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IN TOUCH – 20 Year Reunion

TX:Ìý 03.01.2023Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý The new year is often seen as an opportunity to take stock, you know, what are our resolutions for this year and, more sobering usually, how did the ones we made for last year actually turn out.Ìý But we’ve decided, on In Touch, to play this game over a period rather longer than a year, more like a lifetime.Ìý We’ve invited four people to join us who have at least one thing in common – they all appeared first on In Touch as children – oh, and of course, they’re all visually impaired – that’s a golden role.Ìý The point being how have plans turned out, if they’ve changed, why, what went wrong or maybe what went right.

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So, can I ask you all, first of all, just very briefly, to introduce yourselves with a quick description of what you’re doing at the moment?

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Will

Hi, my name’s Will Thoms, I’m 38 living just outside London.Ìý I am working for an American bank in technology.Ìý Got a family with three kids and a wonderful wife.

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Roshni

Hi, I’m Roshni, I’ve turned 40.Ìý I live just outside Glasgow.Ìý I was a journalist, once upon a time, and I’m now a civil servant.

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Paul

Hi, I’m Paul, I am 37, I live in Wales and I am a husband to my beautiful wife, Rachel, and father to three wonderful children.

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Martin

Hi, I’m Martin, I live in Rugeley, I’m also 37.Ìý I do some server management.Ìý I attend a local church and really loving all the technology at the moment.

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White

Wonderful and good news all these chaps have got beautiful wives – they’ll be very pleased to hear that.Ìý If you heard that original episode in 2003, you also may remember there was another voice in the mix – Anna Cannings – Anna, unfortunately, couldn’t make it this time but she sends you all warm wishes.

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So, how you got there will hopefully emerge but now we’ve heard you as adults we thought it would be fun, not necessarily for you, to hear you as children.Ìý You’ll all recognise yourselves, I guess, but it might be fun for listeners to try to put names to childish voices.

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In Touch Archive Montage

Oh, it’s tonnes of ice inside, it’s like a freezer.Ìý It’s freezing, it’s like the Antarctic in there.

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Well, I know you’re a bit of a drummer, aren’t you?

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Yeah.

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And there’s something over here that might appeal to you, let’s go in that corner over there.

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I mean I have quite a lot of ambitions but I think my greatest one is I’d like to work in India as an interpreter.

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What’s this?

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That’s just the…

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That is big.

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It is isn’t?

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Hello, you’re gorgeous.Ìý [Talking over and laughing] Gorgeous.Ìý Baaaa.

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Voice

Oh dear.

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White

They were all recorded sometime in the 1990s but before we start exploring how life has treated you, I’ve got one more ordeal for you all to go through.Ìý We did get you all back in 2003 on the edge of adulthood and I asked you about your ambitions.

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Archive In Touch

White

Will?

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Will

Me, I’d like to be producing hit records.

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White

Okay.Ìý Martin?

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Martin

Radio presenter, I think.

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White

My job?Ìý No, something more interesting than that surely.Ìý Paul?

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Paul

I see myself mixing down music which actually gets into the charts.

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White

Right, so you and Will will probably in competition with each other.

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Paul

Yeah, yeah for number one.

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White

Unless you decide to collaborate.

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Will

We could always collaborate.

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Roshni

Definitely where Greg Dyke is now.

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White

Well, I think we’d quite like that, we’d like that.

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White

Now, we should explain to younger listeners that Greg Dyke used to be the ±«Óãtv’s Director General.

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Roshni

Massively younger.

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White

Well, but a year after that Greg resigned in circumstances we don’t need to go into now but Roshni, you missed your chance, you could have – 2004 – you could have nipped in, couldn’t you?

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Roshni

Yeah, I feel like I followed his path a bit too closely there because my media career sort of ended abruptly around the same time.Ìý So, that’s a correlation that I could live without really but we’ll not go there.

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White

Alright, well we may have to go there, let’s see.Ìý And Will and Paul, you didn’t get together for that hit recording.

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Paul

No, unfortunately, it never happened, we just didn’t find the time.

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White

Well, the one thing that emerges from that is that none of you are doing exactly what you hoped you’d be doing but you may be doing more interesting things.Ìý I’d like to explore what’s happened to you all since and whether the changes in direction have been good and how much they’ve been dictated by your visual impairment or other circumstances.

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Will, you wanted to be producing records, as we’ve mentioned, why aren’t you – what happened?

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Will

Well, when I graduated uni, the music industry wasn’t doing so good at the time and it was also, actually, around about the same time where a lot of the technology that was being introduced in studios was very touchscreen, not necessarily accessible for blind and visually impaired folks, and I had a really fantastic opportunity to take part in an internship at another bank [indistinct word] and that kind of opened my mind to just how many different jobs, technology jobs and specialisms, there were.Ìý And so, I think for me, it was a case of I didn’t know what I didn’t know.Ìý I started on a graduate programme and that definitely made a huge difference because I was, obviously, very fortunate to get on to it but it meant that the firm were invested in me and the other graduates.

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White

So, this wasn’t stuff you’d learnt at school, in a way, this was stuff you were picking up afterwards?

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Will

A hundred percent.Ìý So, I was over in New York for four months kind of doing a computer science degree almost but very condensed, super intense, very, very, very hard but I learnt a heck of a lot.Ìý I still love music and I love audio recording but I do enjoy the kind of – where people and technology meet, being that interface between humans, normal human beings and technology and kind of very, very, very technical focus.

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White

Roshni, you wanted to pursue your interest in Eastern thought and music, you’re now collecting our VAT, how did that happen?

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Roshni

Yeah, that definitely wasn’t part of the plan.Ìý So, when I spoke to you in 2003, I was working at the ±«Óãtv and talking my game and doing my dream job, essentially.Ìý My contract came to an end, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do next.Ìý I went over to Karachi in Pakistan to have a holiday with somebody that I met when I worked at the ±«Óãtv.Ìý The holiday ended up lasting three years…

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White

Ooh, I wish I could have one of those.

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Roshni

…well, I did end up working, I ended up producing daytime output for a radio station there and I had an absolutely amazing time.Ìý But when I came back in ’06 the media industry had changed quite a lot, people were freelancing, wasn’t really finding the work opportunities that I would have wanted.Ìý So, I did kind of one job after the other, wasn’t really finding my niche and then somehow in 2011 ended up working in the civil service, in HMRC, doing just kind of entry level, not very interesting stuff but a bit kind of like Will was saying, I could see that the opportunities were there to progress.Ìý And I was getting too old to move around.Ìý So, I decided to stick with it and now a few years later, I’m still there and training to be a tax specialist.Ìý So, it’s been an interesting journey.

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White

It’s certainly not exactly what you were foreseeing though at the time…

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Roshni

No.

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White

No, okay.Ìý Let me bring in Paul and Martin.Ìý I don’t want to fall into the trap of talking to you as if – because you’re twins you’re joined at the hip but there are, obviously, similarities in your backgrounds and in what you wanted to do.Ìý I don’t think either of you are doing exactly what you were hoping for.Ìý Paul, let me start with you.Ìý Give us a kind of quite rundown of what’s happened.

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Paul

When I – that interview, I think, was – was we 17 then I think…

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White

You were 17, 18 maybe, just about old enough to go into pubs.

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Paul

Yeah, exactly.Ìý Well, after that I went to college in Hereford for two years and I actually studied music technology there, which was really, really great.Ìý But when I left I kind of – I wouldn’t say I lost interest in it, I just sort of moved away from it and then I was with my wife to be, at that time, we, obviously, moved out of the house, it was a big step, lots of things going on and my son came along.

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White

The way they do.

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Paul

Yes, they do, complete surprise but an absolutely fantastic surprise.Ìý I did do work at my local blind society, doing transcription work.Ìý I will say some of that did actually include creating audio CDs for the clients, like we’d like a summer CD or a Christmas CD.Ìý I used audio editing software to edit it, so I suppose, to a certain extent, I did exercise a bit of my knowledge – not mixing records or anything like that but I was still dealing with audio, which was – which was actually really, really interesting.Ìý But then I moved to Wales, after I got married, so then I’m still hunting, at the moment, for something that I enjoy.

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White

You’re in a fairly sort of rural place and this is quite significant…

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Paul

Very rural.

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White

…for blind people, in a way, rural places – very nice, very attractive – but things like public transport, getting around and maybe jobs, a bit harder to get.

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Paul

Yes, I mean a lot of the work is seasonal because in those sort of work environments, I suppose, a lot of employers want someone quickly to get into the role of this, that and the other.Ìý Obviously, there is like Access to Work, obviously, they are helpful but in this kind of scenario maybe working from home, as someone like myself, would be more beneficial.

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White

And maybe more possible now, the climate for that is better.

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Paul

Yeah, yeah, for technology, yeah.

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White

Let me bring in Martin, because you, also, I think, struggled to find work and have done other things.Ìý Why do you think it’s so tough?

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Martin
I don’t know, I mean certainly for myself me wanting to be a radio presenter I actually did fulfil that.Ìý I’ve had a bit of a break from it but I’ve been on numerous internet radio stations and really enjoyed it, playing my different music.Ìý And regarding to work, certainly for myself, I think it was a confidence thing for me and certainly the stuff I’m now getting into, like the server work and I’m trying my hand at computing programming and things like that, I actually do really enjoy.Ìý So, I really am – really hoping and praying – that if I can get someone alongside me, I really have the confidence to sort of get a course going and really get into the server stuff, really make something of it.

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White

I just want to bring Roshni back on this because you are now, obviously, in what is quite a good and I suppose you could say safe job, in a sense, but it sounded as if you also, you went through periods when finding a job and the job you wanted was tricky.

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Roshni

Oh, most definitely, yeah.Ìý And I feel like – this is going to make me sound really old now – but I feel like for our generation there were quite specific challenges because we were right in the middle of a period where most of us grew up with braille, we didn’t really have computer access, it kind of came when we were in our twenties and a lot of our patterns of surviving in a sighted world were already formed.Ìý And that too during a period where the technology was developing but it wasn’t quite there, where it is now.Ìý And I think that that definitely limits the practical possibilities that you have.Ìý And I still think, even today, with the technology being much better, I still think we are very limited in terms of controlling our professional narrative.

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White

I mean I knew we’d talk about technology a bit.Ìý I think it’s significant, it plays such a big part in all our lives, whether we’re good at it or not.

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Roshni

I’m still resisting using a touchscreen phone, I can’t bear it.Ìý I’m definitely pretty slow when it comes to technology but it has revolutionised the way in which I do my job and there is no way, even 10-15 years ago, I think, I would have been able to do the kind of work that I’m doing now.Ìý So, it’s definitely key to our quality of life.

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White

Roshni, I’m with you.Ìý I find touch – smartphones…

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Martin

Oh, I swear by my iPhone.

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White

Well, that’s the point…

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Roshni

So many people do and I wish I could.Ìý I went to a workshop at a blind society to learnt it because I thought I need to learn how to do it.Ìý And after it took me like half an hour to write my name, I thought, do you know what, like, there’s more to life – there’s cake.Ìý There’s just more to be doing than that.

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Will

I mean when it comes to touchscreens, I kind of drag my wife kicking and screaming into the 21st century, I got her an iPhone and myself, it turns out, Paul and Martin are all kinds of nerds, we love technology, right.Ìý But I’d say with a touchscreen phone it would take longer than half an hour and it sucks and it’s a painful and difficult and not intuitive but it’s massively worth it, just the fact that the iPhone’s like a portal to so many other things, whether it’s your washing machine or your tumble dryer…

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Martin

Yeah, it’s your own personal computer, isn’t it, as well…

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Paul

I’ve got banking apps and things.

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Will

Yeah, it doesn’t guarantee it’ll be accessible but if you kind of are able to push through the pain of getting used to the weirdness and it is, it’s weird, it’s not natural.

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Martin

It’s hard but it’s worth it, it is worth it.

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White

Well, I wonder, you see, I’m really interested to know whether it’s patience that people haven’t got, it sounds to me like Roshni and me are a bit impatient.

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Roshni

I’m definitely impatient.

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Martin

No, I’m impatient as well, Peter, I’m impatient as well, oh yes.

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White

You see, I’ve got a blind brother and he’s fantastic at it and swears by it and I just swear at it basically.

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Paul

But we all do that at time to time, Peter.

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Roshni

It’s very voiceover dependent, do you not find that that kind of takes away your confidentiality because if I’m sitting on a train, right…

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Martin

I get that.

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Roshni

…with everybody around me to listen to the contents of my email.

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Paul

Headphones?

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Martin

There’s nothing worse – nothing worse than hearing someone’s voiceover a million decibels on a train.Ìý Yeah, I get that, I really do.

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Will

Yeah, get yourself some air pods or headphones and it’s amazing, you can do anything you like.

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Martin

Because you can have braille displays as well, you can [indistinct word] your display to it and things like that.

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White

Well, I’m hoping there’s going to be some fantastic breakthrough that allows people like me to be able to do this just by breathing on it or…

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Paul

Electrodes on your head.

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White

…all you lot will have lost your lead, that’s what I’m waiting for.

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Will

Well, Peter, have you got an Alexa yet?

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White

I have got an Alexa.

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[Cheers]

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Paul

Yeah, good for amusing the kids.

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White

Yes, that’s right.

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I just want to explore a little bit how if work’s not going particularly well or if it’s difficult, how important other things are?Ìý I mean Paul, certainly I get the impression, for you, family is quite important.

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Paul

It’s tremendously important.Ìý I don’t work at present; I’m planning to work.Ìý I play my part in the house, you know, I see myself as maybe a bit of a house husband at the moment and, to be honest, I’ve got absolutely no problems with that, you know, I look after my children, cook, clean, that kind of thing.Ìý

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White

Roshni, you’ve talked about work and the range of things you have done from a work point of view, what about the rest of it, the things that give you pleasure other than work?

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Roshni

Well, I completely agree with Paul, I think having other interests are so important and I think as visually impaired people it’s really easy to sort of value yourself based on what you output because society, in some ways, doesn’t value you, unless you demonstrate that.Ìý So, it’s hard not to fall into that trap.Ìý But my interests in the East has definitely stayed, obviously lived in Pakistan for a bit and learnt all the languages that I wanted to learn.Ìý I also trained as a yoga teacher a couple of years ago, so I teach yoga and Sanskrit chanting and stuff like that when I’m not working.Ìý I enjoy running.Ìý I do a bit of creative writing.Ìý And, although I’ve not been able to continue my radio work, I’m hoping that I can maybe get into making some podcasts and stuff in the next couple of years.

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White

And I want to put that to Martin as well because you talked about the sort of struggle to get jobs and you’ve talked about your interests.Ìý I mean what are the things that, if you like, give you a buzz?

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Martin

The work I’m doing for the servers, different server maintenance, is I find very appealing.Ìý But I offer like audio games.Ìý It was college, actually, that introduced me to audio games.Ìý But I think I’ve learnt a lot since I’ve left college as well, you know, in terms of confidence, independence, things like that and I’m at the stage now where I want to look at my growth, who I am and things like that.Ìý And it’s been an interesting journey for me but I’m at a place now where I’m feeling a lot more sort of content.

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White

Well, I think you’ve all raised some really interesting issues, some of which we’ll be exploring in the next year.Ìý I’m going to end by asking you all the question I asked you last time.Ìý That was a mere 20 years ago.Ìý Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time?Ìý Paul.

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Paul

Ooh, okay, well I was waiting for someone else to answer that first.Ìý I see myself in employment, a nice job, just something that I enjoy.

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White

Still in Wales?

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Paul

Yes, absolutely, we’ve got no intentions of moving at all.Ìý I am looking forward to watching my children grow up, how they progress in life.

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White

Will?

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Will

It’s kind of generic but hopefully employed, doing a job that I find interesting and that enables me to look after the family and enjoy life.

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White

Completely given up on the hit records?

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Will

Not for work.

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White

Martin?

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Martin

Definitely a job regarding my server stuff because I really – I keep yacking on about that don’t I but I do love my server stuff and hopefully, yeah, getting a nice job and staying on the radio because I do enjoy the radio as well.

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White

Roshni?

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Roshni

I hope that I will have passed my degree, she says nervously waiting – I’ve got exams next week.Ìý I hope that I’ll be healthy, thriving.Ìý I hope that I’ll finally write a book and hopefully making some podcasts.

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White

And you realise that in 2032 I’ll invite you all back to see how many of those things have actually come true.

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And would any of you like to be children again – a simpler time perhaps?

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Archive clip In Touch

[Laughing and chatting]

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White

We couldn’t resist it.Ìý Thank you all…thank you all very much indeed for joining us and a happy New Year to everyone.

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