Hello, my name is Margaret and I live in the village of North Middleton near Gorebridge. I am a widow in my 70s. For 20 plus years I have had glaucoma in my right eye, now fairly advanced, and vision distortion in my left eye due to damage caused by a macular pucker. As a result of these conditions, I have distorted vision and little confidence to visit unfamiliar places alone.  

In April 2025, Lydia of Visibility Scotland rang me in response to a hospital referral. One of the things we discussed was the lack of support groups for the vision impaired in Midlothian, and my interest to start one in this area. Lydia encouraged me to do so and gave me the contact details of people who might help me to get the ball rolling. So, having received helpful information and encouragement, I set about finding a suitable venue.

My son-in-law, Simon, suggested trying Newbattle library which is part of the Newbattle Community Campus. I was delighted to discover that Jacqueline the library team leader was very interested to help get a group going, kindly offering support and tea, coffee and biscuits!  With the assistance of Simon and my daughter Clare, we came up with a title for the group, VISG  (Visually Impaired Support Group ). Then we designed and printed a poster, and with Simon’s help I posted it on town and village notice boards, schools, medical centres, churches and the Eye Pavilion. 

We decided on the start date of the 24th of September, I knew that such groups take a while to get going so I was pleasantly surprised when nine people attended our first meeting. We have since had four fortnightly meetings and now have 13 members. I originally thought that a social and information group for older people who were dealing with new sight loss would be helpful as often this can be very isolating and frightening. However, we are very delighted that on all four occasions three young people have also come to our meetings. They all have severe vision impairments, and their positive attitude continues to be an inspiration to the older members of the group. 

We’ve been visited by a number of representatives from different charities, most recently Lydia from Visibility Scotland, who gave information on the various services Visibility Scotland can provide. She also demonstrated some of the helpful devices which are available to help us cope with sight loss. We are hoping to start a similar group in Penicuik library. We already have agreement from the team leader Carol Hudson that a room can be made available for us, so now we are in the process of looking for volunteers for that group. 

It would be wonderful if in the future similar groups could be established across the Lothians and the Borders as such groups are very beneficial especially for those of us feeling apprehensive and isolated. If you know of anyone who is interested to start such a group I would strongly encourage them to get in touch with Visibility Scotland to discuss such a possibility.  I am also happy to talk with anyone who has any questions about setting up a group, just contact Visibility Scotland and ask them to put us in touch.

You can contact Visibility Scotland by calling 0800 987 1087 or emailing info@nullvisibilityscotland.org.uk