This is for the people who have been wondering whether to call it quits. To the people who have poured so much into the path that they were sure would lead them to the career of their dreams – only to be met with a maze of maddening moments, a sea of self-discipline on top of self-doubt, and a flurry of good intentions and sage advice, all of which lead to dead-end after dead-end.
This is the story of how I got into audio description.
Sometimes “life in the fast lane” can feel more like a grid-locked junction – being stuck to the spot, drumming your fingers idly on the steering wheel and wondering if you’ll ever start moving forward.
It’s more than a little tricky not to have any idea what lays ahead. Speaking as someone who is blind, I know that both physically and figuratively!
You start to move a little differently, you need to think more creatively. I have found myself where you are more times than I care to admit. Although I may not be an entrepreneurial expert, a professional career coach or a smug millionaire on Dragon’s Den, (love Dragon’s Den!), I do think there’s something in my story which might make you rethink yours.
I want to help you restore some of that excited ambition from the early chapters, to retell some of the plot twists that are currently crucifying your character’s chances and to see if I can leave you on the kind of cliff-hanger that demands you to embark on the sequel. I want to convince you to keep going in your pursuit of audio description.
So, think back – how did you drive your loved ones crazy as a kid? My particular brand of childhood torment revolved around me acquiring any old long, knobbly appliance from my mum’s prized baking collection, (whisk, wooden spoon, spatula, rolling pin etc), shoving it directly into one of my unsuspecting family member’s faces and asking them something like: “So Mum, the way you’re cutting up those carrots – do you have a special NAME for this process at all?” or perhaps “Dad, you say you can only find one of a matching pair of socks – do we have any suspects on this yet?”
Unbelievably, (often very much depending on how well or poorly I’d judged the mood in the household at the time), on some of these occasions, they’d even humour me and go along with it – arguably one of their biggest mistakes!
I think we all have those micro-moments that shape us into who we become in one way or another. And so my obsession with presenting and asking questions persisted. Before I knew it, I’d gone from standing beside my granny’s wooden sideboard, (atop which was a jar of pink and yellow Pear Drops and a beast of a machine blaring out her beloved local radio station pretty much round the clock), to having my voice heard on an actual, real life radio studio in the heart of North Carolina.
Basically, my brother had managed to bag himself a university spot at Oxford and I had to find some way of keeping up. So, I had made it my mission to study radio and wound up on in international exchange programme, complete with a fully functioning FM station which could be heard for miles around the Smoky Mountains.
Now, you might recognise this part of the story – it’s the bit where you feel SURE you’re getting somewhere, you’re on track for big things! Then, of course you realise, this is just the calm before a torrential all-encompassing storm.
My storm came in the form of surgery. About a year and a half after I returned to the UK, my eyes and I went under the knife for the first, unforgettable time.
Complications during this operation meant that the natural lens in my eye was removed and couldn’t be replaced. Rather than this helping me to gain any of my residual sight back, I suddenly found myself officially registered blind – and yes, it was harder than ever to see a way through.
Of course, it wasn’t just sight that I lost. It was also confidence. Faith in my abilities and belief that I could succeed. However, what I found was audio description.
I had known about audio description for years, but the trouble was I had always gone to great measures to distance myself from my eyesight issues, insisting that “I was no different to anyone else!” A mantra that had been well-intentionally instilled in me from a very young age.
Now, however, I couldn’t deny this feeling that I was struggling more than ever to join in. Matched with a nagging question as to whether I was the one counting myself out.
I remember starting to experiment with using audio description – I can’t remember the exact programme now, but probably something trashy and highly embarrassing! The miraculous thing was that it didn’t just explain the storyline to me in ways I’d never been able to understand before, but it also explained something very important to me about how I’d been treating myself.
For years, I’d blamed myself for not understanding programmes, without even acknowledging, (or realising) just how much I’d been missing. You don’t know what you don’t know, as they say. For the first time ever, I was able to separate my eyesight from my ego. I wasn’t stupid: I just couldn’t see.
Beating ourselves up for things which were never ours to own is such an inherently human quality. We all do it – but what if it’s holding you back?
So freeing was this light bulb moment to me that when I heard through a friend in radio that audio description companies were becoming interested in including people with sight loss on their teams, I jumped at the chance to give it a whirl. Despite enduring countless closed doors in the broadcasting world, and ever cloudier windows when it came to my sight, I was determined to approach this new opportunity with an open mind.
It was the best decision I ever made!
Sometimes, the path to finding your purpose isn’t a straight line – it’s a winding road of unexpected turns, quiet echoing calls and moments that change everything. I have come to learn that we find what we’re supposed to be doing somewhere in the spaces between persistence and patience, cleverness and kindness.
Two steps forward, one step back. Trials, tribulations, tears, tries and trust.
It’s about paying attention to what you’re good at, while letting life guide you to where you need to go. It’s about having a clear vision for your future, but being willing to look again with new eyes when needed.
I always knew my home was behind a microphone, but it became so much more meaningful when I was given the chance to voice words which have the power to make people feel welcome, wanted and even whole in ways they may never have experienced before.