First up, Big Ben. Now, I’d love to say I’ve felt every intricate detail of its iconic clock face, but sadly, that’s not quite how accessibility works. I don’t think Miss Molly would appreciate abseiling. When I reached out to the House of Commons, I asked if there were any tactile displays to help blind visitors understand the mechanics of Big Ben. While they don’t have anything quite like that yet, they did invite me to a tour - and honestly, I can’t wait. There’s something thrilling about standing beneath that enormous bell and feeling the vibration of the chimes shake through the air. Sound is everything to me, and in a way, Big Ben is one of the most accessible landmarks in the city—you don’t need sight to experience its presence. Navigating London can be chaotic, especially with my guide dog, Miss Molly. She’s not a London-trained dog, which means The Tube is tricky for us as she’s not trained on escalators, and I’d rather not risk her gorgeous, fluffy tail getting caught in one. So, it’s taxis and escalator-free stations only, which adds a whole extra layer of planning to any day out in the capital. There is a map for step-free stations, but what’s frustrating is the lack of information on which ones have stairs but no escalators.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Today is publication day and we're currently at Big Ben because we're dropping five books
00:04in landmarks that are in my book, in the world of Ella Jones, all around London for our followers to
00:09find. Good girl Molly Moo. Hiya! Just a single. Because of the hustle and bustle of London
00:18it's really hard to like understand when or where I'm gonna get a seat, if someone's gonna get up
00:26for me, if there's gonna be enough room for me and Miss Moles. She got me straight to a seat
00:31this time which was amazing. You know it's not easy to get around, there are hurdles, you know
00:37there are things like crossings that don't work, the spinning cones and the beeping noises that
00:42just aren't there, so then I have to cross the road and feel terrified with my guide dog. So
00:48there's a lot to learn, you know, I also am a travel journalist and I've been to Japan and
00:52many cities across the world, you know, have way more accessible streets and this is I guess just
00:58a call out to say we can make it better, we can make it easier and it shouldn't be a taboo, we
01:03can talk about disability and the first step in inclusion is to talk about something and that's
01:10what we need to do. Usually when I get on the bus I feel for the stop button and it's here and it's
01:16got a braille S on it which is really cool. There's a slope down, there we go Moles.
01:23Good girl. So many people, such a hustle and bustle. Showtime. Drop off two at Westminster Abbey
01:31because it's a massive landmark in the book for Ella Jones and her friends. Let's put it on that
01:36plant, yeah? What do you think, eh? I think my teenage self would not have believed that I'm
01:42holding a book with a guide dog on the front with a blind main character. I just, I had no sense of
01:48self and no self-worth, you know, I walk into shops and for the first time I was walking into
01:55places where people just saw my guide dog and not me, you know, taxi refusals, I was dealing with
02:01feeling different and people seeing me differently and, you know, battling all this mental health
02:06because blindness is such a thing that's a taboo in society so, you know, when I used to dream when
02:13I was a young girl I didn't believe that my dreams would ever come true and, yeah, today they are.
02:21Today we have a book with a guide dog on the front, with a fireball, you know, blindness is cool, you
02:28can have adventure stories with cool blind heroes on the front cover and, you know, we need to
02:35normalise blindness and normalise disability and this is what we're doing today.