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	TX: 05.01.09 - Ian Rankin on the Scottish Braille Press PRESENTER: JULIAN WORRICKER

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WORRICKER Now yesterday was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille, the inventor of a system of embossed type used by blind people to read and write. Each character is made up of six raised dots and the basic Braille system can accommodate 63 characters. Today a campaign is being launched to safeguard the future of one of Britain's leading Braille presses. The author Ian Rankin, creator of Inspector Rebus, is supporting the campaign and joins me on the line now from the current home of the Scottish Braille Press in Edinburgh. Ian, good afternoon. RANKIN Hi there. WORRICKER And I believe you're standing fairly close to said press at the moment. RANKIN I am, in fact the presses have just fallen silent because people have gone off for their lunch break but 10 minutes ago you would have heard them clunking away producing the first book of mine to be done in Braille. WORRICKER That's very bad timing for Radio purposes but at least you've assured us it's there. How did you become involved in the campaign? RANKIN Well two reasons, I mean number one I'm an author, I mean I want as many people as possible to read my books and to have the availability of my books and Braille is part of that process. Number two, my youngest son - Kit - is blind, he does go to the Royal Blind School here in Edinburgh and that has allowed me to meet a lot of kids and adults, visually impaired and blind, and so I've actually found out exactly how useful Braille is to them and it's an extraordinary system that once learned is with them for life. WORRICKER And for your son has it entirely transformed his life would you say? RANKIN Sadly not for Kit because he doesn't have the intellectual ability to learn Braille, he's using other systems which are a lot simpler. But I mean I've been interviewed - I've done talks to the blind school and been interviewed by kids - and they've actually transcribed those interviewers immediately into a Braille machine so that kids throughout the school who've not been at the actual talk can get access to it that day. But it's not just about books, it's not just about literature, it's about everything - it's about signage - if you get into a lift and you want to know what floor you're going to - it's things that you buy from the supermarket - you're in the kitchen, you want to go to a tin, how do you know it's a tin of beans or a tin of pears or a tin of peaches, you know you've got little Braille machines that can put signs on them for you - I mean I wish manufacturers were doing it more, it would mean that the blind and visually impaired people wouldn't have to do all this. But it's just making life more normalised for a vast majority of people. WORRICKER The particular printing press that you are standing alongside, even though it's silent at the moment, how much of a part does that play in the wider picture of providing Braille facilities to people in this country? RANKIN Well this is - as you said - one of the major Braille presses in the UK and it produces material for throughout the UK, it's not only simply magazines and books and what have you and academic materials for teaching purposes but it's also things like bank statements. A lot of the major banks in the UK would use the Braille press to produce bank statements which are then sent out to blind and visually impaired customers. And that means there's got to be an awful lot of security around, I mean in this day and age you've got to have security processes, which means that in the 21st Century the Braille press itself and the premises have to change which is partly what we're doing this week is the beginning of a fundraising campaign so that changes can take place here. WORRICKER Is its future in doubt without significant funds coming in? RANKIN No I wouldn't say its future is in doubt, I just think that in the 21st Century there's a lot more we could be doing - we could actually - we've got to the stage now where instead of people actually doing Braille by hand, i.e. sort of getting the little sort of stylus and pushing out the little bits of paper to make the little nubs that you read with your fingers, we've gone to machines and now we've got computers that can do all this, it speeds up the process, it makes it more secure in some ways and on the other hand you can produce more stuff more quickly and hopefully eventually more cheaply. So I don't think its future is in doubt at all but there's a lot more we could be doing. WORRICKER So despite those technological advances, which those of us who don't use Braille might think overtakes it in some way, the actual fundamentals of Braille still are as relevant today as they have been for a long time? RANKIN Oh absolutely, I mean you're eBook or your iPod or whatever are never going to help you to find what tins and the stuff you've got in your cupboard and if you're an MP and you're making a statement to the House and you happen to be blind it helps if you've written that yourself in Braille, so you can then stand at the despatch box and you can read it out to the House using the Braille that you've written yourself. So it not only makes for readers, it makes for writers as well, helps blind people to write as well as read. WORRICKER Let's look at it then from the point of view of a successful author, such as yourself, I think one of the complaints is that not sufficient numbers of books are published in Braille as well, why is that and what sort of influence does somebody like you, as an author, have over changing that situation? RANKIN Well it's a lengthy - quite a cumbersome process and it's a very expensive process and the end result will be published in the hundreds, not in the tens of thousands or the hundreds of thousands that you'd get with like a John Grisham novel or whatever. So it's a specialised thing and it's an expensive thing and it depends a lot on the publishers or whoever actually coming on board and saying we will help you out financially to do this. I mean it's quite frustrating I think for teenagers, in particular, who are doing the normal school syllabus as much as they possibly can and taking the same exams as sighted people but when it comes to things like text books the text books aren't always available in Braille, which cuts down the amount of things that blind students can be doing. So books that are in the syllabus - whether it's novels or anything else - history books or whatever - if they can be made available in Braille editions then so much the better and it just helps to normalise everything and give everybody the most opportunities in life. WORRICKER And do you carry the clout to turn round to your publishers, I wonder, and say look you know fine I'm glad this is being published but you make sure it's published in Braille as well? RANKIN I mean I do my best, with large print books as well, large print audio books and Braille, I mean - you know I'm seen as being a very successful author and yet here this is the first book of mine ever to come out in Braille which must say something. And I'm just thrilled to be here on the day when it's actually happening, I can pick up a copy and with the help of people who are blind maybe actually start to read a little bit of Braille myself. WORRICKER Ian, thank you very much indeed for coming on the programme, good to talk to you. Ian Rankin there in Edinburgh. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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