“A gift that goes towards preventing blindness just seems so incredibly important”

“I became a supporter of Orbis many years ago after seeing a film about the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital. The film showed the plane flying into different countries to operate on people with vision problems, and volunteers were training the local medical teams too. I just thought it was fantastic.

“I was already aware of the impact of blindness. My Uncle Len went blind when he was about 60. I was staying with him at the time and saw first-hand the impact of somebody losing their sight. He was a very active man and up until then had worked as an inspector for the AA. He would be out on the road all the time. He loved driving. He would also take engines apart and put them back together again. He was always tinkering. Then suddenly he couldn’t. He had glaucoma but it was an operation that left a blood clot behind his eye and meant he never saw again.

“Ever since then I always had this concern about people losing their sight.

“My wife, Sharon, and I have become real champions for Orbis over the years. We once received some post from the charity which included a lovely picture of a little girl called Rachael. She lived in Ghana, and she had these big eyes and big specs. Rachael had a big impact on us both and we still have her picture on our kitchen noticeboard years later. Lots of people have asked us about her and that has always been an opportunity for us to tell them about the work of Orbis.

“When Sharon and I wrote our Wills we were adamant that some money would be left to charity, and that charity would be Orbis.

“When people in lower-income countries lose their sight, it must have a devastating effect on their lives and in particular on their ability to provide for themselves and their families. It saddens me that in so many cases their blindness could be reversed if the right medical support was available or even avoided in the first place if the necessary action had been taken in time.

“The idea that our gift would go towards preventing people going blind through education or an actual operation. That just seems so incredibly important.”