July 9, 2025 • 28 mins
This week features part two of Sam's conversation with optometrist, researcher and low vision pioneer Ian Bailey, featuring stories around his postgraduate studies in Indiana, returning to the school of optometry in Melbourne and starting up the low vision clinic at the Association for the Blind in Kooyong.
After we hear from Ian, Vision Australia volunteer partnerships coordinator Jordan Ashby is on the show to tell us about a four part winter webinar series taking place every Monday this month through Telelink.
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:21):
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:39):
The really grew quickly. The waiting list soon got out that,
you know, part of it had to do with one
patient who was on every committee that had ever been invented,
and she was about my sixth or eighth patient. And
after I saw her and she was pleased with what
(00:59):
I did with her, the world knew that the clinic existed.
And so we very quickly developed a waiting list.
S2 (01:06):
Welcome to the program. This week we feature part two
of my conversation with Pioneering optometrist Ian Bailey, who chats
to me all about his time studying in Indiana. Returning
to Australia and setting up the Low Vision Clinic in
Kooyong for the Association for the blind. That conversation is
(01:29):
coming up very shortly, so make sure to stick around. Then,
after we hear from Ian, I'm joined by volunteer partnerships
coordinator Jordan Ashby to tell us about a winter webinar
series run through Vision Australia Telelink for the month of July.
I hope you'll enjoy this week's episode of Talking Vision.
(01:55):
Picking up where we left off last week and was
about to head back from London to Australia, but not
before a brief interlude in the USA. Let's hear a
bit more about that right now.
S3 (02:09):
Let me just say a quick thing about Indiana because
that was an important part of the whole story.
S2 (02:16):
So for sure.
S3 (02:17):
Let me just pick up. So I spent, um, almost
two years.
S2 (02:21):
You just left England? Yep.
S3 (02:23):
And one of my classmates from the School of Optometry
in Melbourne, Tony Adams, was doing his PhD at the
Indiana University. He came to London and said to me,
why don't you come through Indiana and spend a little
(02:46):
bit of time at the university on your way back
to Australia? If you come from this, if you come
for the summer, um, I could get you a a
teaching job and you'll be able to learn about contact lenses,
American style. Um, if you came for a year, you
might be able to do some courses and do some research, um,
and get yourself on the way to a master's degree.
(03:09):
And I said, well, that sounds good. So I went
to Indiana University, spent 12 months there and got a
lot of really good education in vision science. And while
I was at Indiana, Barry Cole, who was the head
of department from the University of Melbourne and visited Columbus, Ohio,
(03:32):
which is a state right next to Indiana. And while
he was there, there was a conference that, um, that
I went to, um, in Columbus, Ohio, met up with
Barry Cole and Barry Cole said, hey, when you come
back to Melbourne, would you like to take a job
and be in charge of the clinic at the School
(03:55):
of Optometry? Well, I didn't have anything to go back to. So, um,
I signed up for that and went back and began
my career at the Victorian College of Optometry, um, in Melbourne.
At this stage it was part of the university. It
gave a Bachelor of Applied Science degree on completion of
(04:17):
the optometry program, and I was running the clinic teaching
contact lenses, general optometry. And because I had had so
much extra exposure to other topics in England and Indiana,
I was teaching a lot of other stuff as well.
I was teaching some sophisticated vision science courses. And, um,
(04:41):
I was, um, I used to work probably 80 hours
a week on a, when I was, when I was
slacking off.
S2 (04:50):
Well, well, when you were young enough to do so. Certainly. Yeah.
S3 (04:55):
Yeah. And, um, and we, um, when we returned to
Australia in late 67, um, my wife was pregnant with
our first child, and she was born in February of 68. Anyhow,
I started my optometry career interested in contact lenses, did
(05:16):
some contact lens research, working with a really smart graduate student,
Leo Carney. And then he eventually became head of school
in Queensland. Um, but, um, I was super busy. Um,
but contact lenses were my were my specialty. Um, and, um,
(05:41):
and I stumbled out of contact lenses into low vision.
The story is a bit strange.
S2 (05:52):
We like strange stories.
S3 (05:54):
Yeah, that. It must have been, um, December of 1971. Um,
just on Christmas. Barry Cole, the head of school in the.
At the Victorian College of Optometry, University of Melbourne. John Wilson,
who was the head of Vision Australia or the Association
(06:17):
for the blind, as it used to be called, then
um um and Gerard Krock, who was head of ophthalmology, um,
had lunch together. Um, and I think they must have had, um,
at least one bottle of wine, um, because, um, Gerard
Krock and Barry Cole agreed to, um. Staff a low
(06:45):
vision clinic at the Kooyong um, at the Kooyong Centre. Now,
the Kooyong Centre had a large rehabilitation program, but they
didn't have, um, a sort of a clinical low vision program.
And John Wilson, um, said that, It. Um, a lot
(07:07):
of the optical stuff is going to be done by
optometrists and the ophthalmologists. Um, um, are not likely to
refer if it's an optometric only clinic, because in those days,
optometry and ophthalmology, um, they couldn't even be in the
same suburb together. They could, but they, um, um, ophthalmologists
(07:31):
weren't allowed by their organization to teach optometrists to um,
there was a sort of a no speaks, um, thing
between the two professions. Anyhow, um, after Gerard Kroc and
Barry Cole, uh, meeting with John Wilson agreed to, um,
(07:52):
set up a low vision clinic, um, Barry Cole came back, um,
and called me straight into his office and said, what
can we do about it? And I said, well, I
don't know who can staff stop that, because I don't
think anybody knows much about low vision. And I've been
teaching for lectures on low vision, but I don't know
(08:14):
much about it. I've found out that the textbooks are
pretty useless, and I don't know of anybody that will
have the the skills or knowledge to do anything about it.
But I ended up volunteering to do it because I
had an advantage, and my special advantage was because I
was in charge of the clinic at the University of Melbourne.
(08:37):
I had an advantage because I was in charge of
the clinic. I had been responsible for building a cabinet
in which all the low vision aids were to be kept.
And in order to build that cabinet, I had to
get all the low vision aids that were scattered all
around the place, had to get them all together and
(08:59):
look at their size and look at how many we had.
And so I got to understand what was there. Didn't
quite understand how they worked, but I, I knew about them. Um,
and so I said, look, I will take take it up. Um,
I'll spend, um, three months, six months, something like that,
(09:21):
working out what to do. Um, and then we'll train
somebody else to, um, take over and, um, and that's
how I got into low vision in February of 72.
That's sort of just about 6 or 8 weeks after
the meeting. I started the low vision clinic. I put
(09:43):
got a big, um, cart on that had been had
previously been used for holding toilet rolls. Um, filled it
to the brim with all the low vision aids and
some other optical optometric testing equipment. Um, and um went
out on Wednesdays to, um, to Kooyong to see patients. Now,
(10:08):
the Kooyong program had been going for almost 75 years, and, um,
there was a lot of activity there. A lot of
people came in each day for various rehabilitation activities. And
the coordinator of all the rehabilitation programs was Margaret Lawrence
(10:28):
or Margaret Biggs, as she was then. And Margaret and
I got along terrifically well. When I went out there
to see patients, I would spend the Wednesday morning seeing
two patients, and I would talk about them with Margaret
in the afternoon, because Margaret knew about the new these
(10:53):
patients beforehand, um, and knew their needs and knew their problems.
And we, um, took the approach that until I worked
out what I should be doing in the clinic, we
would keep the thing relatively secret. We wouldn't let people know.
We wouldn't advertise that the clinic was under operating, and
(11:14):
Margaret would choose the patients from those that were attending
the various rehabilitation programs, and she would pick out people
that she thought were suitable and needy, and they were
the patients that I was seeing. And so we had
these sessions, and I learned a lot of stuff very,
(11:34):
very quickly. And Margaret was great help. I learned and
became really familiar with the services, the rehabilitation services at Kooyong.
They had mobility and Braille and ADL activities of daily
living instructors. They had hairdressers, chiropodists. They had interest groups.
(12:02):
There was sort of language classes, music classes, um, a whole.
And there were sporting groups. Other handcrafts. There were a
whole lot of activities. And as we were seeing the patients, um,
I was learning about the various activities that were available
to the visually impaired people attending programs at the Association
(12:25):
for the blind, the clinic grew quickly. The waiting list, um,
soon got out that, you know, part of it had
to do with one patient who was on every committee
that had ever been invented. And she was, um, about
my sixth or eighth patient. And after I saw her
(12:50):
and she was pleased with what I did with her,
the world knew that the clinic existed. And so the
we very quickly developed a waiting list. Um, and um,
for the for the whole of 72. I think I
was the only optometrist there, but, um, towards the end
(13:12):
of 72, we decided we needed to add a couple
of more optometrists, and, um, there was, um, Tony Gibson
and Helen Robins, um, were recruited to work, um, at
the clinic, too. And I just loved working in the
low vision clinic. As we began the second year of
(13:34):
the clinic in 1973, I had been complaining to Barry Cole,
the head of the school in Melbourne, head of School
of Optometry, that my workload was far too high. Um,
I had taken on, um, the Kooyong clinic and I
(13:56):
had to take a day a week away from the
premises of the school to do the work at Kooyong,
but I still had no change in my teaching responsibilities
or my administrative responsibilities. Barry Cole had been promising me
that the following year he would, um, give me a
(14:19):
lighter list of assignments. And around about 4:00 in the
afternoon of February the 16th, 1973, I can remember the
date because it was my 10th wedding anniversary. A memorandum
came round from Barry Cole giving me my assignments for
the following academic year for the upcoming academic year, and
(14:44):
it was virtually unchanged. And I was bloody furious and depressed.
My wife and I had had made a reservation to
go to a new restaurant was called the Pomplamoose. It
was on the 20th floor of some insurance building down
(15:06):
in Collins Street. Um, and you had to book a
month ahead for the reservations. And we were to go there,
but I just didn't feel like celebrating anything. Um, but
we went, and I think it was after the first
bottle of wine. I just said, screw it all. Um,
(15:27):
I'm going to resign. So that.
S2 (15:29):
Night. Fair enough.
S3 (15:30):
Um, I memorably resigned. I had no idea what I
was going to do from there on out.
S2 (15:42):
Um, Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. That concludes part two of my conversation
with Ian Bailey. Make sure to tune in next week
for part three. We're in chats to us all about
(16:05):
what he got up to after moving on from the
Low Vision clinic in Kooyong. And as always, if you
missed any part of that conversation or you'd love to
hear it again. Talking vision is available on the podcast
app of your choice or through the Vision Australia library.
This month, Telelink is proud to present a series of
(16:28):
four webinars featuring four different individuals achieving great things within
the blind and low vision community. They're taking place every
Monday this July, and to find out a bit more
about each webinar, it's my great pleasure to welcome Volunteer
Partnerships Coordinator from Vision Australia, Jordan Ashby, to tell us
(16:51):
all about them. Jordan, welcome back to Talking vision. Thank
you very much for your time.
S4 (16:57):
I thank you for having me again, Sam.
S2 (16:59):
Now we're here today to talk about the winter webinar
series happening through Telelink. So tell us a bit about
this year's series for July.
S4 (17:09):
Yeah. So look, this year's series, I've actually taken a
bit of a page out of the Vision Australia playbook,
and I've gone for speakers that can talk on the
four pillars that we have advertised in the past that
are hugely beneficial for our organisation's values. So those are education, employment,
social inclusion and independence. Um, so all of the speakers
are kind of talking on one of those particular pillars. Uh,
(17:33):
and uh, yeah, that's been the focus of this particular
webinar series.
S2 (17:37):
Tell us a bit about the four speakers that we've
got lined up this year. So I'm quite exciting. Different personalities,
especially one of them has got quite a lot to offer.
S4 (17:49):
Yeah, definitely. Um, look, all of our speakers have bring
a wealth of knowledge, whether they're at the start of
their vision loss journey or they're obviously come out the
other side of a lot of these sort of things.
But I guess what I've tried to encourage from the
speakers that we've got along is a wealth of knowledge
in different areas and different ways of looking at different perspectives. Well,
(18:10):
our speaker this afternoon, Joe, when this goes to air,
we've already had that webinar. But Joe is a fantastic
speaker in the social inclusion space with a very long
career in the education sector, based up in Queensland, up
in Hervey Bay. Quite a community activist and doing a
lot of work around helping others with sight loss. Advocate
for themselves. Quite a unique perspective in the sense of
(18:33):
how she goes about it. Got a teaching background so
she's very, very comfortable talking to council. Different sort of
organisers within the area as well, and building that community spirit,
which is often sometimes lacking in some of these more
rural areas. So fantastic speaker. A speaker on Monday next
week is the one that you kind of alluded to. Um, huge,
(18:55):
huge resume. She's coming to us from her home in
Ireland at 11:00 at night. So making a huge commitment
to come and speak to our listeners. It'll be 9 a.m.
Monday next week for our listeners and our participants in
the webinar. However, um, she she it'll be, uh, 11:00
on a Sunday for her. She is, as I said,
(19:17):
one of those speakers where I've had the privilege of
speaking to a many number of people over the years
doing these sorts of things. But I guess every now
and then you come across one particular speaker that just
seems to have a different perspective on pretty much everything.
Fascinating character. Very, very great speaker. Then TEDx talks all
around the world. Businesswoman. Activist. She's actually the founder of
(19:39):
an organization called the valuable 500, which is the largest
CEO collective in business move for disability inclusion around the globe.
She actually launched this particular movement at the World Economic
Forum Davos Summit in 2019. And she's since signed up
500 multinational organizations, biggest CEOs in the world, 46 of
(20:00):
the fortune 500. And they've all committed to trying to
put on the leadership agenda, employing people with disabilities. So very,
very heavy in the employment pillar. And she's obviously an
adventurer as well. She traveled all around India on the
back of an elephant. Um, so very fascinating speaker. Really
looking forward to that one. I think it's going to
be an absolute joy. And as I said, I think
(20:22):
the benefit of these webinars is that you get to
provide people with different perspectives. And she's got an incredible
life story and a really, really great perspective. And, you know,
if you can get some of the largest organizations, CEOs
in a room and not come across preachy and have
them join up to some of these disability goals that
she's put in place with this organization. I think that
kind of tells you volumes about a person.
S2 (20:43):
And that name for people out there, that's Caroline Casey.
If you're interested in signing up to head along to
that webinar and lots of valuable insights and absolutely, it'll
be unforgettable. So certainly go check it out for everyone
out there for sure next Monday that's coming up now.
There's also a couple more later on in the month. Jordan.
(21:06):
So tell us a bit about those ones.
S4 (21:09):
Yeah, so our third speaker on the next Monday at
2:00 is a is a gentleman by the name of
David Walker. Uh, he's joining us from Victoria, quite a
very well known and distinguished Australian cultural historian. He's a
professor of Australian studies at Deakin University and a fellow
Academy of Social Sciences and Australian Academy of Humanities, also
(21:30):
known for like visiting universities in the US and all
around the world. Very distinguished author as well, once again
at a different point in his sight loss journey. So
he lost his sight back in 2004 as a result
of macular degeneration. As a and he was already a
published historian who had written many books at that particular
point in time, but then obviously going legally blind. It
(21:50):
kind of changed his perspective on things, especially the education
sector and how he could teach other people with disability.
And he also went on to right after he obviously
regained some of that confidence. He went back to writing
and rather than turning around and doing like he'd done
in the past, where he, you know, written about the
rise of Asia or other sort of history, cultural history,
(22:11):
he decided to take a more personal perspective and write
about his own family. And, you know, this guy is
a very, very skilled researcher. Obviously, whenever you go into
trying to discover your own history, there's a lot of
research and a lot of work that has to go
into that. And his is no exception. That was his book,
Not Dark Yet, which is in the Vision Australia library.
(22:33):
Fantastic read. Uh, and how much he goes into depth
and how far he tracks back his lineage in South
Australia to just in the late 19th century. He goes
back that far. But I guess what we're trying to
get across in the education pillar is this is a
gentleman that was quite distinguished in his field, that lost
his sight, and that also gained him the ability to
(22:54):
better teach other people wanting to learn history at Deakin Uni.
S2 (22:58):
And there's also a final guest for people out there
this July.
S4 (23:02):
Yeah, definitely. Um, quite a once again, a rather interesting gentleman.
Not somebody that's experienced sight loss, funnily enough. He is
actually a, uh, renowned specialist gaming developer, but he was
the engineering lead of AR gaming at Meta for many,
many years back in 2023. He decided, you know what?
I'm noticing a bit of a gap in the field.
(23:24):
There's just not a lot of inclusive games out there
for people with disability that are accessible, that are what
you would call low stress sort of games, that aren't
trying to exploit with different things like different purchases and
stuff like that on these games. So he decided he's
going to leave that field, and he created his own
organisation called Split Atom Labs, with a focus on creating inclusive,
(23:49):
casual games. And in 2025, his game Land of Libya,
which is a fantastic game for anyone that hasn't given
it a go. Definitely, I'd encourage you to. It's on
the App Store on Apple. Very inclusive. It actually was
actually a finalist of the Apple Design Awards because it's
a slow paced, exploration, first role playing game that rewards
(24:09):
people to do things in their own time and doesn't
look to exploit people with ads and different games and
different things like that.
S2 (24:15):
That's some Aaron Vernon. I'm going to be chatting to
Aaron in just a week's time. Actually, Jordan. So he's
going to be making an appearance on Talking Vision. So
you'll hear quite a lot of him if you head
along to the webinar and then tune in to Talking Vision.
And yeah, hear a little bit more about him. Might
might be talking about a little bit of different stuff
(24:37):
and we'll have a bit of a chat then. So
that'll be quite exciting. Now how can people find out
a little bit more about each guest or find out
a bit more about the webinars. Or maybe they'd love
to sign up. They're hearing this and thinking, oh my God, yeah, no,
that sounds absolutely fantastic. I'd love to head along to
1 or 2 or all of the remaining webinars. What's
(24:59):
the best way for them to do that?
S4 (25:01):
Yeah, so you're probably going to be seeing well, the
people are probably going to be seeing a lot of
sort of social media stuff out there about the webinars
as well. It is on the Vision Australia website. Also,
if you'd like to go in, if you look up
tele link webinar series on the Vision Australia website, that
will bring you through to these webinars and a registration
link where you can register anyone's free to register for these. Um,
(25:23):
they're not specific. So you can you can turn around,
you know, even if you haven't accessed Vision Australia services
in a little while or something like that. Anyone is
free to register for these webinars if you're social media inclined. There.
As I said, there are some stuff going up on
Facebook with the link as well that you can follow
straight through to the registration page as well. My best
bet would be to go on the Vision Australia website
(25:44):
and look up tele link Webinars. Winter series.
S2 (25:46):
Okay. And also you can get in touch with tele
link through phone and email. So if people would like
to contact the tele link team, you can head to
one 800 458 555. That's one 800 458 555 or
(26:07):
email telelink info at Vision Australia. That's Telelink info Vision Australia.
I've been speaking today with volunteer partnerships coordinator Jordan Ashby
from Vision Australia here to chat to me about this
month's series of winter webinars happening through Telelink. Jordan, thank
(26:32):
you so much for your time today. It was great
to catch up with you again and chat about the webinars.
S4 (26:38):
Amazing! Thank you for having me again, Sam.
S2 (26:46):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch anytime on our email at
Talking Vision at Vision Australia. That's talking vision all. One
(27:10):
word at Vision Australia dot. But until next week it's
Sam Corley saying bye for now.
S1 (27:20):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
From Vision Australia. This is talking vision. And now here's
your host Sam Colley.
S2 (00:31):
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here with you. And
for the next half hour we talk matters of blindness
and low vision.
S3 (00:39):
The really grew quickly. The waiting list soon got out that,
you know, part of it had to do with one
patient who was on every committee that had ever been invented,
and she was about my sixth or eighth patient. And
after I saw her and she was pleased with what
(00:59):
I did with her, the world knew that the clinic existed.
And so we very quickly developed a waiting list.
S2 (01:06):
Welcome to the program. This week we feature part two
of my conversation with Pioneering optometrist Ian Bailey, who chats
to me all about his time studying in Indiana. Returning
to Australia and setting up the Low Vision Clinic in
Kooyong for the Association for the blind. That conversation is
(01:29):
coming up very shortly, so make sure to stick around. Then,
after we hear from Ian, I'm joined by volunteer partnerships
coordinator Jordan Ashby to tell us about a winter webinar
series run through Vision Australia Telelink for the month of July.
I hope you'll enjoy this week's episode of Talking Vision.
(01:55):
Picking up where we left off last week and was
about to head back from London to Australia, but not
before a brief interlude in the USA. Let's hear a
bit more about that right now.
S3 (02:09):
Let me just say a quick thing about Indiana because
that was an important part of the whole story.
S2 (02:16):
So for sure.
S3 (02:17):
Let me just pick up. So I spent, um, almost
two years.
S2 (02:21):
You just left England? Yep.
S3 (02:23):
And one of my classmates from the School of Optometry
in Melbourne, Tony Adams, was doing his PhD at the
Indiana University. He came to London and said to me,
why don't you come through Indiana and spend a little
(02:46):
bit of time at the university on your way back
to Australia? If you come from this, if you come
for the summer, um, I could get you a a
teaching job and you'll be able to learn about contact lenses,
American style. Um, if you came for a year, you
might be able to do some courses and do some research, um,
and get yourself on the way to a master's degree.
(03:09):
And I said, well, that sounds good. So I went
to Indiana University, spent 12 months there and got a
lot of really good education in vision science. And while
I was at Indiana, Barry Cole, who was the head
of department from the University of Melbourne and visited Columbus, Ohio,
(03:32):
which is a state right next to Indiana. And while
he was there, there was a conference that, um, that
I went to, um, in Columbus, Ohio, met up with
Barry Cole and Barry Cole said, hey, when you come
back to Melbourne, would you like to take a job
and be in charge of the clinic at the School
(03:55):
of Optometry? Well, I didn't have anything to go back to. So, um,
I signed up for that and went back and began
my career at the Victorian College of Optometry, um, in Melbourne.
At this stage it was part of the university. It
gave a Bachelor of Applied Science degree on completion of
(04:17):
the optometry program, and I was running the clinic teaching
contact lenses, general optometry. And because I had had so
much extra exposure to other topics in England and Indiana,
I was teaching a lot of other stuff as well.
I was teaching some sophisticated vision science courses. And, um,
(04:41):
I was, um, I used to work probably 80 hours
a week on a, when I was, when I was
slacking off.
S2 (04:50):
Well, well, when you were young enough to do so. Certainly. Yeah.
S3 (04:55):
Yeah. And, um, and we, um, when we returned to
Australia in late 67, um, my wife was pregnant with
our first child, and she was born in February of 68. Anyhow,
I started my optometry career interested in contact lenses, did
(05:16):
some contact lens research, working with a really smart graduate student,
Leo Carney. And then he eventually became head of school
in Queensland. Um, but, um, I was super busy. Um,
but contact lenses were my were my specialty. Um, and, um,
(05:41):
and I stumbled out of contact lenses into low vision.
The story is a bit strange.
S2 (05:52):
We like strange stories.
S3 (05:54):
Yeah, that. It must have been, um, December of 1971. Um,
just on Christmas. Barry Cole, the head of school in the.
At the Victorian College of Optometry, University of Melbourne. John Wilson,
who was the head of Vision Australia or the Association
(06:17):
for the blind, as it used to be called, then
um um and Gerard Krock, who was head of ophthalmology, um,
had lunch together. Um, and I think they must have had, um,
at least one bottle of wine, um, because, um, Gerard
Krock and Barry Cole agreed to, um. Staff a low
(06:45):
vision clinic at the Kooyong um, at the Kooyong Centre. Now,
the Kooyong Centre had a large rehabilitation program, but they
didn't have, um, a sort of a clinical low vision program.
And John Wilson, um, said that, It. Um, a lot
(07:07):
of the optical stuff is going to be done by
optometrists and the ophthalmologists. Um, um, are not likely to
refer if it's an optometric only clinic, because in those days,
optometry and ophthalmology, um, they couldn't even be in the
same suburb together. They could, but they, um, um, ophthalmologists
(07:31):
weren't allowed by their organization to teach optometrists to um,
there was a sort of a no speaks, um, thing
between the two professions. Anyhow, um, after Gerard Kroc and
Barry Cole, uh, meeting with John Wilson agreed to, um,
(07:52):
set up a low vision clinic, um, Barry Cole came back, um,
and called me straight into his office and said, what
can we do about it? And I said, well, I
don't know who can staff stop that, because I don't
think anybody knows much about low vision. And I've been
teaching for lectures on low vision, but I don't know
(08:14):
much about it. I've found out that the textbooks are
pretty useless, and I don't know of anybody that will
have the the skills or knowledge to do anything about it.
But I ended up volunteering to do it because I
had an advantage, and my special advantage was because I
was in charge of the clinic at the University of Melbourne.
(08:37):
I had an advantage because I was in charge of
the clinic. I had been responsible for building a cabinet
in which all the low vision aids were to be kept.
And in order to build that cabinet, I had to
get all the low vision aids that were scattered all
around the place, had to get them all together and
(08:59):
look at their size and look at how many we had.
And so I got to understand what was there. Didn't
quite understand how they worked, but I, I knew about them. Um,
and so I said, look, I will take take it up. Um,
I'll spend, um, three months, six months, something like that,
(09:21):
working out what to do. Um, and then we'll train
somebody else to, um, take over and, um, and that's
how I got into low vision in February of 72.
That's sort of just about 6 or 8 weeks after
the meeting. I started the low vision clinic. I put
(09:43):
got a big, um, cart on that had been had
previously been used for holding toilet rolls. Um, filled it
to the brim with all the low vision aids and
some other optical optometric testing equipment. Um, and um went
out on Wednesdays to, um, to Kooyong to see patients. Now,
(10:08):
the Kooyong program had been going for almost 75 years, and, um,
there was a lot of activity there. A lot of
people came in each day for various rehabilitation activities. And
the coordinator of all the rehabilitation programs was Margaret Lawrence
(10:28):
or Margaret Biggs, as she was then. And Margaret and
I got along terrifically well. When I went out there
to see patients, I would spend the Wednesday morning seeing
two patients, and I would talk about them with Margaret
in the afternoon, because Margaret knew about the new these
(10:53):
patients beforehand, um, and knew their needs and knew their problems.
And we, um, took the approach that until I worked
out what I should be doing in the clinic, we
would keep the thing relatively secret. We wouldn't let people know.
We wouldn't advertise that the clinic was under operating, and
(11:14):
Margaret would choose the patients from those that were attending
the various rehabilitation programs, and she would pick out people
that she thought were suitable and needy, and they were
the patients that I was seeing. And so we had
these sessions, and I learned a lot of stuff very,
(11:34):
very quickly. And Margaret was great help. I learned and
became really familiar with the services, the rehabilitation services at Kooyong.
They had mobility and Braille and ADL activities of daily
living instructors. They had hairdressers, chiropodists. They had interest groups.
(12:02):
There was sort of language classes, music classes, um, a whole.
And there were sporting groups. Other handcrafts. There were a
whole lot of activities. And as we were seeing the patients, um,
I was learning about the various activities that were available
to the visually impaired people attending programs at the Association
(12:25):
for the blind, the clinic grew quickly. The waiting list, um,
soon got out that, you know, part of it had
to do with one patient who was on every committee
that had ever been invented. And she was, um, about
my sixth or eighth patient. And after I saw her
(12:50):
and she was pleased with what I did with her,
the world knew that the clinic existed. And so the
we very quickly developed a waiting list. Um, and um,
for the for the whole of 72. I think I
was the only optometrist there, but, um, towards the end
(13:12):
of 72, we decided we needed to add a couple
of more optometrists, and, um, there was, um, Tony Gibson
and Helen Robins, um, were recruited to work, um, at
the clinic, too. And I just loved working in the
low vision clinic. As we began the second year of
(13:34):
the clinic in 1973, I had been complaining to Barry Cole,
the head of the school in Melbourne, head of School
of Optometry, that my workload was far too high. Um,
I had taken on, um, the Kooyong clinic and I
(13:56):
had to take a day a week away from the
premises of the school to do the work at Kooyong,
but I still had no change in my teaching responsibilities
or my administrative responsibilities. Barry Cole had been promising me
that the following year he would, um, give me a
(14:19):
lighter list of assignments. And around about 4:00 in the
afternoon of February the 16th, 1973, I can remember the
date because it was my 10th wedding anniversary. A memorandum
came round from Barry Cole giving me my assignments for
the following academic year for the upcoming academic year, and
(14:44):
it was virtually unchanged. And I was bloody furious and depressed.
My wife and I had had made a reservation to
go to a new restaurant was called the Pomplamoose. It
was on the 20th floor of some insurance building down
(15:06):
in Collins Street. Um, and you had to book a
month ahead for the reservations. And we were to go there,
but I just didn't feel like celebrating anything. Um, but
we went, and I think it was after the first
bottle of wine. I just said, screw it all. Um,
(15:27):
I'm going to resign. So that.
S2 (15:29):
Night. Fair enough.
S3 (15:30):
Um, I memorably resigned. I had no idea what I
was going to do from there on out.
S2 (15:42):
Um, Sam Corley and you're listening to Talking Vision on
Vision Australia Radio. Associated stations of Reading Radio and the
Community Radio Network. That concludes part two of my conversation
with Ian Bailey. Make sure to tune in next week
for part three. We're in chats to us all about
(16:05):
what he got up to after moving on from the
Low Vision clinic in Kooyong. And as always, if you
missed any part of that conversation or you'd love to
hear it again. Talking vision is available on the podcast
app of your choice or through the Vision Australia library.
This month, Telelink is proud to present a series of
(16:28):
four webinars featuring four different individuals achieving great things within
the blind and low vision community. They're taking place every
Monday this July, and to find out a bit more
about each webinar, it's my great pleasure to welcome Volunteer
Partnerships Coordinator from Vision Australia, Jordan Ashby, to tell us
(16:51):
all about them. Jordan, welcome back to Talking vision. Thank
you very much for your time.
S4 (16:57):
I thank you for having me again, Sam.
S2 (16:59):
Now we're here today to talk about the winter webinar
series happening through Telelink. So tell us a bit about
this year's series for July.
S4 (17:09):
Yeah. So look, this year's series, I've actually taken a
bit of a page out of the Vision Australia playbook,
and I've gone for speakers that can talk on the
four pillars that we have advertised in the past that
are hugely beneficial for our organisation's values. So those are education, employment,
social inclusion and independence. Um, so all of the speakers
are kind of talking on one of those particular pillars. Uh,
(17:33):
and uh, yeah, that's been the focus of this particular
webinar series.
S2 (17:37):
Tell us a bit about the four speakers that we've
got lined up this year. So I'm quite exciting. Different personalities,
especially one of them has got quite a lot to offer.
S4 (17:49):
Yeah, definitely. Um, look, all of our speakers have bring
a wealth of knowledge, whether they're at the start of
their vision loss journey or they're obviously come out the
other side of a lot of these sort of things.
But I guess what I've tried to encourage from the
speakers that we've got along is a wealth of knowledge
in different areas and different ways of looking at different perspectives. Well,
(18:10):
our speaker this afternoon, Joe, when this goes to air,
we've already had that webinar. But Joe is a fantastic
speaker in the social inclusion space with a very long
career in the education sector, based up in Queensland, up
in Hervey Bay. Quite a community activist and doing a
lot of work around helping others with sight loss. Advocate
for themselves. Quite a unique perspective in the sense of
(18:33):
how she goes about it. Got a teaching background so
she's very, very comfortable talking to council. Different sort of
organisers within the area as well, and building that community spirit,
which is often sometimes lacking in some of these more
rural areas. So fantastic speaker. A speaker on Monday next
week is the one that you kind of alluded to. Um, huge,
(18:55):
huge resume. She's coming to us from her home in
Ireland at 11:00 at night. So making a huge commitment
to come and speak to our listeners. It'll be 9 a.m.
Monday next week for our listeners and our participants in
the webinar. However, um, she she it'll be, uh, 11:00
on a Sunday for her. She is, as I said,
(19:17):
one of those speakers where I've had the privilege of
speaking to a many number of people over the years
doing these sorts of things. But I guess every now
and then you come across one particular speaker that just
seems to have a different perspective on pretty much everything.
Fascinating character. Very, very great speaker. Then TEDx talks all
around the world. Businesswoman. Activist. She's actually the founder of
(19:39):
an organization called the valuable 500, which is the largest
CEO collective in business move for disability inclusion around the globe.
She actually launched this particular movement at the World Economic
Forum Davos Summit in 2019. And she's since signed up
500 multinational organizations, biggest CEOs in the world, 46 of
(20:00):
the fortune 500. And they've all committed to trying to
put on the leadership agenda, employing people with disabilities. So very,
very heavy in the employment pillar. And she's obviously an
adventurer as well. She traveled all around India on the
back of an elephant. Um, so very fascinating speaker. Really
looking forward to that one. I think it's going to
be an absolute joy. And as I said, I think
(20:22):
the benefit of these webinars is that you get to
provide people with different perspectives. And she's got an incredible
life story and a really, really great perspective. And, you know,
if you can get some of the largest organizations, CEOs
in a room and not come across preachy and have
them join up to some of these disability goals that
she's put in place with this organization. I think that
kind of tells you volumes about a person.
S2 (20:43):
And that name for people out there, that's Caroline Casey.
If you're interested in signing up to head along to
that webinar and lots of valuable insights and absolutely, it'll
be unforgettable. So certainly go check it out for everyone
out there for sure next Monday that's coming up now.
There's also a couple more later on in the month. Jordan.
(21:06):
So tell us a bit about those ones.
S4 (21:09):
Yeah, so our third speaker on the next Monday at
2:00 is a is a gentleman by the name of
David Walker. Uh, he's joining us from Victoria, quite a
very well known and distinguished Australian cultural historian. He's a
professor of Australian studies at Deakin University and a fellow
Academy of Social Sciences and Australian Academy of Humanities, also
(21:30):
known for like visiting universities in the US and all
around the world. Very distinguished author as well, once again
at a different point in his sight loss journey. So
he lost his sight back in 2004 as a result
of macular degeneration. As a and he was already a
published historian who had written many books at that particular
point in time, but then obviously going legally blind. It
(21:50):
kind of changed his perspective on things, especially the education
sector and how he could teach other people with disability.
And he also went on to right after he obviously
regained some of that confidence. He went back to writing
and rather than turning around and doing like he'd done
in the past, where he, you know, written about the
rise of Asia or other sort of history, cultural history,
(22:11):
he decided to take a more personal perspective and write
about his own family. And, you know, this guy is
a very, very skilled researcher. Obviously, whenever you go into
trying to discover your own history, there's a lot of
research and a lot of work that has to go
into that. And his is no exception. That was his book,
Not Dark Yet, which is in the Vision Australia library.
(22:33):
Fantastic read. Uh, and how much he goes into depth
and how far he tracks back his lineage in South
Australia to just in the late 19th century. He goes
back that far. But I guess what we're trying to
get across in the education pillar is this is a
gentleman that was quite distinguished in his field, that lost
his sight, and that also gained him the ability to
(22:54):
better teach other people wanting to learn history at Deakin Uni.
S2 (22:58):
And there's also a final guest for people out there
this July.
S4 (23:02):
Yeah, definitely. Um, quite a once again, a rather interesting gentleman.
Not somebody that's experienced sight loss, funnily enough. He is
actually a, uh, renowned specialist gaming developer, but he was
the engineering lead of AR gaming at Meta for many,
many years back in 2023. He decided, you know what?
I'm noticing a bit of a gap in the field.
(23:24):
There's just not a lot of inclusive games out there
for people with disability that are accessible, that are what
you would call low stress sort of games, that aren't
trying to exploit with different things like different purchases and
stuff like that on these games. So he decided he's
going to leave that field, and he created his own
organisation called Split Atom Labs, with a focus on creating inclusive,
(23:49):
casual games. And in 2025, his game Land of Libya,
which is a fantastic game for anyone that hasn't given
it a go. Definitely, I'd encourage you to. It's on
the App Store on Apple. Very inclusive. It actually was
actually a finalist of the Apple Design Awards because it's
a slow paced, exploration, first role playing game that rewards
(24:09):
people to do things in their own time and doesn't
look to exploit people with ads and different games and
different things like that.
S2 (24:15):
That's some Aaron Vernon. I'm going to be chatting to
Aaron in just a week's time. Actually, Jordan. So he's
going to be making an appearance on Talking Vision. So
you'll hear quite a lot of him if you head
along to the webinar and then tune in to Talking Vision.
And yeah, hear a little bit more about him. Might
might be talking about a little bit of different stuff
(24:37):
and we'll have a bit of a chat then. So
that'll be quite exciting. Now how can people find out
a little bit more about each guest or find out
a bit more about the webinars. Or maybe they'd love
to sign up. They're hearing this and thinking, oh my God, yeah, no,
that sounds absolutely fantastic. I'd love to head along to
1 or 2 or all of the remaining webinars. What's
(24:59):
the best way for them to do that?
S4 (25:01):
Yeah, so you're probably going to be seeing well, the
people are probably going to be seeing a lot of
sort of social media stuff out there about the webinars
as well. It is on the Vision Australia website. Also,
if you'd like to go in, if you look up
tele link webinar series on the Vision Australia website, that
will bring you through to these webinars and a registration
link where you can register anyone's free to register for these. Um,
(25:23):
they're not specific. So you can you can turn around,
you know, even if you haven't accessed Vision Australia services
in a little while or something like that. Anyone is
free to register for these webinars if you're social media inclined. There.
As I said, there are some stuff going up on
Facebook with the link as well that you can follow
straight through to the registration page as well. My best
bet would be to go on the Vision Australia website
(25:44):
and look up tele link Webinars. Winter series.
S2 (25:46):
Okay. And also you can get in touch with tele
link through phone and email. So if people would like
to contact the tele link team, you can head to
one 800 458 555. That's one 800 458 555 or
(26:07):
email telelink info at Vision Australia. That's Telelink info Vision Australia.
I've been speaking today with volunteer partnerships coordinator Jordan Ashby
from Vision Australia here to chat to me about this
month's series of winter webinars happening through Telelink. Jordan, thank
(26:32):
you so much for your time today. It was great
to catch up with you again and chat about the webinars.
S4 (26:38):
Amazing! Thank you for having me again, Sam.
S2 (26:46):
And that's all the time we have for today. You've
been listening to Talking Vision. Talking vision is a Vision
Australia radio production. Thanks to all involved with putting the
show together every week. And remember, we love hearing from you.
So please get in touch anytime on our email at
Talking Vision at Vision Australia. That's talking vision all. One
(27:10):
word at Vision Australia dot. But until next week it's
Sam Corley saying bye for now.
S1 (27:20):
You can contact Vision Australia by phoning us anytime during
business hours on one 384 746. That's one 384 746
or by visiting Vision Australia. That's Vision Australia.
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