Feature: Sportsman Richard Twose on sight loss and being a personal trainer

When Richard Twose lost his sight at 20, he felt his life was over. An active sportsman, he was told at school that if he spent as much time on his education as he did on his sport he’d be a genius.

It was a simple sneeze which led to Richard’s sight loss, splitting the veins in the back of his eyes while he was walking to work. “I’d been diabetic for most of my life and had had a bleed in my eye before then, but the sneeze ruptured my damaged veins completely,” he says.

He was diagnosed with glaucoma retinopathy, a form of sight loss linked to diabetes and seven operations later came away with just under half of his sight.

“I felt there was no point to life anymore,” he says, “and major depression kicked in.”

It was Hampshire charity Open Sight, which supports over 4,000 people with visual impairment that helped Richard believe he had a future.

“When Tom McInulty from Open Sight turned up on my doorstep with a guide dog, my first reaction was ‘how can a blind bloke help me?’,” says Richard.

“But Tom taught me how to deal with my sight loss and showed me that there was life out there. I just had to regain my confidence.”

In 2005, Richard was given a guide dog Bates, who transformed his life completely.

“At first it wasn’t easy,” he says. “I didn’t want to rely on a guide dog, and he picked up on that. But very soon we were the best of friends. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without him.”

That same year Richard took part in the National Blind Sailing Championships.

“I’d raced in dinghies for years with sight and was determined to compete again,” he says.

“My first trip out with visual impairment proved to me that I could still do it, and, relying on the wind on my face, the sounds of the sails and the balance of the boat, I was soon taking part in competitions across the UK.”

Since then he has competed at national championships and finished third in the blind world qualifiers.

But it’s not just on the water that Richard has excelled. Athletics are his other great passion in life, and two years after losing his sight he got on the track for the first time, enlisting the support of the City of Portsmouth Athletics Club and moving on to train with a specialist sprint coach.

“In 2009 I represented my country at the World Transplant Games in Australia,” he says. “I was especially proud of this, because I was the only visually impaired competitor.”

Today, Richard works as an advanced personal trainer and nutritionist with private clients in the Fareham and Portsmouth area. “I am one of a very few registered blind personal trainers in the UK and spend most of my week training fully-sighted people,” he says.

“I am also a professional football coach with the FA, working with sighted and visually-impaired amateur teams whenever I can.

“People say that when one door closes another opens – and if they don’t open for me, I boot them open! My mantra is ‘don’t count the blind man out’. When people say, ‘How can you do that: you’re blind?’, I say, ‘Just watch me!’”

For more information about personal training with Richard, contact him by email: richard@wtgt.org.uk

• The full version of Richard’s story is available in Open Sight’s Vision Of The Past book and audio book, priced at £10 and £6 respectively which tells the story of sight loss in Hampshire over the last 90 years through the words of local remarkable people.
A touring exhibition and talk is available for schools and community groups, with more information on 023 8064 1244.  W: vision-of-the-past-opensight.org.uk