With the RHS Chelsea Flower Show underway, we thought it would be a great time to feature this photograph from our archive collection.

It shows young blind and partially sighted students at RLSB’s Drayton Manor school busy at work in the grounds of the school. They were learning about gardening by tending the flower bed, weeding and pruning.

View more items from our 175th anniversary digital archive exhibition.

Shalni spent the latter part of her City career as a Senior Private Banker for Schroders Private Banking and then for Societe Generale Private Banking.  In 2007 she left the City to pursue her own business interests.  Shalni was appointed a Trustee of RLSB in February 2013.

Billy was partially sighted and would take Hilary, and other students who had limited sight, around the extensive grounds of the school.

Unfortunately, according to teachers at the school, Billy had a bad habit of losing his friends around the grounds, leaving staff to go and search for them!

View more items from our 175th anniversary digital archive exhibition!

On RLSB’s 150th anniversary, our oldest corporate partner published a message in the RLSB Review wishing us a happy birthday.

Johnson Matthey is a global speciality chemicals company which, like RLSB, was founded almost 200 years ago.

This partnership has existed since RLSB’s inception, when the wife of the company’s founder raised funds for the organisation. Through our digital archive exhibition we will explore and celebrate our relationship over the coming months.

Until then, a heartfelt thank you to Johnson Matthey and all our supporters over our 175 year history!

Find out more about our 175th anniversary digital archive exhibition.

Learn about Johnson Matthey.

Meet RLSB and partner organisation Blind Independence Greenwich, at St Alfege Church Hall, Greenwich to enjoy a morning of activities and entertainment.

Pop along between 11am and 3pm for games, a raffle and refreshments.

You will also have the chance to learn about the latest adaptive technology tools available for blind and partially sighted people, through practical demonstrations.

About B.I.G

We are a London-based charity, supported by RLSB (the Royal London Society for Blind People), which exists to help local people with little or no sight within the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Visit the B.I.G website for more information.

Street works can cause huge problems for vision impaired people who often can only navigate local areas through memory. Disruptions, pedestrian diversions, raised walked ways and temporary street surfaces can disorientate and even cause injury.

Current street works signage is entirely visual and often inaccessible.

Sight Line, designed with input from 21 vision impaired people, gives three levels of information to vision impaired pedestrians:

• High contrast visual information clearly showing pedestrians which way to go.
• Tactile information allowing blind people to follow the barriers until they pass the obstruction.
• An app with details of street works can be downloaded, which alerts GPS navigation users to upcoming obstructions. Users can also scan a QR code on street works barriers for details of the obstruction and how to navigate around it.

Urban Prototyping Festival

Sight Line was selected from a number of proposals for installations at the Urban Prototyping Festival, hosted by Imperial College – the follow-up to the event first held in San Francisco in 2012. The festival aims to explore how digital technology can have a role in shaping our cities and this year’s theme is ‘digital innovation to create resilient environments, economies and communities’.

The Sightline demonstration on 20th May in Hoxton Square is funded by a grant from Imperial College and will involve two mazes built from roadworks barriers; one using the Sight Line design and the other using regular equipment. Visitors will be invited to put on glasses simulating different eye conditions and navigate the two set-ups. They will also have a chance to don a yellow vest and play builder, generating a description of the site with the smartphone app.

John Harris, Head of Research and Public Affairs at RLSB, said: “Getting around London on foot is a huge challenge for blind and partially sighted people. This design shows that when we make the effort to get things right for people who can’t see, we actually make things better for everyone. We’re now asking all London councils to adopt this new design.”

Sight Line designer Ross Atkin said: “Research shadowing people with vision impairment on real streets showed us that roadworks were a major barrier to getting around independently. We wanted to create a system that worked better for everyone with low-tech tactile and visual information as well as more detailed digital descriptions.

“I’m really excited to be able to exhibit Sight Line as part of the Urban Prototyping Festival. We always aimed to design a system which reduces the disruption caused by roadworks to everyone and it is fantastic that the judges recognised this. Hoxton Square is an amazing space to be exhibiting in and I’m confident we should be able to put on a really fun display.”

Find out more about Sight Line and listen to an interview with Ross Atkin.

As the song goes: “I don’t like cricket, I love it.” And I really do love it. I began playing the game a few years ago now rolling off the back of my love for the South African national cricket team, the Proteas.

I am a left handed batsman and a right handed medium fast bowler. I have fun, running around trying my best to catch the ball and throw it back (or not most of the time) and to castle the on strike batsman but there is one slight difference between me and my team-mates at the club I play for… I am blind in my left eye.

Losing my sight

I lost the sight not long after my 18^th birthday (I am 34 now). I suffered what is called a ‘branch vein occlusion’, or BVO, which meant the main blood vessel that helped my eye to function burst and haemorrhaged.

It was awful. I remember feeling and watching my sight gradually deteriorate. It was like water droplets falling down a window like rain. The left side of my face swelled up it was like I had been in a punch up.

I spent six months going in and out of various hospitals, my eye prodded and poked, doctors coming in with their students looking at me like I was a guinea pig. I actually felt like one! It was demeaning, humiliating and I actually wondered if this was going to be the theme for the rest of my adult life.

Being in your late teens, you wonder what life held for you, whether you’d be able to be like everyone else. I thought like that every day; and I got into fights with my parents as I just did not want to go to hospital for yet another impersonal check-up. But if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am now so I am always grateful to them for pushing me, more out of worry and concern than anything else.

Passion for cricket

But back to the cricket. I joined my first club, Finchley Gunns, and disclosed to the coach my condition and to my surprise they were very accommodating. I play for an able sighted team, just like say Middlesex or Somerset. They didn’t discriminate and treated me like everyone else.

The only time my team-mates got any hint or indication about my sight issue was when a rogue ball came towards me from my left and one of the girls had to scream to make me aware so I could move away in time.

My current club, Twickenham Ladies, is just amazing. I told all of them from the go of my condition and they didn’t find anything wrong with it – in fact, they encouraged me more and that got my self-confidence up. I had to learn to bat left handed so I can see the ball coming from my right, although I am right handed. But bowling is perfect. I believe that if you have it in your heart to play and play well then anything is possible.

If I can share my story more with you, I believe I can give you all the encouragement you need to be independent, good cricketers and even better citizens. I have volunteered to play blind cricket with you and you will hear me shout friendly words to give you that strength and also to have fun.

You are all the same, the same human beings like everyone else and through cricket, you can have that same zest for life I have. Nothing is impossible – you just have to believe!

If you are a cricket club or enthusiast and would like to find our cricket appeal, visit our cricket appeal campaign page!

If you are a blind or partially sighted young person, check out our Sport without Limits programme!

For the first 100 years of our life, we moved to different locations around London to fit our evolving services.

For many years RLSB was based in the Swiss Cottage area of north London, but was forced to relocate to Dorton House in Aylesbury during WWII as the capital was evacuated.

Then, on this day in 1956, a young HRH The Princess Margaret visited Sevenoaks to officially open RLSB’s new home in Dorton House School, which was named so after it’s Aylesbury base.

As flags and bunting flew, local residents gathered under a blue sky to cheer on the princess and welcome her as she arrived.

Addressing school officials, including Lady Mountbatten, the Princess said of RLSB: “It [has] blazed a trail for the rest of the world to follow.”

View more items from our 175th anniversary digital archive exhibition.

Florence’s career started in the private sector in advertising working on international accounts before moving to business development for internet services and online training. She created the National Skills Academy for Sport in 2008, backed by all employers in the sector.

She holds an MBA (Boston University) and an MA in European Studies (University of West London), is a trustee of Interactive, the strategic agency for disability sport in London and a business mentor for the Bright Ideas Trust.

Victoria is currently Head of Notes Division (responsible for banknotes) at the Bank.  She has an MBA from Imperial College London, and joined as a Trustee of RLSB in 2012.