Chichester Area Talking News' vice-chairman | Vicky Meets

What is Talking News and how does it work? We record a local news programme every fortnight and mail it out on a memory stick to people who are blind and visually impaired.

Post is free, thanks to a long-standing commitment from Royal Mail to the blind. We record on Thursdays so that we can include news and sport covered in the Observer.

We also include village news and general ‘what’s on’ information. We know that people still like to know what is happening locally even if they can’t see it. It makes them feel included. We also produce INSIGHT, a quarterly magazine that contains articles of local and general interest. The 75-minute programme,like the news edition, isfree of charge.

In addition to memory sticks, you can listen to Chichester Area Talking News online, using Alexa and the British Wireless for the Blind (BWBF) App.

We want to be better known and to reach more people who are blind and visually impaired and who would appreciate our service – listeners required, no experience necessary!

People just need to get in touch and we will do the rest. We give them a free player as well. And if people have any other difficulties that makes holding and reading a newspaper difficult, we will gladly provide the service to them too.

What is your role in the organisation? I am the vice-chairman, with responsibility for the website and media and publicity.

We are run entirely by volunteers and we need volunteers for all sorts of roles, so do please get in touch if you would like to join us. You will be very welcome.

What did you do before retiring? I flew helicopters in the Navy. I then ran a charity in London for 10 years.

We were looking for somewhere to move to after London because I wanted to keep bees and grow roses and do the whole rural thing, and you can’t do really that in Clapham.

We had friends in West Wittering and we fell in love with the area. That was 10 years ago now.

Do people rely on the Talking News service? A speaker at a conference I attended recently was a Cambridge-trained doctor who specialised in emergency medical treatment.

He had given first-aid at incidents like the London Bridge terrorist attack.

He told us how he woke up one morning completely blind as a result of a haemorrhage. Very movingly, he described the shock and the subsequent depression he suffered. But he said that listening to Talking News felt like that there was someone in the room talking to him. He felt connected and reassured.

If ever there was a reason to keep doing what we are doing, there it is. We would really appreciate it if Observer readers could spread the word about the service we offer.

Where can we find further details and get in touch with you? Telephone 01243 775050, email [email protected] or click on catn.org.uk

See also – An Emsworth Sailing Club committee member helping to organise the town’s Big Green Eco Day | Vicky Meets