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IN TOUCH – Blind baseball and morris dancing

TX:Ìý 06.02.2024Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý FERN LULHAM

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White

Good evening.Ìý If you ever thought that there were limits to the ways visually impaired people could have fun, the next 20 minutes should get rid of that notion.

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Morris dancing

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That’s what we believe to be the only group of blind morris dancers in the UK and possibly, given how British the tradition is, the world.Ìý We’ll be finding out how and why they do it later on in the programme.

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But if morris dancing isn’t your bag, how about a game of baseball?Ìý I never completely understood the rules, though when I finally made it to the States and went to a live game of what I thought of as American cricket, the friendly spectators in San Francisco were keen to help me out.

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Actuality – baseball match

So, what’s happened there.

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The man for the Chicago White Sox stole second base, which means he ran from first to second and the catcher tried to throw the ball to try to get him out but he was safe.

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I’ll tell someone on the way out, that was a stolen base, I’ll say.

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White

What I’ve only just realised is that like most sports there’s a blind version of baseball, which is now quickly taking hold over here, especially in the North of England.Ìý Shiraz Cohan, the founder of the Lancashire Lions Blind Baseball team, as well as the UK Blind Baseball Association; Shoaib Nazir who also plays for the Lancashire Lions and Ray Clements who plays for the Liverpool Blind Trojans were keen to put me straight.

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When we got together Shiraz gave me his best pitch for how blind baseball works.

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Cohan

First and foremost, you have a ball with bells in for audibility and the first thing people ask you is do you pitch the ball and the answer is no because the ball is hit out of your hand, you have three strikes to actually strike the ball in the valid area between second and third base.Ìý So, if you look at baseball it’s the left side of the field between a 27-metre designated area.

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White

So, what you’re saying is you drop the ball and then hit it, do you?

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Cohan

The ball’s got six holes in it with bells in, obviously, the majority of people hold the two top holes and you strike the ball out of your hand.

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Actuality – ball being struck

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White

Can you get enough distance on that?

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Cohan

Practice makes you perfect or as good as you can be and a lot of our players have really developed from initially starting and trying to hit the ball and not making any kind of connection or a valid connection to get in the playing area.Ìý With a lot of practice and coaching, a lot of them have come on in leaps and bounds and then you actually have to run around first base, where there’s an audible bleeper.

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Actuality – bleeper

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Cohan

And you have to run around that and get to second base where there is a sighted clapper to get you in.

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Actuality – clapper

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White

So, you’ve got a bater and you don’t need a pitcher, what about the out fielders, how does that work?

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Cohan

Well you have five out fielders and you also have a catcher.Ìý So, as you hit the ball and you hit it over the 27-metre line that’ll be called a valid shot and that’s when the fielding team will start to locate the ball.Ìý And as soon as one of them players has got the ball, one of the base coachers for the fielding side will shout – two, two, two – to orientate them to throw the ball into the glove.Ìý All they can tell you is where they are and all they can say is – two, two, two.

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Actuality

Two, two, two, two, two.Ìý Great job.

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White

How many people are actually playing at the moment in Britain?

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Cohan

At the moment, Peter, we have a pool of roughly 60-80 players, which in the past year has grown and we think we’ll reached the capacity of 100-120 by the end of 2024.Ìý We’re just trying to make it snowball down to the South.Ìý We’re working with Surrey and Cambridge is in process as well of setting up a session.

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White

So, presumably, you’re trying to get enough for a league?

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Cohan

Yeah, last season we had five respective clubs participating.Ìý We named it as a festival as an example the Liverpool Trojans held a festival, Sheffield Strikers, South Wales Dragons, Lancashire Lions and Manchester Vibe overall to give them more incentive to have a league once we’ve collated at the end of a season you’d have a champion.

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White

You mention the Liverpool Trojans, also with us a couple of players who’ve really taken to the game.Ìý One of them is Ray Clements who plays for the Trojans.Ìý How did you get involved with Blind Baseball?

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Clements

So, I lost my sight on my 49th birthday and it was sort of like my world started to fall apart and then when I took to the beautiful charity called Bradbury Fields, which run an organisation within it called SAVI which is sports activities for the visually impaired and then I also went to a taster day, which I had a go of goalball, archery – I was really good at archery as well – and baseball.Ìý I took to baseball straightaway and then joined the team – the Liverpool Blind Trojans.Ìý And the people I’ve met within the sport, some of the coaches are amazing.

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Actuality – Liverpool Trojans

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to move your shoulders, so line you up and then come this way.Ìý That’s third base, that’s second base, anywhere in the middle, this zone is where we want to go for.

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[Bells ringing]

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Perfect.

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White

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Because I gather it made quite a difference to your life.Ìý I mean you were pretty fed up at the time, I think.

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Clements

It was my 49th birthday present to be honest, that was the morning I woke up when it started going.Ìý And you know, at first, it messes with your mental health and it really does – whether I’d be able to cope, whether I’ll be able to survive, will I be able to carry on with life.Ìý But, you know, the camaraderie within the sport – you’re getting to know other players – it’s great to be around people that have no excuses, it empowered me and it’s given me that drive for living again.

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White

And there really aren’t any barriers, are there, because I think, for a start, it’s men and women, there’s a great range of age, just about anybody can play.

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Clements

Yes.Ìý Well, we went to Bologna in Italy with the GB squad in October and we brought a bronze medal home from there.Ìý And there was a couple of people within the Holland team who were visually impaired but was also in wheelchairs and it didn’t stop them at all.Ìý I mean it’s mind blowing, it’s inspirational to me.Ìý People from all over the world, all who are visually impaired with different forms of sight loss but had no excuses, no barriers and are absolutely loving life.

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White

Let me bring in Shoaib.Ìý How did you get involved in baseball Shoaib?

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Nazir

In March last year I went to Italy and it was more of a social trip but I also tried baseball there, under doors, the outside, hot climate as well and the weather was nice and thought, you know, this is a sport that I could actually get into.Ìý It gives you that freedom to kind of runaround as well.Ìý With other blind sports it’s hard to run when you’ve got no sight because you don’t know where you’re running or what you’re doing but with the audible cues that we have with blind baseball it gives you that freedom to run and anyone could do it.

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White

And Ray, I mean, I gather you’ve really taken to this game having not played it as a sighted person.

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Clements

For me, you know, I was losing my sight and was thinking would I be able to deal with this and then somebody put a blindfold on you and tells you to run as fast as you can at this beeping sound and then when you get to the beep you do a sharp left and you run to a clap.Ìý It’s invigorating, it’s freeing.

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White

We’d better explain this because people are always confused – why would you wear a blindfold?

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Clements

There’s different forms of sight loss so it levels the playing field for everybody.Ìý I think it makes it more fun as well, to be honest.Ìý Do you know what, I think anybody should come along, no blindfold on and have a go at running to a base, they’d understand when I say you feel free.

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Actuality – Baseball training

Three, two… one.Ìý Play ball.Ìý Foul ball.

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White

And Shiraz, I gather you are now really looking for more players from all over the UK really?

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Cohan

We’re working with British Blind Sports, it’s getting us out there, it’s getting the game to a wider audience and we’re show piecing it at the taster days to young and old.

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White

Let me just ask the other two, just quickly, to end.Ìý Do you think this is going to catch on, Ray?

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Clements

Yeah I personally think it’s going to explode.Ìý For me it’s an absolutely amazing wonderful sport.Ìý Do you know I often say to anybody, the only person who’s stopping yourself is you.Ìý Come along to blind baseball and be free, get out there and shine and plus the fact it’s the chance to meet other people like yourself.

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White

And Shoaib, Paralympic sport maybe?

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Nazir

I think it’s in 2032 that it might be involved.Ìý Everybody should try it not even just for the blind and the visually impaired, even the sighted volunteers, they’re a big part of the sport as well – taking us to and from competitions, getting involved with the clapping, the coaching.Ìý Without their sight we wouldn’t be able to play.Ìý It will skyrocket and it’ll be a good sport.

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White

Well, if people hadn’t heard of it before, they’ve heard it now.Ìý Shiraz Cohan, Shoaib Nazir and Ray Clements, thank you all very much indeed.

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Now, if that was American derived, you can’t get much more British than this:

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Morris Dancing

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Well, you heard them, the group we’re featuring, based in Malvern in Worcestershire have given themselves the name of So Xsighted.Ìý So, that seems like a good place to start.Ìý I’m joined by their squire, that’s what they call the boss in morris dancing, Shirley Sheridan and group members Jean Fray and Arnold Penny.

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Shirley, so if we can start with you.Ìý Who came up with that name, which just to make absolutely clear, is So Xsighted.

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Sheridan

Yes but Peter you really don’t pronounce it like that because no one would understand who we were.Ìý It has to be Soooo Xsighted.Ìý That will have woken everyone up, won’t it?

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White

Okay, so who came up with that idea then?

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Sheridan

Well, one afternoon, of course, we were having our discussion and meeting in a pub after our hour’s practice and, of course, our name had to be something that identified us as being visually impaired.Ìý Probably, collectively, we all came upon Xsighted because all of us, once upon time, we could see and now we can’t so we are Xsighted.

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White

Yeah, I think I got it now.

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Sheridan

But, of course, we also excited at morris dancing.

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White

Some listeners, me included, may not know very much about morris dancing, except that it quite often happens in pubs that we’re in at the time.Ìý Just give us a very brief bit of background – what is it?

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Sheridan

It’s an English tradition that has been going about 500 years.Ìý It’s basically a display of movement, music and colour.Ìý And it’s gradually evolved over the centuries and it did decline in the 1800s.Ìý Cecil Sharp, a folk enthusiast, he revived it at the beginning of the 1900s to what a morris side is today which is composed of a squire, a foreman and a bagman.

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White

So, what’s the story of how your group got started?

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Sheridan

Well, we’ve been going five years now.Ìý Absolutely brilliant, I think.Ìý We all knew one another from a peer support group that was run by our local sight loss charity, Sight Concern.Ìý And our advice and support officer, Jenny Douglas, she was a great morris enthusiast and she thought if she could get half a dozen of us together that would be a nice social group, a way of keeping fit and having a bit of fun at the same time.Ìý She managed to persuade a sighted accordion player to come along to give us a bit of music and it took off from there really because it was just a fun thing to do.Ìý It was initially just practise on a Friday afternoon for an hour in the rental room next door to a pub…

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White

I knew pubs would come into somewhere.

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Sheridan

Well of course.

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White

Let me bring in Arnold because you’re a dancer in the group, I mean, tell me about your level of sight and how you got started in morris dancing.

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Penney

I’ve got advanced glaucoma; I’ve got very narrow vision now and very misty vision but I can still just about make out the colours and the people in the morris dancing side.Ìý I and my wife have been dancers for years, we’ve done folk dancing and particularly Scottish country dancing.Ìý Although an old man I probably was the only one who’d done dancing regularly in the group.Ìý I became foreman eventually and foreman was responsible for putting together the dance and the choreography and so forth.Ìý A lot of it is traditional, I mean it’s a question of sticking, which we call banging sticks together, now in our case we’re using white plastic pipes, so hopefully we don’t do ourselves too much damage if we hit each other.Ìý We stick and then we form routines between the sticking to the music.

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White

I mean if you were starting from scratch, Shirley, how difficult is it to learn morris dancing?

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Sheridan

Well, I was starting from scratch, I didn’t know anything about morris dancing five years ago.Ìý So, it is about describing the step and doing it until you feel it’s right.

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Penney

You actually have to walk people through it, you cannot demonstrate in the normal way.Ìý I get so frustrated with people because they keep going wrong and Shirley’s got much more patience with them than I have, I think.

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Sheridan

But half the time we just end up laughing though.

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White

People will have heard in our blind baseball item that sighted people do get involved to help with orientation, if you like, I mean does something like that happen in morris dancing?

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Penney

Well not really, no, I mean the only sighted people we’ve got are in the band.Ìý Once we’ve got the figure that we move around, in our brain we seem to be able to get it going.

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White

Well, let me bring in Jean, who’s been waiting very patiently because you’re part of the band.Ìý Are there any adaptations there and what instrument do you play?

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Fray

Well, I am the 81-year-old drummer in the So Xsighted band since 2021.Ìý And having been diagnosed with macular degeneration suddenly losing a lot of my sight and having to give up playing my beloved piano because I couldn’t see the music, I was asked if I would take on the role of a drummer and play the large 14 inch brightly coloured red and yellow drum emblazoned with our logo in a band I’d never heard of.

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White

I mean had you done any morris dancing up until then?

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Fray

No, no morris dancing and no drumming.Ìý The drum is a very important part, the dancers need to hear clearly a strong beat and sometimes when learning new dances only the drum is needed to help count and pace out the steps.

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White

Now you take your show on the road, I think, I mean what sort of venues do you go to?

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Sheridan

We’ve been to Busfest, we’ve been in the Priory Park in Great Malvern.Ìý We’ve been in carnivals, that’s absolutely great and, of course, folk festivals and beer festivals.

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White

Just out of interest, I mean, Arnold what sort of reaction do you get from your audiences – do they realise that most of you are visually impaired?

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Penney

I think sometimes they don’t.Ìý I think they’re quite astonished when we actually do it.Ìý I remember the first time we danced out with a very experienced side and they were just gobsmacked that we were able to sort of do the same dances that they did and get through them.

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White

Just finally, perhaps starting with Jean, I mean, what has this meant to you doing this?

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Fray

Well, it’s actually a privilege to be part of such a worthwhile fundraising cause and it gives me the knowledge and satisfaction that as a visually impaired person I can still contribute to society and, of course, my own wellbeing.Ìý And actually, playing a drum in a band at 81 is rather fun.

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Penney

Oh yeah, I mean I’ve had great fun from it.Ìý But I think we ought to mention our fundraising, you know, Shirley has a guide dog and I think we’ve got other guide dogs in the side, we do raise money for Guide Dogs and I think that’s one of my biggest satisfactions.

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White

Shirley, it sounds like you’re the youngster in the group, as well as…

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Sheridan

Oh no, no, there’s a couple younger than me.Ìý Us dancers we are energetic you know, we have life, we do skip and jump and clash and make lots of noise.

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White

Well, I suspect you’ve inspired other people to maybe have a go themselves.Ìý Shirley Sheridan, Arnold Penney, Jean Fray, thank you all very much indeed.

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And if you’re part of an activity which is a little unusual or you think you might be the only ones doing it, do let us know.

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Next week, back to hard grind – we’ll be discussing a recent YouGov poll which, amongst other things, found that almost half of the businesses in the UK don’t have accessible recruitment processes and a quarter wouldn’t be willing to make workplace adaptations to employ a blind or partially sighted person.Ìý We’d like to hear from you if you feel you’ve been the victim of this kind of discrimination and also from employers brave enough to tell us about their own experiences and attitudes to employing blind people.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, leave your voice messages on 0161 8361338.Ìý You can also go to our website for more information or to download tonight’s or previous editions of the programme, that’s bbc.co.uk/intouch.

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But for now, playing us out one last performance from So Xsighted.

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Morris dancing

Go Mary go.

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White

Meanwhile from me, Peter White, tonight’s producer Fern Lulham and studio managers Sue Stonestreet and John Cole, goodbye.

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