David: Good afternoon and welcome to another instalment of my podcast and here today we are fortunate to have a mate of Georges, Jack Murphy or Jack Russell is his stage name. I’ll introduce him. How are you? Jack? Jack: Good thank you mate how’s yourself? David: I’m very well today Jack: That’s good. It’s nice weather for it David: you’re a musician they tell me. Jack: I try to be. I’ve played guitar since I was eight and that’s 25 years now and your friend George is a good mate of mine as well and we met through another thing we did together, which is dirt bike riding And we both discovered we had a passion for music and we have some ability so we thought why not let’s see what we can do and we been working together now for around 5-6 months all up and we’ve been doing a few Open mikes around the Gold Coast and the Brisbane area And getting a little bit of exposure and having some fun that’s what it’s all about David: Can you take me back to your life and when did you learn you were a little bit different from other kids Jack: I was born with a condition called Anophthalmia, which means basically you’re born without eyes. I guess I really didn’t know a lot about it until I was a toddler and started running into things and tripping over things and they were saying to me you can’t see Jack, you got to be careful and I didn’t really know what that meant until I got a bit older and I realise that I wasn’t running around as fast as the other kids and I was always bumping into things. As I say I was borne with Anophthalmia & there are some side effects, there can be some cognitive impairments and sometimes I wonder if I have a bit of that. [both Dave and Jack laugh] It was in my early childhood that I noticed that I wasn’t keeping up with the other kids And I was having more accidents than the rest of them and bashing myself up. That’s probably my first real recollection that’s because you can’t see. That’s what happens David. David: I guess that’s a very tough stage of life when you go through that realisation that you are a little bit different from other kids , even though how hard you try it seems to make things worse Jack: I went to a public school & when I got a bit older and I’m pretty short, I wasn’t a big kid and I use to find that people used to think it was funny to walk in front of me or if I was at the urinal someone would come from behind me and try and push me into the urinal, kids found that really amusing, or they would walk up behind me and tap me on the shoulder and walk away. When I was older. I broke someone’s arm for doing that [Jack laughs] David: you can only push somebody so far Jack: I did experience quite a lot of that at school and that was very hard to take and it was hard to make friends at school. It was like you had some sort of disease and people don’t want to talk to you David: in case I catch it Jack: Yeah, that’s right They think they’re blind. This is catching. It’s just that I can’t see there’s nothing else wrong with me. It became a bit of an issue because it becomes a bit of a mental issue because you start getting a bit down and get a bit angry and then you lash out at people that don’t deserve it sometimes because you got frustrated with it and that’s what I found a lot when I was a kid. Now I still get it every now and then, I was very fortunate that I had parents that really encouraged me to fit in with the sighted world, I learn to do as much as I could for myself. They spent a lot of time helping me on how to do things like how to use a knife properly how to fold your clothes, put all your clothes away after you’ve done the washing and do all that sort of stuff so they were very big on showing me how to do stuff And my dad was very big on showing me how to do stuff outside. I learnt to mow the yard, I learnt to use a whipper snipper and Mower and I look after my yard at home and things like that and I take pride in that because I see a lot of blind people that haven’t learned to do that stuff so I’m very fortunate that I have parents That support me in that area and wanted to see me excel in as much as possible with the rest of the world and keep that up as long as I can David: support is very important. I know I would’ve struggled more than I did if I didn’t have my parents. What sort of adaptions did you have as a child? Did you use a cane or did you have a dog? Jack: through my primary school years I was a bit naughty and I hadn’t used anything. I just got around. I knew the school that I went to very well And I learnt how to use my object perception and if you don’t know what that means the easiest way to describe object perception to somebody who can see, is that if you close your eyes and wave your hand in front of your face you’ll be able to feel there’s something in front of your face so when you’re walking around you can use it to see where doorways are or if you’re walking towards something big, my footsteps echoing back to me so then I can establish it’s a wall or a park truck so you use that and you learn to use that in conjunction with your guide dog or your cane so probably up to the age of around 12. I didn’t do much in the way of using a cane. I did have mobility Training they came out to the school and had mobility sessions with us so I use the cane during those lessons but then nine times out of 10 when I was walking around the school without it. When I got to high school I had to use it because the school was bigger and there were more poles and things to hit and I felt a bit unsafe without using it so I started using it Because there was a lot of people running between classes and so it was easy to get run over so I decided I just had to do it now as I got older. I actually got a German Shepherd around eight years ago and he’s an owner trainer assistance dog I trained him myself. I found that due to some of the work I do I can’t take him because he is a big boy & a lot of people get scared of him because he is a big dog. David: so what’s your work mainly involve Jack: I am a musician. I went to university and I got a bachelors of music at QET, I then recently completed a cert three in community services. Then I got involved in running several music programs in different disability organisations and I ran a choir for many years and we would go out and play in the community and shopping centres & functions and that was a very fulfilling rewarding job to see people really take to the music. Personally I studied to become a support worker because I want to see Blind people improve their life skills, improve their quality of life in learning to do things for themselves and I like to think as a support worker that I would be able to help people because I was very fortunate I learnt a lot of stuff and I think that I can pass that on to other people for them to improve their quality of life. David: that’s what it’s all about helping other people and if you’ve ever achieved a bit and you can maybe pass some things onto them Jack: that’s it, and there’s always a hope that you can And what works for me may not for somebody else, there’s always little challenges with everything & there’s more than one way to skin a cat as they say. David: do you have any other interests Jack: I play cricket. I was fortunate enough to represent my country in India in 2002, we went over for the World Cup David: that must’ve been very exciting. Jack: it was, but it was also very daunting being in a foreign country. It’s totally different. You got cars that are driving that close to you, you can feel exhaust coming from them. They’re that close to you and there’s lots of more people running everywhere. I remember one of the motels we stayed at there was a manhole missing from out the front. If I had of gone for a walk I would of ended up. going for a big swim [both Jack and Dave laugh] I lost a lot of my independence when being there for a couple of weeks , because I missed home as well and I couldn’t go and get myself a coffee or anything like that & that was challenging and I’m glad to say that I did enjoy seeing the way other people live. David: and how long have you played Blind cricket for and is that something you still do? Jack: yes that is something I still do & I represent Queensland and I played last season in the ICC The international inclusion championships I think that’s what it’s called. I think I’ve got that wrong but I think it’s called inclusion championships so we have the death side the blindside and we have the IV side for each state and it was the state competition and I represented Queensland, we didn’t win but we came third and that was better than what we could expect and that was quite good so I still do that. I love my music. That’s one of my passions. I love my motorbikes. I love my Harleys, I think I’m gonna buy a Harley anyway and find a girl that can ride it David: as a sighted person I don’t ride a motorbike but I can see some issues with a blind person riding a motorbike. Is that a fact do you get around that? Jack: I know when my brother actually got his license as a joke I went in there and asked him if they would braille up the learners test and the bloke turned around to me and said you got to be joking. I said no I can drive as long as there’s someone sitting next to me telling me when I’m coming up to a lighter corner. [both Dave & Jack laugh] We’ve actually started something recently & this is where I met George. We were going out to a thing called Blind dirt bike riding where we had dirt bikes and we had another guy riding behind you or a little Off to the right of you and we had headsets where we could communicate with each other so he was your navigator so we would ride around the track and when we came closer to the corner, say if we were going down the strait he would say halfway, 3 quarter way, slow down for the turn turning right in 3 2 1 lean right, now straighten up, so we found a way to get Blind people to experience that adrenaline and that feeling of writing it’s a great buzz and I love it and we try every couple weeks to get out there when we can. I’ve had a lot of experience riding on the back as a pillion. David: I remember being a little bit confused when George had his accident, I didn’t understand, what were you doing? [Dave & Jack both laugh] Jack: yep we all had a couple of stacks. I had one fall on my foot and broke a couple of toes. David: it’s all part of life Jack: well, that’s alright that can happen to you whether you are blind or sided. David: so your main interest are Bike riding and music and also cricket. Jack: that’s pretty much it. I enjoy socialising with my mates going out enjoy good music and having a few beers and that sort of thing so they’re probably my main passions music cricket and dirt bike riding. David: even for a sided person that would be a lot You need a few hobbies in life and what gets you up in the morning? Jack: I just want to be able to spread the word that Blind doesn’t mean you’re disabled. That blind doesn’t mean you’re any less of a person you are still capable of doing things and I like to get up and do that every day and prove that to myself improve it to other people that we are worthy of respect And being counted in society as people that can contribute because we can, and that’s what I like to do and show people. This is how you live. David: that’s a fairly amazing way to end our conversation unless you have any final thoughts Jack: I guess that covers it David: I’m sure I would like to get to know you a little bit better and catch up at some stage Jack: I’m often up with George if you’d like to come over and witness us having a jam David: that’s sounds very good, thank you for doing a voice recording on my podcast. Jack: you’re more than welcome thank you very much for having me {end of recorded interview} below is an email I received from Jack... Hi mate, upon listening to the interview, I realise that I mispronounced the championship I represented Queensland in in blind cricket. I called it the ICCs, when, in fact, I should’ve referred to the tournament as the NCIC‘s [National inclusion championships] If you could please chuck a post it note on the End of the transcript to reflect this that would be excellent mate. Cheers. Jac