‘Seeing’ a Polar Bear , a photo by TWAM – Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums on Flickr.

Here are three blind children examining a mounted polar bear at Sunderland Museum.

“To them, their fingers are eyes”

From 1913, John Alfred Charlton Deas, a former curator at Sunderland Museum, organised several handling sessions for the blind, first offering an invitation to the children from the Sunderland Council Blind School, to handle a few of the collections at Sunderland Museum, which was ‘eagerly accepted’.

Ref: TWCMS:K13838