Western Morning News (Saturday)
Colour blind Brad sees a vibrant new world at last
A55-YEAR-OLD upholsterer from Devon has been bowled over after seeing colours properly for the first time in his life.
Brad Leiper, from Starcross, was left almost speechless after a new pair of special spectacles enabled him to see vibrant reds, bright blues and shimmering golds for the first time.
Brad received delivery of a pair of hitech EnChroma glasses, which allow people with lack of colour vision to experience the vibrant hues they usually cannot see.
People with Duetan colour blindness see around 10% of over one million different hues and shades that people with normal vision can see. For sufferers colours appear dull, less vibrant and muted which can sometimes result in colours getting muddled up.
It made Brad’s job extremely challenging as he had to ask people around him to clarify colours when carrying out upholstery commissions. In the three years he’s beeng doing the job Brad admitted he had messed up a couple of times.
He said: “All of my rolls have the colours written on the end of them but the threads are not so easy, usually I have my wife here to tell me the correct colour but if I’m on my own I go next door to the garage and they tell me what colour is what.
“I messed up a couple of months ago on these panels that were meant to be black and burgundy. Those colours are pretty much the same to me. So I sewed them together and someone told me it wasn’t right and it was burgundy on burgundy.”
Brad first heard about the EnChroma glasses from his wife around four years ago but wasn’t sure whether they would work and with prices starting at around £170 he thought it was quite a lot of money to spend if it didn’t work.
Last year he took the plunge and brought a pair and had them shipped over from America. His wife captured the first time Brad tried on his glasses on video (You can see his reaction on our sister website, DevonLive).
His delight at discovering, for the first time in 55 years, the vibrancy of colour – even on items as mundane as a couple of cans of aerosol paint – is clear to see.
The EnChroma glasses for colour blindness contain special optical filters that enhance the clarity, vibrancy and range of colour and detail and depth perception for the colour-blind.
Brad said the colour which now stands out the most with his new glasses is red. He said: “I was wearing the glasses driving home and I saw a red letterbox and I just couldn’t believe how red it was! It’s still stuck in my mind. I’ve driven past it every single day and now it stands out, it’s so red!
“The colours that would usually blur are so vibrant and popping. For years I thought Shrek was yellow and everyone was looking at me like ‘no Brad he’s green’.”
Brad, moved to Devon 15 years ago and got into upholstery after seeing his wife do it. After giving it a go himself, he enjoyed it so much ‘making something out of nothing’ that he now has his own company SW Sewing. The EnChroma glasses Brad currently has are sunglasses that are not prescription lenses, meaning he has to wear them over his usual glasses.