Blindness and the Visionary: Fully Accessible Biography of Sir John Wilson (1919-1999)

Review by Barbara Duncan

Over a 50 year span, Sir John Wilson was the engine behind the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind (now Sight Savers International) that launched countless programs for children and adults in Africa and Asia and the UN’s International Initiative Against Avoidable Disablement, known as Impact; a key supporter of the important merger between organizations of and for the blind to form the World Blind Union; and a relentless campaigner, pressing all involved in disability research and services to make disability prevention in developing countries a priority.

A former British diplomat with experience in some of the same parts of the world, Sir John Coles of Sight Savers has written an insightful, respectful and colorful biography. Coles did not know Wilson, but came to understand him through over 60 interviews with colleagues, friends and family and through extensive listening to tapes made by Wilson as trip diaries over the years.

Appropriately, this book is said to be the first published simultaneously in print and accessible formats: large print, Daisy audio and full text, Screen Reader (magnification, speech or Braille) and Braille. A CD-Rom is attached to each print copy. In the UK, the book is available from the publisher, www.gilesdelamare.co.uk, and in the U.S. from www.Amazon.com

Blinded in a chemistry experiment in school at the age of 12, Sir John graduated at the top of his class from the Worcester College for the Blind and went on to read law at Oxford. Perhaps the most compelling chapters record an unprecedented nine month expedition throughout African and Middle Eastern territories in 1946-47 by Wilson and two other blindness experts. The findings and the descriptions of the hardscrabble situation of blind people in predominantly rural areas of the farthest reaches of the British Empire, led to the setting up of the Royal Commonwealth Society. This trip, which had to be delayed a few times due to the rarity of nonessential international flights in the years immediately following WWII, laid the groundwork for Wilson’s twin emphases in the future: education for blind people in poor countries and the importance of disability prevention worldwide.

Coles does a good job of portraying Wilson’s personality, outlook and style of work and captures how important his partnership was with his wife, Jean, on both a personal and professional level. Coles also deftly avoids getting mired down by the large number of UN and other international reports Wilson authored and promoted, and is skilled at summarizing Wilson’s legacy. 

Perhaps the only aspect missing is Sir John’s love of telling stories, usually on himself. When I interviewed him in 1990 for the International Rehabilitation Review, one of the printable anecdotes he recounted was from one of his early trips to Africa:

“Most people had never seen a blind person able to read Braille before and it often seemed a magical experience. I remember being taken by a Chief right out into his field where he asked me to read some Braille, which I did, and then he said ‘Thank you very much,’ and put me back into the jeep. I wondered what this chap was doing. And he said, ‘We haven’t got any rains in these parts for three years and we tried the Bishop and we tried the Rainmaker. We thought a bit of Braille might do some good.”

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