Radio host John Westland always had to visit his father with newspapers in hand.
It was a pre-requisite that you would read out the latest news and current affairs to him.
“For the last 10 years of his life my father was functionally blind,” he told Talking Vision host Sam Colley.
“He couldn’t read, couldn’t watch television but he could find his way around his house.
“And so every weekend one of the kids would visit, and his first request was always to read the newspapers.
“So we would get him up to speed with the information.”
It was how his father connected to the world outside and that stuck with John.
He set up a long-range radio to pick up Vision Australia Radio for his father, which would broadcast the contents of the papers every day.
“I know my father liked that he was hearing somebody who might have just lived down the street or might have lived in the next town, they were just ordinary people reading him the news without any sort of embellishment,” John said.
Working in radio all his life, primarily for the ABC’s international radio service, John wanted a chance to give back to the station that became so influential to his father.
He now helms the popular Vision Australia podcast Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and features on The Morning Paper Round – a daily update of the news featured in the local papers.
Celebrating World Radio Day on February 13, John says radio still plays an important role in people’s lives, even if they don’t realise it.
“I find you can use your mind better with radio than you can with television,” he said.
“Television is a kind of a mindless exercise. They have lots of talking head programs, which are essentially radio programs with pictures.
“I'd much prefer to make the pictures myself.”
Listen to the full interview in the player below:
Talking Vision is a weekly discussion of issues relating to blindness and low vision.
It includes stories of inspiration and achievement and information on services for the community.
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