A visit from Her Royal Highness Sophie, Countess of Wessex GCVO

//A visit from Her Royal Highness Sophie, Countess of Wessex GCVO

A visit from Her Royal Highness Sophie, Countess of Wessex GCVO

We were never going to match the magnificence of the Tower Ballroom or Matcham’s finest theatrical creation, the Grand, for the media, Strictly speaking, writes Jacqui Morley, N-Vision press officer.

Even the local council’s Latest News update omitted N-Vision from the running order for a Royal visit to the resort (Blackpool – if the Tower wasn’t a big enough clue).

We were the third stop on the Royal route. There by Royal appointment given HRH Sophie, The Countess of Wessex’, abiding interest in sight loss support. 

And the charity’s Talking Newspaper got the scoop. A direct address to the visually impaired listeners of a newspaper which features the local press, the county mags, and more – by the Countess of Wessex. 

Good afternoon, I’m the Countess of Wessex and I’m visiting N-Vision today to meet clients, staff and volunteers to learn all about the services and support provide for local blind and partially sighted people.

I understand that the Talking News service is very important to all its listeners and each week keeps 258 of you up to date with national news and events and what’s happening in the local community. 

I’m impressed that over 140 volunteers give up their time to prepare, record and dispatch the Talking News each week. Like most charities N-Vision depends on volunteers to support and enhance the work they do for their beneficiaries, so I wish to take this opportunity to thank them all on your behalf.

I am pleased to be contributing to the recording of the Talking News and I hope you enjoy listening to this edition. Thank you for this opportunity of speaking to you. Goodbye.”

Off mic, the easy-going banter between The Countess and TN coordinator Johnny Gardener, veteran news reader Joy Killip – now in her mid 90s – and Helen Jones was a delight to witness. 

 “So – do I get the job?” (Countess of Wessex)

“You sound like a Brummy!” quipped TN coordinator Johnny Gardener.

The light, laughter and sheer joy HRH Sophie, The Countess of Wessex, brought on her visit to Blackpool-based sight loss support charity N-Vision is hard to convey in words. 

Look to the pictures instead on the charity’s social media @N_Vision_NW and Facebook. And now – the charity’s website. You may even spot a tweet or two courtesy of the Royal household social media team @RoyalFamily … which gave this PR (who tried to avoid covering Royal visits as a journalist)  a bigger buzz than loftily declaring, weeks earlier, that our press release had been ‘signed off by the Palace’. Oooh! 

Having finally stopped trying to be unobtrusive – and entreated to be allowed into the TN studio – what struck me is how like a news room it was, on any working day, discussing news, the main items,  just with a rather different (and immaculately turned out) editor-in-chief.

A bit of banter over Brummy accents with Johnny – the brummiest Brum of all. An admission that the first time the Countess went to Birmingham, for a friend’s wedding, long ago, she picked up the phrase, “Darren get back in your buggy”,  and can still do a passable impression in Brum  to this day  – although the Lancashire accent has defeated her. “It’s impossible.” 

Recollections of her childhood, her father having grown up in Devon, lots of visits there, getting attuned to the accents of Exmoor and Dartmoor while staying and playing with friends on a farm. “I’d go back home with a really broad Devonshire accent. My mother found it very hard to understand but I’d tuned my ear in at three.” Then a giggle at veteran volunteer News reader Joy’s comment that the team records the tide times too – because it wouldn’t do for dog walkers to get caught out. 

The Countess, a former top communications professional in her own right, owned up to “tweaking” the script with which she had been presented. Tweaked? It was a rewrite. And a good one. It was clear she was speaking from the heart to a community she has embraced as a result of her own experiences. The Countess is a global ambassador of eradicating avoidable sight loss, and the reasons are closest to her heart. 

Turned out ma’am is a real champion of the local press too. The Talking Newspaper majors on local news content from the Blackpool Gazette and allied weeklies along with coverage of Lancashire Life, Which? Consumer magazine,  sport, gardening, the society’s own news and much more. It’s a quality of life-line service for listeners, many of whom were previously readers.  They receive the newspaper by post,  recorded on digital audio plugs, virtually a free service, bar a nominal sign up.  Others download it online too via SoundCloud. 

 “Local papers are incredibly important in every region,” the Countess told the team comprising Johnny and volunteers Joy and Helen Jones. “They report news as it is – relevant news to the people in that locality.   It’s important to know what’s happening.”

Of course, the big story of the day – for the local press – was That Royal visit. Arriving mid-afternoon at N-Vision, the Blackpool Fylde and Wyre Blind Society, based at Squires Gate, barely a hop skip and a jump from the airport and a waiting helicopter, the Countess of Wessex had already tripped the light fantastic to the sounds of the Mighty Wurlitzer in the Tower Ballroom and loved every minute-  as a self-confessed Strictly fan – and toured the Grand Theatre too and enjoyed some live performances.

Both attractions are celebrating 125th birthdays.  At a mere 119 years old going on 120 it might have been easy for the independent sight loss support charity to feel like a bit of wallflower as the two tourism icons commanded the media’s interest – but that left the definitive scoop for the Talking Newspaper! And an open job offer – well, volunteer role – for a certain Royal next time HRH Sophie is back Up North… even if she can’t do the accent. Sorry, ma’am!

On a dreary day weather-wise,  Sophie Wessex brought her own brand of sunshine across the threshold of N-Vision, initially into the Princess Alexandra Home, warming residents’ hearts with her unaffected style, grace and empathy. 

From getting stuck into a craft session recycling plastic, to looking through souvenir editions of the mother-in-law’s coronation and Princess Alexandra’s wedding – within the namesake home the latter opened – to chatting to residents, staff, trustees and volunteers the Countess made time for everybody. Including two guide dogs – staff member Julie Barlow’s Jack and 16-year-old Anna Wignall’s Venice – who both broke protocol by giving HRH enthusiastic doggy kisses. 

The Countess kissed Jack right back,” said Julie.

“Excuse me, ma’am … but am I still on duty, mum?”

And the Countess also confided in Anna, whose mum Janet is a long-standing volunteer at the charity, how she wouldn’t trust her own Labrador as a guide dog – as he’d lead her into a pond. 

Anna, who presented a posy to the Countess, said: “I thought she was lovely. She was very interested in what I had to say – and she was very funny about her own dog.” 

Marion and James Shackleton, stopping over at the Princess Alexandra Home for a month’s holiday, couldn’t believe their luck in meeting the Countess, one of the hardest working royals.  “You come to Blackpool – and meet royalty!” That’s something to tell their son. “You’ll never guess who we met on holiday!”

Social coordinator at the charity Susannah Stephenson also got the chance to shake hands with the Countess with some very special gloves – with which a resident had previously shaken the hands of Her Majesty the Queen and the Queen Mother. A Royal hat trick. 

After visiting the Low Vision Centre, with community services/low vision senior manager Maria Kirkland and Low Vision support worker Stephanie Beasley showing the latest in high tech aids for those with impaired or reduced vision, the Countess sat in on a specialist Synapptic software session presented by volunteers for client Ann, with whom she chatted animatedly. 

The highlight of the tour, for many present, came when the Countess, escorted by vice chair of the board Barbara Whalley and CEO Ruth Lambert, stepped into a packed Sharples Hall, the social hub and heart of the charity,  to meet charity patron Ges Naylor, newly retired consultant ophthalmologist at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, board members, trustees, volunteers, staff members, supporters, fundraisers – and clients.  

The Countess posed with fellow members of Lions International – Fleetwood and Cleveleys Lions – as patron of the Lions Clubs of the British Isles since 2004. Local club members volunteer at the Talking News and in other areas. Back in 1925 inspirational activist Helen Keller, who became blind and deaf at the age of 19 months through illness, called upon Lions worldwide to “become Knights of the Blind in the Crusade against Darkness.” Lions have been campaigning to improve eye health and eye care for hundreds of millions of people ever since. 

As CEO Ruth, who asked the Countess to unveil a plaque in honour of the visit, put it: “The Countess could not have been nicer. She is a natural. She was utterly charming, engaged and engaging. It was clear that she had a very real interest in what we are doing – right across the sight loss community of charities nationally and internationally. There couldn’t be a better ambassador. And N-Vision couldn’t be more pleased.” 

Listen to a message from Her Royal Highness Sophie, recorded at our Talking Newspaper Studio here:

The job’s yours is you want it, ma’am – our press officer’s article on the recent visit by HRH Sophie, The Countess of Wessex:

https://www.entirelycharity.com/news/northwest/lancashire/n-vision-has-a-new-news-reader-by-royal-appointment-the-jobs-yours-if-you-want-it-maam9599

2019-10-23T13:21:00+00:00 October 16th, 2019|Latest News|