I had a lot of fun in those classes especially as my unorthodox methods (we will say no more!) spread through the school and I had more and more classes to attend. Some of my pupils were autistic and were extremely knowledgeable about certain subjects which they were eager to talk about. They could be a bit taxing. Another school I visited was a vocational school for children who were going to join the health service and they had a few visually impaired children in their classes. I enjoyed that too.

Public transport in Debrecen is good. They have a tram system and I like trams. They were two types of trams: Old and clanky, new and silent. I didn't like the latter because I could not hear them coming and nor could other people. I never went out alone at night when the trams could be seen coming because they were lit. Incidentally they were very well lit inside. In the day time, when I often did go out alone and when the trams were not lit I tended not to hear or see them coming so I always stayed with the crowd. By the way, all the tram stops are announced and that is a great help. In Budapest, the tram stops are announced in Hungarian and English. The bus system is good too and all the stops are announced automatically. At most street junctions audible announcements tell you what street you are crossing. There are virtually no obstructions on the pavements. Something surprised me. They don't seem to use "articles for the blind" stickers or envelopes. You take your letter to the post office and tell them they are for blind people. This seems to be a complicated way of doing things. Also, they no longer seem to use cassette tapes but CDs and memory sticks. They have the same problems as we do in older people not wanting to come to terms with their disabilities and not going out or declining to carry white canes. Unemployment is a very big social problem in Hungary especially among blind people who are generally not expected to work. The State does subsidise organisations that employ disabled people but usually disabled people do not work. Travel is quite good for blind people because there is a 90 percent discount on all public transport including the Budapest Metro. Public transport is free for all people over 65 - not that I can imagine being over 65.

Debrecen is in the Great Hungarian Plain and the land is really, really flat. In the Summer because the land is so flat there are mirages as there are in the desert where you can see pools of water that do not exist. The land is extremely fertile and is considered to be the best in Europe and until the great changes of 1989 the area was one vast fruit field but their main markets, the Comecom countries have shrunk. The health system is still good although it has been partly privatised. Education is good by our standards although the older Hungarians complain about it. The population has shrunk from 11 million to 10 million in the last decade or so because of emigration and the lower birth rate among indigenous Hungarians. There is a lot of conflict in the country between what we have to call Roma and the Hungarians and this is not swept under the carpet. Hungarians are quite elegantly dressed and compared to us are homogeneous. Nearly everyone has very dark brown hair, brown eyes and very fair skin. The language is supposed to be connected to Finnish but I did not find that to be the case and I have lived in Finland for a year. The people are reserved and polite and there appears to be no underclass of very poor people such as you find in the UK. By our standards the people, especially the children, are overdressed. Because Hungarian is such a unique language English is widely understood by younger people although they are shy to speak it.

I was due to stay in Debrecen for a probationary period of 4 or 5 months. Everything was quite satisfactory and they were pleased with me but my classes of adults slowly shrank. I discussed this with Dr Szabo. The problem was that it is very difficult for ordinary Hungarians to learn English without formal English lessons ie by mere conversations with an English person. The structure of Hungarian is quite different from all other European languages. We decided that the best way to help Hungarians learn English is tuition by an English speaking Hungarian backed up by a conversation with an English person. It was decided that I would return to England in March and perhaps come back another time. So I did that.

I am returning to Hungary in June partly to attend the wedding of a very good friend I made in Debrecen and also to see eastern Hungary in the summer. I am also going to visit the city of Pecs in southern Hungary where there is a blind school that is eager for me to do some voluntary work there. I am very keen to encourage cooperation by organisations of and for people with sensory problems and I am an active member of the World Federation of Deafblind People. I do hope to visit and perhaps work in other countries in future years and I will write about my experiences. I took many photos while I was in Debrecen and you can see them on my Flickr Photo Gallery by going to this site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hova/

These photos need to be weeded out and I will try and get around to weeding them. I was not able to make contributions to my blog while I was in Hungary because it was difficult to find someone whose English was good enough for me to dictate to. You could say that I should type myself and you are quite right. In England I am spoilt rotten by having readers but I realise I must become more self sufficient.

End of Hungary Chapter

I arrived home in Hove on 3 March 2010 after 4 months in Debrecen, Hungary. It is very cold here in Hove and I miss my nice warm bedroom in Debrecen. I have had uploaded to my Flickr Photo Gallery all the photos I took in Hungary up until 3 March 2010. I have no time to write a proper blog now but I wanted to tell my readers (both of them) that I have returned safely. To see the photos click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hova