Burdened Children

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 4

Burdened Children

If You Make a Noise I Can’t See. By Lucy Lunt Gollancz. 159 pp.

Miss Lunt was the headmistress of a Sunshine House nursery school, and this highly enjoyable and instructive book comprises “a collection of precious memories.” The aim of her book, she states, is to “awake or foster an existing sense of comradeship and warmth with the children it describes”—-that is, children handicapped by blindness together with other physical or mental abnormalities. In this, she surely succeeds admirably. The reader warms irresistibly to these gallant children, born to carry more than their share of illness, deprivation and pain. But, just as the author wishes we should, we inevitably become acquainted with them and enjoy them for their own sakes—not because they are different, but because they too are children, as individual, daring, stubborn, and lovable as any group of normal children. This, believes Miss Lunt, is the most important factor in our attitude to the handicapped person.

The purpose of Sunshine School is manifold. A period in one of the homes will give a handicapped child the opportunity to gain courage and assurance in a setting especially adapted to his needs. He will be closely observed by trained staff who will make an all-important assessment of his capabilities, and decide what further education will benefit him most. For his parents, it is a greatly appreciated hiatus in their lives, in which they can see their problems in better perspective. They also benefit from contact with other parents, which is on an informal, friendly basis. There are many interesting details about the care for blind children. The house itself was adjusted to their needs: for example, variety of texture was very important, whether in furnishings, clothes, or in the garden. The

wireless was enjoyed for many programmes, but was always listened to for a specific purpose. It is important to the blind that it never becomes an unnoticed background of noise, for their other four senses replace sight. Again and again we are astonished at the perceptiyeness of these children. Miss Lunt decries the natural tendency of the layman to admire the staff of such homes too unquestioningly. She insists that the staff gain more from the association than do the children. They are enriched by a thousand new ideas and tastes and smells, and they become tremendously conscious of their own good fortune in possessing perfect limbs and faculties. At this season, we too should be grateful for the insight of one sightless girl, who, conscious of the warm, expectant atmosphere just before Christmas, said: “I’m hearing Christmas. ... Do grown-up people sit still and hear Christmas’”