The talking book service that is licensed to thrill

Published on Monday 25 August 2008 21:11

THE connection between the fully sighted, if fictional, James Bond and visually impaired people is not the most obvious. Yet it was in evidence last Friday at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Two men in tuxedoes, armed, so it was said, with Walther PPK pistols, moved confidently amongst the guide dogs and the guests who had come to the book launch, the invitation marked "for your ears only."

The guns turned out to be water pistols but the little bit of fun from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) chimed with the other celebrations of Bondery that have been taking place at other events during the Festival season.

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, and there are Scottish connections aplenty.

The greatest Bond impersonator of them all, Sean Connery, was brought up in nearby Fountainbridge and was scheduled to appear at the Festival in person. In real life, Fleming had a Scottish grandfather and gave his hero an education at Edinburgh's Fettes College.

With this in mind, the RNIB took the opportunity presented by the Fleming centenary to launch their own talking book version of Sebastian Faulks's new novel, Devil May Care.

The legions of Bond fans include many who are blind and partially sighted. Now they too can hear for themselves just how well Faulks, a master parodist, has succeeded in capturing Fleming's flamboyant style and in crafting a credible if jaded 007.

Returned to duty in 1967 with Her Majesty's Secret Service after an enforced sabbatical, 007 is alarmed by the "bonfire whiff" of marijuana that previously he had only encountered "in the souks of the grubbier Moroccan towns" but that now he could smell as he drives his Bentley past the long haired youths thronging in Chelsea. Yet worse is to come when he arrives at HQ and Miss Moneypenny whispers in his ear that M has taken up yoga.

It is something of a coup for the RNIB to bring out their own talking book version of Devil May Care a mere three months after the printed version was published.

The speed of publication is thanks to the efforts of RNIB Scotland's Glasgow-based transcription service. After the book had been approved by the selection committee in Peterborough, the transcription service commissioned actor Crawford Logan, well-known for his work in radio drama, to narrate the book.

Margaret Hay, the audio transcription team leader, says: "I look forward to the time when all the RNIB's talking books will come out simultaneously with the print versions of newly published books."

This is something that, so far, they have managed to achieve only once, with the publication of AL Kennedy's Paradise at the 2004 Book Festival.

The RNIB publishes about 12 books a year on Scottish themes, and Glenda Parsons, also of the transcription service explains that "it makes sense to have this distinctive Scottish element in the RNIB's UK-wide service".

"These are usually with Scottish voices whether of an actor or of the author," she continues. "But we might use two voices, as we once did with a dialogue between father and son."

The next Scottish talking book, will probably be the highly recommended Scotland the Best by Peter Irving, published in the printed version by Collins.

Devil May Care is the latest in a long line of RNIB talking books that includes 12 previous Bond novels and John Legg, the director of RNIB Scotland, describes the scope of the service: "There are more than 13,000 titles in the talking books library, making it the largest unabridged audio collection of books in the UK. The most popular author is Cathrine Cookson."

Legg says that minority tastes such as fishing or railways are also catered for.

The average subscriber to the service reads three books every month, listening to them either on a dedicated player or on software downloaded on to their own computers.

Speaking about the system, John Legg is enthusiastic: "Fall asleep with your favourite author and you can find your place again. Read a history book and you can bookmark the references you need, " he says. The RNIB subsidises the service that, with the dedicated player, is a good deal more user-friendly than the standard audio versions available from commercial publishers.

The statistics cited by John Legg tell their own story: "Since starting the service the RNIB has issued more than 75 million talking books to people with sight problems. Currently we are issuing 8,000 a day to subscribers, the youngest of whom is six and the oldest over 100."

Roy Hayter is one such subscriber, 66 years old and registered blind after being struck by multiple sclerosis and eventually losing the use of both optic nerves. He discovered the Talking Books Service in 2003 and has been an avid listener ever since. Living in Ayrshire, he is fortunate that the social services department covers the costs of the RNIB subscription not on income grounds but simply on account of sight loss.

Legg claims there is still a "postcode lottery" in Scotland, as not every local authority is so enlightened.

Even with its understanding of what will best suit the interests of its subscribers, the talking books service cannot hope to cover more than a small fraction of the vast publishing output in the UK.

Currently only about 5 per cent of books are published in an audio version by commercial publishers and these tend to be more expensive than print. That is unsatisfactory, Roy Hayter tells me. He feels that the situation has hardly changed in the several years he has been listening to audiobooks.

For his part John Legg is hopeful that far more books will eventually go into audio but it is a case of the technology being ahead of what publishers are prepared to do for the visually impaired.

&#149 For RNIB Talking Book Service, e-mail: [e-mail] or tel: [phone]