Press Release issued: 4 March 2010
A group of award-winning Scottish-based authors are marking World Book Day today by revealing which books first inspired them to become a writer, and which one they'd miss most if they lost their sight.
They are supporting a campaign by the Royal National Institute of Blind People Scotland to raise awareness of the impact of sight loss. Every week ten people in Scotland start to lose their vision.
The writers include Robin Lloyd Jones, Sara Sheridan, Lari Don, Ken Steven and Simon Puttock.
The full collection of video clips and comments has been posted on the campaign website - www.whatwouldyoulose.org.uk. Members of the public can add their own contributions as well.
RNIB Scotland director John Legg said: "Already members of the public and some well-known personalities from Scottish television, politics and now literature have told us what they'd miss most if they lost their sight. And we'd love to hear from more people. It's vital that we get our message across because with the public's support we can help people who lose their sight to find a life worth leading."
World Book Day is the UK's biggest annual celebration of books and reading. It's 'Read to a Million Kids' initiative will broadcast eleven stories, read by their authors or actors, online on the day.
But RNIB Scotland is also pointing out that only around five per cent of books published in the UK ever make it into alternative formats such as braille, large-print or audio.
"That's a very small proportion," insists Legg. "Needlessly small, given the potential of today's technology. And the few books that are available in alternative formats are usually produced long after normal print copies are published, while the cost of a commercially produced full-length audio book is often five or six times that of a paperback.
"It takes RNIB five days on average to record a 'talking book' and costs between £1,000 and £2,500. Most books available in audio or braille continue to be produced by charities dependent on public donations. We'd like to see many more books made available in accessible formats. But we do very much depend on public support to do all of this."
Robin Lloyd Jones, author of 'Lord of the Dance', said: "I wanted to write fiction that was both funny and serious and had doubts about whether I could do it until I read J G Farrell's 1973 Booker Prize winning novel 'The Siege of Krishnapur.' He showed me how an eye for the quirky, richly absurd side of human nature could be combined with writing about deep themes. I know my wife would read this novel aloud to me if I lost my sight, but it is not the same as reading it for oneself, pausing to reflect on various passages, or savouring them slowly and lovingly."
Sara Sheridan, author of 'Truth or Dare', said: "For me it's Maurice Sendak's children's classic 'Where The Wild Things Are'. Even seeing the cover illustration makes me smile. On account of the memories that go alongside it - and by now I must have heard or read the story hundreds of times. It's definitely the book I would miss most. Many books would still be available to me if I lost my sight, albeit as recordings or in Braille. It is the stories where illustration is an integral part of the reading experience that would completely change."
Simon Puttock, author of the children's books 'A Ladder to the Stars' and 'Stella to Earth', said: "'The Little Bookroom' by Eleanor Farjeon is a book of short stories that between them journeys from gleefully, rib-achingly funny to poignantly, unforgettably moving, calling in at adventure, philosophy, fantasy, drama along the way. To not be able to lay my hands on my now somewhat battered copy would be to feel, in some way, cut off from some very essential part of who I am."
Edinburgh-based Julie Lacome, an illustrator for children's books, has personal experience of the trauma of sight loss due to multiple sclerosis. "This has caused me to experience periods of blindness in one eye for a number of months at a time," she said. "Fortunately, my sight has returned each time. As an illustrator, art has always played a major part in my life. But having experienced the shock of losing sight literally overnight I've been forced to consider how devastated I would be if it never returned." Julie chose the children's book 'Simp' by John Burningham.