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Hi, my name is George Abraham and welcome to Eyeway conversations. My guest today is Penny Melville-Brown from Hampshire in the United Kingdom. Hi, Perry welcome!
Good morning, George.
I believe you began your professional career with the Royal Navy.
I had an absolutely stupendous career in the Royal Navy and in the days when I joined, it was the Women's Royal Naval Service. This was back in oh 1977 I think and in those days women didn't go to sea. They were only just getting into proper professional jobs in the navy because in the past, they predominantly, the officers had been looking after the Wrens who did a lot of the much more exciting jobs.
So what was your specific roles in the navy?
Oh, huge huge variety. So I started off, I was doing NATO intelligence in Naples, Italy. And then I came back and did home defense and war planning, because that was in the days of the Cold War. Then I went on and did corporate public relations in the Ministry of Defense in London and there I was responsible for all the public relations for the Women's Royal Naval Service, as we still were, and the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service, the QARNNS and it was their centenary actually. I went on and did the University Royal Naval Units. And I started off with four units at different universities in the UK, each with their own fast patrol boat and my job was to increase the number so I doubled them, got more fast patrol boats, more units set up in universities, recruited more young people. And then I had a wonderful opportunity. I was, the navy had decided that they needed a female barrister, they'd never had woman barrister in all those centuries since the navy was set up. So I had the chance to do that and I went off and did a year at law school and then a year of a bar school where I learned to be a barrister. And then I did pupilage and then I went back to the navy, and I did my first job as a naval barrister. So I was doing courts martial, where I was prosecuting and defending, and I was also supervising in a legal capacity, the biggest naval equivalent of a magistrate's court. And then by then my eyesight was starting to fail. I went on to do another legal job and I was the staff legal adviser to an apron. So we were running the sort of disciplinary, legal side of life for a large number of ships and shore establishments. But by then my eyesight was really failing and so I was off sick for over a year, having some pretty drastic treatment for my vision which failed with my right eye. So I gave up with my right eye. I was still just about able to drive and I went back to work and then I was running the headquarters of Flag Officer, Surface Flotillas. So we were responsible for all the ships that were on the surface across the world and in the UK. And I lost the sight in my left eye where was it was going, but I managed to hang on, I was promoted to Commander. And in those days there were only about eight women Commanders in the navy and by then, we had been amalgamated into the Royal Navy. I went on to do another job, which was all about strategic manpower, in the services, but I could see that I was not going to get promoted and so I was eventually medically discharged as a war pensioner.
You spend about 20 to 22 years in the navy and then as you said, you were discharged. So once you were discharged and you had lost your sight, how did you kind of reorient yourself and what was it that you did?
Well, let me just step back a bit then into my time in the navy because I think as I described, I was losing my sight for quite a long time in the navy. And in the UK, the British military are not subject to the equality legislation, when it comes to the employment of disabled people for all sorts of sensible reasons. But actually, they were incredibly accommodating so they went to great lengths to get me adaptive software on my computer. So in those days, I was using screen magnification. They helped me in all sorts of ways with my travel because of course, I had to stop driving. So they enabled me to keep working in the navy, at Commander level, doing important things. Well I thought they were important, they were in the big scheme of things they were probably pretty trivial. But I was redesigning the performance appraisal system of 37,000 people, which in terms of India probably sounds like, you know, a suburb in the navy, it was a lot of people. So I was doing important things and I was still blind. And I was using a white cane, a white stick when I was in uniform. I had to stop wearing my tricorn hat, so that people knew that I would not salute them when I was moving around because I did not know whether I had to salute them or they had to salute me. They were just by not wearing a cat hat we got rid of that problem. So I was pretty, I had very little sight when I was still in the navy.
Yeah.
But what I learned, and this is probably the most important thing is that just because I couldn't see didn't mean I couldn't do an absolutely first class job and that gave me huge confidence. And I think that was my main learning point about gaining a disability and learning to live with it is that actually my brain had not changed my capacities. My capabilities had not changed one job, I just needed to do things in a slightly different way.
Absolutely.
So I could see that I was going to not be able to continue my career in the navy. So I while I was still in the navy, I started to broaden my CV, get other activities onto that CV. I was the Secretary for Hampshire for the Prince's Trust, I was doing other things, so that when I left the navy I was going to be able to hopefully apply for jobs where people could see that I was capable. But of course in those days, and we are talking a long time ago now, great civilian society was much more wary about people with disabilities and employing them. So in the end, I decided that I was never going to get a job. So I set myself up as a disability consultant on the basis of what I learned, and what I could make up because being a lawyer you know, you could just make things up really.
Absolutely.
So within two days of taking off uniform, I was a disability consultant. And I was into my first paid work within those two days and I did not look back. A year later, I set up my own business Disability Dynamics.
Yeah.
And because I had such difficulty trying to find work.
Yeah.
And I realized that there were lots of people who in I was in early middle age, but in this country, lots of people in later middle age, from their sort of 50s onwards, lots of people are acquiring disabilities that are going to jeopardize their ability to work. And I decided that those were the people not just that age group, but anybody with a disability, I wanted to help them to get back to work, because I think work is the greatest gift that anyone can have. It gives you financial and mental independence, it means that you are a person in your own right.
So you talk about Disability Dynamics. So what was the kind of actual day to day operations that you were involved in and what was your success rate?
Well, I started off by doing a lot of policy advice and strategic planning with government departments. I did a lot of training in the public, private and voluntary sectors, really just trying to get them to understand more about disability. And I wasn't just confined to visual impairment, I was considering all aspects of disability, I did a lot of research with, we have a national census every 10 years. So I was making sure that I was well versed in proper government data, so that I could talk to them about the reality of life, not just my personal perceptions.
Yeah.
And obviously if you're going to implement, influence government strategy, they want to know actual data. But also, I was able to talk from personal experience and I was gathering experience, and those life stories that make disability come alive and so other people understand it. So I was doing a lot of that and then I was asked to chair a little not for profit organization, which was about promoting self employment for disabled people and I got very inspired by that. And this organization was so tiny, it was never going to be able to do delivery. And in fact, I talked to Margaret Hodge, who was then the government minister responsible for disabled people. And we sort of agreed that I was going to need to deliver self employment projects as a sort of figurehead to show what was feasible for disabled people and that's what I went on and did. And I did it under the umbrella of Disability Dynamics, because by then I had a track record and so I was going to be credible for bidding for projects, and funding and that's really, you know, a fundamental thing. But at the same time, I was doing a whole range of public appointments. So I was doing things with the Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Defense, the European and World Blind unions, the Learning and Skills Council, a whole raft of other opportunities because I was working on the basis, I would do 1/3 paid work through my little business, and it was a tiny business.
Right.
I do 1/3 of my life through public appointments, and another third through pro bono voluntary work and that's how I worked. And then we went on, and developed self employment projects for disabled people. And actually, I focused up in Derbyshire, which is a long way from Hampshire. It would take me about five hours on the train to get up there but it was also an area where we had very high levels of deprivation, and very high levels of disability. So it was a perfect place to test the ideas that I was developing with some excellent consultants and subcontractors who were themselves very experienced business advisors but it also had lots of experience with working with other disabled people.
Yeah so Penny moving on. You are, at the moment very well known across the world in the baking space, how did that happen?
Well, I've been running Disability Dynamics for all 15 years or more.
Yeah.
And this was, in fact it was longer than that And I was looking for a new way of trying to persuade the general public and employers in particular, that just because you have a disability doesn't mean you can't do really adventurous things, new things, or just do what everybody else does.
Yeah.
And for years, I've always made sort of little Christmas hampers for my friends and family to go with their main Christmas presents. So there'll be marmalades and jams and chutneys and liquors, pancakes. And one year back in 2016, I was making sort of 50 Christmas cakes, which doesn't everybody.
Yeah.
And somebody said there was really unusual, and even more unusual when you're blind. I thought, well perhaps this is a good vehicle to show people that you know, blindness wasn't stopping me doing what I wanted to do in life. And so my brother had some time, and he came and shot a video of it, and it was, I cannot tell you how embarrassingly amateur that video looks now in retrospect, but we were doing our best. And I wasn't doing a very great job but I was a bit nervous, and all the rest. So we made a video of me making the cakes, and then another one of me doing all the cake decorations. And that's where baking blind started and I did a few more with him. And then my, I was quite enjoying it and I was hoping that I would just show people that I could do still do stuff. And then I got an email and it was from this organization in San Francisco called Lighthouse.
Yeah.
And they were looking for visually impaired people from across the world who had ambition and it was the Holman Prize.
Yeah.
And they had just started the Holman Prize that year in 2017. And so they asked me you know, they were obviously sending out just a round robin to anyone make a fine, same kind of apply to the Holman Prize.
Right.
And so I thought I would, and I did.
And now that you brought up the Holman Prize, you are one of the early winners of the Holman Prize. So maybe this is a good time for you to share with us what exactly the Holman Prize is and what is the process And what did you do with the Holman Prize?
Okay, well the Holman Prize you know, hold on to your seats, it's $25,000, which sounds enormous but actually, it doesn't go into your pocket to do something. And you have to devise an idea, a project, a concept, where you are hopefully going to make a difference in the world of visual impairment and in the world.
Yeah.
And it's all in memory of a chap called James Holman.
Yeah.
And I had no idea who this fellow was and so we did a bit of research. And he turned out to be a Royal Navy Lieutenant who had served on the ships in the early, let me just think 1800s. So he had also been in the navy like me, we'd almost certainly had the same eye condition, which is uveitis. And we had both been what we call war pensioners because we had lost our sight because of our military service. So that was an amazing coincidence. So that sort of inspired me to think I need to do something creative. So the first thing I had to do was a 90 second video of me saying what I would like to do if I want this money and so that got you through the first bit. And then if they liked your pitch and that's what it was, it had to be a good pitch of saying what you wanted to do, then you had to go and write your project plan and that wasn't just writing on a sheet of A4 you know, I've got this great idea and this is what I want to do. It was much more involved in that. So you had to look at what the planning was, what the budget was, what the timescale was one stage, I had to get references, so that I could see from other people that I had you know, the capability I wasn't just sitting there at home making it up in my own mind. Some people who were in the industry that I wanted to be active in, were thought that I was capable of doing it. So I had a professional chef and professional filmmaker, both give me references. They happened to be people I knew, but they were standing back and looking at a company do this. I had to do all sorts of other things because I decided I was going to do a worldwide tour. Because I wasn't going to just sit at home I was going to follow James Holman who in his day became the most famous travel writer of his time. I wanted to travel too. So I had to have a whole network of people across the world who were willing to support me and enable me to cook in their countries. And if you remember, George, you were one of the people I was in contact with at the time but we weren't actually able to make India a possibility for my world tour. But I went ended up with contacts completely at random, in America, Costa Rica, China, Australia, and Malawi, in Africa. And that's what my world tour turned out to be. So I had to do this project plan, I then had to do interviews with the team, I then had all my proposals being reviewed by real leaders across the world, in the blind community. And then I had further interviews and eventually, I was one of three winners. So this, it wasn't just, you know, think of a good idea and write it on a piece of paper and send it off and they might pick it out of a hat, like a raffle. It was much more intense and much more thought through. But you know, for $25,000, they wanted to make sure that they were getting a product that was going to be worthwhile. And I have to say that it cost me personally a lot, a lot more than that, probably double that of my own time, my own costs to do it. But for me, you can make, you might hear from how I'm talking, this was a crusade, I wanted to really take a message out across the world. And I haven't finished it yet but it's an ongoing crusade to change people's attitudes.
Penny, I'd like you to talk about some of the experiences that you might have had while you traveled across the world share some of the standout experiences.
The standout experience, and there are many adventures, there were two life near fatal events during the tour. And that'll all be in the book that comes out next spring.but I think probably the most important that other people can learn from is that if you have shared skills, it will break down barriers. a you may find the same with your cricket.,ut for me going as a blind person into a professional kitchen, where I had a professional sighted chef, who was clearly terrified that this blind person was coming to come in, possibly chop off fingers, kill them, and you know, have awful accidents. But actually, as we sat there or stood there, chopping, doing things, sharing skills, sharing knowledge, you could hear this person suddenly realize that this was just another cook standing alongside him or her quite capable, very knowledgeable learning from each other, and that my blindness completely disappeared. And I'm sure you find exactly the same when you are talking cricket, or other skills with sighted people that once they know that you are capable, you are knowledgeable, you are confident that the fact you've got a disability is a complete irrelevance.
So, when you were traveling, say you went to Australia, Malawi, the US, what were the kinds of events that you were involved in, so that more and more people could see what you were doing?
Well, we were videoing it all so all the videos are on my YouTube channel.
Yeah.
That's the first thing.
Right.
I was doing media activities in each of the countries. I was talking to people so I spoke to the National Association of Blind People in Costa Rica. I talked to the International Women's Group, which were consuls general, and top business women in Chongqing, in China. I talked to military trainees in Australia. I talked to young people at a school in Chongqing, so you can hear me you know, you can hardly stop me, I will talk to anyone. That's what I really do. I did a big presentation to 500 people at a conference in San Francisco.
Yeah.
So that's what I was trying to do is one, show them through the videos, to capture them through the social media And three, talk to them in their own venues where they were comfortable, and they could listen to this blind person. And I've been doing a lot more public speaking back in the UK since then.
So to to promote what you're doing,and you know, the world is a huge place, do you have professional agencies that actually kind of promote your work and promote you to a onto various platforms, or you do it yourself?
Regret to say, I have to do it all myself. So I actually with a visual impairment and trying to manage social media is almost impossible. So I now have a husband who helps me. Getting that traction, that international traction is quite challenging. I've been recovering from a big accident that happened a few years ago, just after the world tour.
Yeah.
And that has completely brought my work activities as far as the business was concerned to a halt. I've managed to do a little public speaking since then. But in reality, I'm pretty lucky to be alive. I'm even luckier not to be paralyzed from the neck down. So I'm very grateful that I'm still able to operate. I've spent that time which is some years now writing, and doing my YouTube channel, I do Facebook and so each week you know, you've got COVID over there, I've been blogging and writing my COVID cookbook, because it's just given me a little joy. And hopefully, I'm sharing a little pleasure with a few other people as I keep going, but I have been rebuilding my life again, for about the second, third or fourth time. So I'm looking forward, I hope to getting this book finalized and printed and onto an ebook. I'm looking forward perhaps to doing more public speaking, I'm looking forward to just sharing my experiences with more people in the future. So next year is looking very positive I think.
This book that you mentioned, you I think mentioned two books, I don't know whether I'm right. One is your COVID cookbook and the other is something like a memoir.
Yes, the COVID Cookbook, really I'm just blogging it, putting it on Facebook, so anybody can find it and it's all free. It's just what is hitting me each week, and a recipe slung on the back. The book I'm hopefully going to publish next year is the story of my Holman Prize will tour and interleaved with that is my experience of blindness and my own history, and then the survival of the accident and what's gone on from there. But I'm also if anybody's interested in it, I'm about to publish in early December, my free Christmas recipe booklet, which what I've been doing over the last 10 months is I've been doing online cookery demonstrations for our local Hampshire blind community. And they've been videoing them so I'm publishing all the recipes and with all the links to those videos, and some other videos I've done. And I'm just going to try and send them out you know, I'll put them in an email to you so you can send them out to anybody.
Sure.
It's just an opportunity tor me to say Happy Christmas to anyone I can and it's a little book, it's only about 20 pages, but I've done it as a Word document. So I hope it's as accessible as possible for as many people as possible.
Well Penny, thank you very much for giving me the time and the privilege and pleasure of speaking with you. Wish you the very best going forward.
Thank you, George.
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