Sue Townsend, author and RNIB supporter, lost her sight in 2001. She describes her love of books from an early age and how RNIB's Talking Book service lifted her out of "the pit of misery and self-pity" into which she'd fallen after losing her sight.
Sue provides the foreword to our new Lost for words campaign report, which reveals the loss of independence and daily struggles that people face when they lose their sight.
Sue says: "I can only describe losing your sight as a form of bereavement. You feel like you've lost a close friend on whom you could depend, a friend who was always there.
Falling in love with books
"I fell in love with books when I was eight and a half. I quickly read through the small school library, so I joined the children's section of our local library and read my way through that - I didn't care for books with pictures, it was the words I craved.
When I was an adult I didn't leave the house without a book. I would read in bed until the birds began to sing.
One day, after a heavy writing stint I lay down on the sofa with a copy of Simon Gray's Diaries, I read 17 pages then I went to sleep. When I awoke I couldn't see. I thought the house was on fire and that the room was filled with dark brown smoke, but there was no smell, no heat, no sound of a fire. I groped my way from room to room before realising that the darkness was inside my head. Those 17 pages were the last words I read, unaided.
I was quite calm on the outside, but inside I was distraught. I craved books, I continued to buy them for a while, then stopped. Instead I listened to words on BBC Radio Four and Five."
RNIB Talking Books "lifted me out of the pit of misery"
"Then one day RNIB's Talking Book service contacted me and lifted me out of the pit of misery and self-pity into which I'd fallen. I went on holiday to Portugal and, in a swimming pool, lay listening to hours of beautifully read books on my little portable CD Player.
I support RNIB's Talking Book service because it helped me to realise that it was possible to be "well read" without books. Perhaps we should introduce a new phrase - how does "well listened" sound?"
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