A TRIP TAKES BLIND FAITH; The Guide Dogs for the Blind association has launched a new campaign to raise awareness of the problems visually impaired people face on public transport. To understand their difficulties ECHO reporter CHRIS BROWN travelled with a blind man on his daily journey home from work.

Byline: CHRIS BROWN 

I HAD already been told that wearing the glasses was cheating.

The original idea was to be completely blindfolded on my journey. But concerns about my health (falling over) and my mental wellbeing (breaking down because I fell over) meant that I decided to have tunnel vision instead.

But after a 90 minute journey across Merseyside with a completely blind man only being able to see a pin prick of the world, I was glad to be a cheat.

Alan Booth, works for Littlewoods on Old Hall Street in the city centre. Every day he travels to and from his home in Heswall, Wirral.

The 49-year-old computer programmer uses public transport and his round trip takes him around three hours a day.

Alan is one of only 4% of the total population who is completely blind. He lost his sight as a teenager due to a rare disease where his immune system attacked his own body. Over a period of two years his sight deteriorated to nothing.

My job was a simple one - I was to see what it was like to follow Alan on his journey home as a visually impaired man.

The blind charity centre Henshaws provided me with my special glasses Although only scientific goggles spray painted silver when I put them on I quickly realised that the journey would not be an easy one.

The ones I chose were to simulate tunnel vision. My sight was completely obscured except for a tiny circle of sight in the centre.

Alan said to me: ``Make sure you keep them on for a bit during the afternoon. It took me two-and-a-half years to go blind. It's going to take you an afternoon.''

Imet Alan at his office for the evening journey. To avoid rush hour he works from 8am-4pm.

The journey is from Old Hall Street to James Street train station, off at Hamilton Square and then a bus to Heswall bus station, following that it is a 10 minute walk to Alan's home.

I put my tunnel vision specs on and with a quick: ``Ready,'' we were off.

Alan is very matter of fact about his journey. He said: ``Well what else can I do? I have to work so I need to travel. The only other option is staying at home all the time. There is no way that I am going to do that.''

The first thing that you notice is that with his guide dog Kane by his side Alan can walk quicker than I can jog.

``Are you going to try and keep up with him?'' my photographer asked.

Well I did try but, considering that this was the first time I had had to deal with tunnel vision, not tripping over was more of a concern than walking side by side with my guide.

The first part of the journey was ok. I managed to walk down the street, carefully avoiding the lampposts which seem to have no particular logic for their position and pretended that I wasn't completely disorientated.

It was only when we entered St James Station that I hit trouble.

Alan said: ``Tunnel vision is ok in the light but the second it get's dark you don't stand a chance.''

I quickly discovered that Merseyrail is not the best lit of places when you are walking around with massive silver glasses on.

The passages quickly became a yellow neon blur as I struggled with stairs. A blind person would not use an escalator as a guide dog would not go on one.

Every time I reached the top step of any staircase I nearly tripped over. At first it was funny but after the fifth time I was getting sick of the fact that my spacial awareness was so heavily sight dependent.

Apparently I didn't get any funny looks while wearing my spaceman looking glasses although I wouldn't have noticed even if I had.

After the train we headed to the bus stop. With black labrador Kane's guidance Alan led me to the stop and we waited. It's the small things which are important to telling if you are in the right space.

For example, despite there being four bus stops in a row the one we needed had a raised floor.

On the bus Alan explained how he felt about other people's curiosity. He said: ``I want people to ask questions. How else are they going to understand anything.

``I was on the bus last week and two kids got on. One was ribbing the other about wearing gloves despite the weather.

``Then one turned to the other and whispered: `How does he know when to get off?' I wasn't going to say anything though. I just thought: `I'm not going to tell anybody who is stupid enough to wear gloves in this weather!''' Alan remembers the number of turns the bus takes and takes in different sounds to work out his location. It's a simple system but it works.

Finally the home stretch involved more narrow roads and an ever increasing number of lampposts to avoid. After 90 minutes of disorientation, consistent tripping and a frankly annoyingly high number of knocks into lampposts, I had finally made it.

A 90 minute journey on public transport is a lot for anybody but while having my vision restricted it was difficult to resist the temptation just to take my glasses off.

Alan Booth performs an impressive feat daily and quickly taught me not to take my journey to work for granted.

CAPTION(S):

IMPAIRED VISION: With his special glasses to give him a sense of tunnel vision, Chris Brown accompanies Alan Booth and Kane, pictured bottom right, on public transport across Merseyside Pictures: JASON ROBERTS