Seeing for yourself

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much…”

Helen Keller

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia Alabama in 1880. At 19 months she suffered a febrile illness, probably meningicoccal meningitis, which left her blind and deaf. For the rest of her life she her communication input was only by touch. None of this was enough to stop her becoming an famous international speaker and author. A groundbreaking advocate for the disabled, she was also known as an outspoken suffragist, pacifist, socialist and birth controllist. Kelller travelled to over 40 countries, including Australia in 1948. She shocked her hosts at the Royal Sydney Industrial Blind Institute by announcing publicly that services for the blind in Australia were substandard. There is a small plaque commemorating her visit to Adelaide in that year. Somewhat bizarrely it can be found in the wine tunnels of Magill Estate. I am particularly taken by the irony of the inscription. #tunnelvision #letsmakelemonade