Husbands to do 'blind' walk for sight loss charity

A couple is taking on a 10-mile (16km) "blind walk" challenge to raise vital funds for a sight loss charity.

Andreas Findlow, from Banbury, who has been blind for 9 years, and his husband Darren will walk around the county in aid of MyVision Oxfordshire on 21 June.

Darren has decided on completing the walk blindfolded and will be guided by a friend.

He said that was the "little layer of difficulty" he had decided to add to the challenge.

Findlow, who works for MyVision Oxfordshire, said he had been born with misshapen eyes and "there's nothing right with my eyes, really, inside".

"My retinas were detached almost from birth and that's why I lost my sight in my left eye when I was eight months old," he said, adding that his right eye retina had also detached nine years ago.

They will have two different guides as Darren is the one who usually guides his husband.

"We start off at Oxford University Rugby Club and it follows river down to Iffley," Darren said of the route.

He joked during the BBC Radio Oxford interview with Adam Ball that he had to either do the walk or "jump out of a plane at some point".

"I can walk 10 miles, that'd be no problem but ... [I thought], 'Let's add a little layer of difficulty to it'."

Darren said he had decided not to do too much training with the blindfold.

He had tested it and his friend had verified he could not see out of it, so that there would be no cheating.

"Over the four or five years we've been together we've worked out our own language," he added.

"When we're out on the road, it's like curb, step, lip up, lip down - little things in our language that Andreas knows what to anticipate if I use these certain words.

"It's gone for me."

Findlow said it would be "very interesting" to observe what his husband would make of the walk.

"Something that is invisible and people don't always realise is when you're blind or visually impaired, you have to compensate by using a lot of mental energy, which can be very tiring indeed".