Volunteer builders transform home of visually impaired Thatcham man

A visually impaired man is overjoyed after volunteer workers stepped in to complete his home renovation he started more than a year ago.

Self-employed landscaper Simon Taylor had been due to redecorate his Thatcham home, where he and his fiancée Debi Richens have lived for the past 18 years.

But since losing his vision, everything changed for the couple.

Mr Taylor was forced to close his business and could not finish the work he had started.

“I can do basic tasks around the house, but obviously I’ll never drive again,” he told newburytoday.

“I’m in the position of itching to get out to work but not being able to find anything suitable.”

Miss Richens added: “[The renovation] never got done and I didn’t quite know how we were going to do it, because everything changed without his income.”

But after contacting the Royal National Institute of Blind People, Mr Taylor was referred to Band of Builders, a charity which completes practical projects for members of the UK construction industry and their families who are battling illness or injury.

A team of builders then completely transformed his home in less than week.

“I keep stopping and thinking ‘am I in the same house?’. It’s like walking into a new home,” said Miss Richens.

The small team of volunteers – some of whom made daily five-hour round trips – painted the halls, stairs and landing and fitted new oak doors for all the upstairs rooms.

“I cannot thank the team from Band of Builders enough for their commitment and dedication, with some travelling through the floods to get here every day,” she said.

This is the 40th project completed by the charity, overseen by project manager Ben Russell.

“I’ll never forget the looks on Simon and Debi’s faces when they saw the completed project,” he said.

“The team and I, including Kaisha, Scott, Dave and David, were happy to give a bit of our time to do something for somebody else that meant the world to them.”

Mr Taylor said of the finished works: “They were absolutely fantastic tradesmen and have done a brilliant job, something I never would have been able to do because of my eyesight.”

Mr Taylor first started noticing blurred vision in his right eye in December 2022.

He eventually went to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a macular hole – a small gap that opens at the centre of the retina in the macula.

His right eye was operated on the following April.

“The first surgery should have happened in December, but then the nurses’ strike happened, and it got cancelled,” explained Miss Richens.

“It was downgraded, and he wasn’t told why. It was rescheduled to April 2023 and then he had to have a month off to recover from that.”

But after noticing a brief improvement, his condition worsened.

That August, he suffered two retinal detachments, where the thin layer at the back of an eye becomes loose.

Mr Taylor endured four operations in total.

Recuperation after the first two involved lying face down 14 hours a day for 10 days.

Around the same time, he developed a macular hole in his left eye, but surgery was not recommended due to his vision loss in his right eye.

He is now almost totally blind in his right eye, with only 30 per cent vision in his left.

He holds a Certificate of Visual Impairment and is registered as sight impaired with West Berkshire Council.

Band of Builders started in 2016 after its founder took to social media to ask for help renovating the home of a close friend and colleague, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The response from tradespeople across the UK saw the project completed.

The charity has since grown to receive multiple awards and national recognition.