My childhood experience with refractive error

“I’d just stare at the whiteboard, unable to see the words and think it was normal.

When I started having problems with my eyesight, schoolteachers noticed I was falling behind with my reading skills, but they assumed I’d lost interest in books. However, the stacks of Jeremy Strong and Roald Dahl stories in my bedroom revealed otherwise.

My complaints that I couldn’t make out or understand the teacher’s handwriting were also met with accusations that I wasn’t paying enough attention in class. No one at school considered that there could be a problem with my vision.

I had my first eye test when I was nine years old. The optician began by showing me the Snellen eye test chart. (Named after the Dutch ophthalmologist Herman Snellen, who developed it in 1862.) If you’ve been to the opticians, you’ve probably read from this chart too: it has several rows of letters, starting with one large letter.

Even squinting, I could only just about read the large letter in the top row. I remember feeling so embarrassed. Not knowing much about the role of an optician, I had expected to hear them say the familiar phrase ‘you need to catch up with your reading’.

All the other vision tests I did that day showed that I could read perfectly. At the end of the appointment, the optician told me I was short-sighted: I could see things up close, but not at a distance.

Later in life, I learned the name for my visual impairment was refractive error, and I had myopia (short-sightedness). On the same day as my first eye test, my brother was diagnosed with hyperopia (long-sightedness), meaning he struggled to see objects up close but could see things clearly at a distance. Years later, he was also diagnosed with astigmatism, which is caused by irregular curves of the cornea.

It was a huge relief to hear I wasn’t the problem – I just needed a pair of glasses. I loved reading and was always keen to learn, so being perceived as not trying my best at school, along with teasing from other children, had left me feeling isolated, withdrawn and lacking confidence.

When I got my first pair of glasses, I had recently discovered the Harry Potter books. I was proud that my new spectacles bore the HP logo and had lightning bolts along the arms. Back at school on Monday, everything felt so much easier: the writing on the whiteboard was crystal clear, and the football coming towards me didn’t magically appear out of thin air.

When I was growing up, I wanted to race dirt bikes or be a musician. Wearing a pair of glasses helped me to do both. I can ride my dirt bike safely and skilfully navigate the sharp corners of the racetrack. As a musician, hearing fans cheering while I’m onstage is something I never forget, but seeing the hundreds of faces in the crowd makes it all the sweeter.