WHEN THE BLIND SEE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 146, 17 March 1934, Page 18

WHEN THE BLIND SEE

Wonders of Reality

A new world has opened for Mr. 11. H. Watson, of Brinkburn Avenue, Swalwell on Tfne. For 27 years he has been blind. Now, for the: first time since he was a child of two, he is seeing again the things which he believed he had forgotten for ever.

Life for him has become a great new adventure. He gazes at the commonplace with awe and wonder He is bewildered by the variety of objects in his home which till now have merely meant rough or smooth surfaces to him. When out of doors he looks at the sky and can scarcely believe that clouds could have such miraculous shapes. He is seeing trees,. birds', hills,' houses, shops, and factories with the naive pleasure of a little child and the fuller appreciation of a mature mind. For the first time he realises what speed means. ■ • . .. , "

His sight, which , he lost during'an attack of measles when, he was an infant. was—as reported in “The Daily , Mail”—restored . after two delicate operations by Mr. Tudor .Thomas, the Cardiff eye specialist. vi These operations involved the removal of the cornea of his eyes and the grafting of healthy tissue from the eyes of a blind man and woman. “It is wonderful," Mr. Watson told me, “and yet I do not known to. this day the names of the man and the woman whose sacrifice has lifted me. out of my prison. “When I came home and looked at my mother. I said. ‘Well, mother, this is the first time I have seen your face properly.’ “The house was familiar yet unfamil-

iar. The glorious green of the fields lay outside the window, toward the deep valley of the Tyne. I have never seen these things before. When people described ‘landscapes’ to me I could not imagine their descriptions. “What did they mean by a ‘clump of trees,’ a ‘hill,’ a ‘lake’? Nothing that I could think of was anything like the beauty of their, reality. “It. is as though I have awakened from sleep into a magical world of colour and light. I am going to explore that world thoroughly now. I am going to see the sea for the first time, and the countryside. “In London, after my operation, I went to see my first talking picture. It was ‘King Kong.’ Sound has a new meaning for me now. “Before I regained my sight an omnibus or a railway train was just a rushand noise and a place in which to sit and feel comfortably jolted. No I know where those sounds come from. “I stare at the vehicles that produce them, and for the first time I know what speed really is. Travelling iu a moving vehicle is to me an exquisite sensation. "But it is a curious fact that many of the things I see now are what I halfexpected them to be like. ■ I do not now have to touch a thing to realise what it is.” Mr. Watson is engaged to Miss Edith Robson, of Chilton, County Durham, and when he was in hospital for his operation she visited him every day and watched his progress in an agony of suspense. When finally the bandages were removed and Mr. Watson saw her for the first time, their joy was unbounded.