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Blindness Impacts Him Little 布伦基特：黑暗中的光明
戴维·布伦基特拥有的“第一”太多了：他是第一位盲人议员，第一位可以将狗带入下院的议员，英国的第一位盲人内政大臣……有人把他称作英国政坛的新星，还有人说他是布莱尔的接班人，对于能否成为英国第一个盲人首相的提问，布伦基特的回答也很干脆:"I never think of it." Sighted people find it hard to neglect Blunkett's
blindness, and so fail to register the less obvious but more important
qualities of the man behind those shuttered eyes.1
Focusing exclusively on his blindness is a potentially misleading way
of understanding him, because the instinct is to view it merely as a
disability.2
Blindness has indeed been the single biggest factor in shaping his life
— but not always in the most obvious, restricting way. And it is very
far from being the only factor, for he is also an inveterate battler.3
controvertible5 anger. It is less evident now, but it still looms there, just under the surface. Where did it come from? The easy option would be to attribute it to the often dreadful vicissitudes he had to overcome to make his way in the world, in other words, to conclude that his anger is a consequence of his blindness. But that interpretation would be a travesty.6 Similarly, people always want to know how Blunkett 'manages', as if he is in some way inhibited by his blindness from leading a more or less normal life. He isn't, in fact. It is the emotional effects of being blind that are most intriguing.7 The practical consequences are much more straightforward than people generally realise.8 Now, as secretary of state, the systems that enable him to operate like anyone else are more sophisticated than he's used to,9 simply because he has a role in so many interconnected worlds — government, party, constituency,10 personal life. But those systems are relatively easy to put in place, because they are merely more elaborate forms of the support he has used for decades.11 His private office in the Department for Education and Employment has a small team of readers who go through the papers written by civil servants, distill the most important points, and put them on tape. Papers that he must use in meetings are converted to Braille12 by a computer programme. The traditional ministerial Red Box13 had to be made especially large to take oversized Braille sheets. He listens to tapes at every available opportunity, home and away. He types his own speeches on a Braille machine (at which he is very fast, having trained as a shorthand Braille typist). Another team handles his constituency work in Sheffield, and a third tackles his party work at Labour headquarters. Staff learns quite quickly what he does and doesn't want to take in. Because he assimilates information so precisely and methodically,14 he tends to assume others do too. Andy McSmith, former Labour press officer, reports in his book Faces of Labour that Blunkett was nicknamed the Great Amender, always coming up with redrafts and re- redrafts of policy papers, which is probably also the result of regarding the written word as having an inordinate power.15 That, allied with a natural impatience, can mean he leaves a trail of irritation behind him. But he never wastes time on incidentals.16 Blunkett didn't contemplate acquiring a guide dog until he went to university and started becoming active in politics, when he realised that it would be invaluable to have a pair of canine eyes rather than his old white cane.17 Although deeply attached to her, his first dog Ruby was not a great success. Guide dogs are matched to their owner, and the pair has to spend four weeks training together at a residential centre before the dog can be put to work. Work is the crucial word: lax18 treatment of a guide dog makes them less responsible and reliable, and Ruby was not well disciplined. Since then Blunkett has had three other dogs, Teddy, Offa, and now Lucy, a black labrador retriever cross19 who is proving to be the best worker of the lot. Some of the most touching moments in Blunkett's memoir, On a Clear Day, are when his dogs have died, been injured or ill: the bond between a blind man and his dog is very close. He often uses his dogs as a foil.20 Famously he once took a question from Robin Day at the end of a particularly tedious Question Time, and won a laugh from the audience by responding: "Well, my dog's gone to sleep."21 The dog makes a great icebreaker,22 too. When asked if there are any benefits to being
blind Blunkett is prone to joke that there is one: being able to read
in bed without the light on. He also has an acute awareness of people,
which he calls a "sixth sense". Though lacking all the visual
signals such as body language and eye contact, he has the advantage
of not being misled by visual deceit instead he relies on signals over
which sighted people have less control, such as voice mannerisms.23
He can tell easily if you're looking at him when you speak, and know
if you're tense, nervous, excited. But being blind has almost no impact
on his life. He would never call himself "sight-impaired",
for example. He's blind, and that's that. |