I was most upset the way the loss of eyesight was portrayed for theDiabetic. I felt it implied that all Diabetics are irresponsible and become Blindby their own fault. I have had Diabetes for 24 years, I considered myself to be wellcontrolled. I had my insulin on time, ate correctly on time, retained good blood sugar control. Three years ago I developed Retinopathy and an now registered Blind.It has not been easy.

The depression and guilt I feel was increased by this programme, and nowenforces the issue that most people assume that all Diabetics arediabolical.. I have had a big fight throughout my life with Diabetes,people thinking I am going to keel over and die at a moments notice.The publicity given by the Blinded programme re Retinopathy has made mysituation worse. I told my friends and family about these programmes,presuming they would help them to understand my needs and difficulties.My situation has been made a hundred times worse by the doctor explaining the Diabetics reasons for blindness. He clearly stated that it was due to inadequate care during adolescence, It was not made clear that all Diabetics do not follow this trend.Please do not allow Channel 4 to do this again.

Blind people should be approached and researched in detail by Channel 4 before another programme, and their experiences portrayed realistically.

I'm extremely upset by all the Blinded programmes.

I saw all of the celebrity journey to the London Eye, and most of the Moorfields programme. Even the name of the destination of the journey suggests: 'The Eyes Have it', and the programme suggested; 'What you see is what you get, and if you see bugger all, bugger you'. in the past, some ofus have knocked in touch for concentrating too much on over achievers, suchas polar explorers with guide huskeys, or Everest climbers with four-piececollapsible sherpahs, but there has to be a balance. i found it ratherdepressing to watch a programme whose agenda seemed to be to ram the messagedown my throat that blindness sucks. hearing sighted celebrities like SeanHughes shouting out at the top of his voice: 'Can somebody help me! i don'tknow where I am!' surely gives blind people a very bad press. Gail Porterbeing guided into a lamp-post was an interesting one. I didn't get whetherthis was done deliberately or incompetently, but I've never had it happen tome. But the last straw was hearing Porter burst into tears and say how gladshe was to be sighted, and how relieved she was that she'd never have towear those glasses again. There is a school of thought that says that ifyou present a disability as a great disaster, people may be more inclinednot only to be afraid of the idea of disability itself, but to avoid itsmanifestations, that is the people who live with disabilities. All in all,if they wanted to give the messages that blindness was a thing to be afraidof, blind people were to be treated as poor unfortunates or to be avoided atall costs, and above all that they have no place in the media of Television,I don't think they could have done a better job.

And what's all this with the Moorfields programme? i spent a time inMoorfields, and the fellow patients I met were all in there through no faultof their own. Yet, for the sake of sensationalism, they choose to featureone person in hospital because he hadn't takencare of his diet with theresult that his diabetes had got out of control, and a guy who accidentallyshoots himself in the eye with a nail gun! What I think Channel 4 needs,besides a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, or at least a kick in thebutt, is more representation of blindness like the braille-reading countdownwinner; more input by blind people into programmes about us; oh yes, and didI say a kick in the butt?

Yes, you're right, how wonderful to be sighted, and, as Neil Innis famouslywrote, how sweet to be an idiot.

I am writing to make a few comments about the series currently running onChannel 4 about blindness. After watching the last two episodes of thisdocumentary its my opinion that the show is very depressing, has shown apoor representation of people suffering from sight loss and has left viewerswith a lot of misconceptions regarding eye conditions and the impact ofblindness on an individual and family.

As a recently qualified Rehabilitation Worker I would hope that none of myclients or anyone with a sight problem watches it as they could find itquite distressing. In the shows so far there has been no evidence of thesupport that is available to people during such a traumatic time nor anyevidence of visually impaired people who are mobile, working, independentand happy with life in general! It is almost like after a visit toMoorfields that is the end of your life. I am hoping the episode of "BlindMan's Bluff" does not show stereotypes or undermine how difficult it is forpeople to travel independently when their vision is poor.

It would be interesting to hear other people's points of view.

Love the web site - recommending it to everyone I know!

just a quickie to say, you would never attempt a journey with all those stops, you would go direct.

it just shows what everyday living habits we have to put up with, being ignoredwhen you know full well there is someone stood near.

Did you see any of the moorfields documentary? Lots ofclose-ups on this rather odd little blind lad called Toby as he had glass eyes fitted, taken out, refitted, screaming, taken out again. Yuck.

dismal wasn't it. probably set back the fight for emancipation for years - Imean, how many people do we know who just shout out demands for informationin otherwise quiet train carriages? Pity none of the rather limp sightedspecimens around had the presence of mind to simply lie to the nauseatingthree about their whereabouts.

Best bit however was when Sean what ever his name is (and who is he by theway) realised that the cameraman was in the bog with him.

Top emetic moment in my view had to be when Porter burst into tears - howlong had she been rehearsing that one?

I think the programme shown on Channel 4 last Thursday about blindness was terrible.

Firstly, the bloke first shown who was blinded from a bomb; he should begrateful for the number of years he could see.

The boy called Toby who's 11 and lives in London should not only be toldabout the passing lorry but put under it.He does not give a good impression of blind people.I don't know about you, or blind people you know, but I didn't ask aboutwhat was passing me in the street at 11, as I knew by then.I think Toby has other learning problems.His piano playing was terrible and exactly how sighted people think of blindpeople.

Today's programme has celebrities pretending to be blind. Wouldn't it havebeen more factual to have had some blind people doing a difficult journey bytrain rather than sighted people? I think the answers is yes.

I'd be interested to hear what other blind and visually impaired peoplethink about the programmes.

Did you hear the producer of 'Blinded' on last Tuesday's 'In Touch' on radio four. He made a complete dick of himself (if he hadn't already done that through the programmes). He reassured us all that the series wasn't being negative about blindness, referring to an eleven year-old blind boy who was "extremely positive". Fine. I would have accepted that. But then he went onto talk about how "brave" and "charming" this kid was. It left me screaming at my radio! And the worst part of it all was that Peter White didn't even bother to tell him how patronising he was being! What the hell will they do next?

More on the Blinded season:
Main Blinded season page
Celebrity Blind Man's Buff
EXCLUSIVE: next year's Blinded season
Your emails to us about the season

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