Andrew Kay: Cast ne’er a clout

Getting spectacular

I was born with a squint, don’t laugh, it wasn’t bad but one eye was, and I believe still is, slightly lazier than the other.
For years I would attend the eye clinic on a regular basis only to be sent away with the soothing words that it would probably correct itself, which I guess in time it did.
From the age of seven I was discharged and never returned. I was of course relieved because back then the solution that other kids seemed to be given was a pair of clear plastic specs with one lens covered in flesh pink cloth sticking plaster. It was not a great look although years later I sat next to Adam Ant on a bus and he was wearing those very same clear plastic specs and somehow managed to pull the look off. To be honest, he could have been sporting a cabbage and a pint of custard and he would have looked good, he really was a very beautiful young man.
I didn’t need glasses but I sort of wished that I did because I thought that with them I might have managed to achieve just a splash of his glamorous charisma. Ah well, he obviously had good genes, and jeans!

It was much later in life that I started to struggle to read. I built up quite good arm muscles moving heavy books backwards and forwards in front of my eyes in the hope that at some point the text would become legible. Of course it did not and I had to make a visit to an optician.
Reading glasses they said, not very strong but strong enough to enable the comfortable digestion of a book again. I was delighted and for a few years reading glasses did the trick – except for one thing. I did have a tendency to forget them. There’s nothing more annoying than discovering that you need your specs and that you have put them down somewhere.
Now that somewhere could in fact be anywhere, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the office, in a restaurant, quite frankly they were left all over the place.
The next time I had a check up I discovered that my long vision was a little worse and I enquired about having varifocals. Now I know that the word varifocals is synonymous with getting old and I had terrible thoughts that if I got them I would have to move to Eastbourne or Worthing. Apologies to both as they are indeed very fine towns indeed with plenty going for them and that was a cheap and easy jibe.

Varifocals in fact gave me a new lease of life, I don’t mind wearing specs and I rather enjoy going in for my regular check up.
These days I go to Specky Wren which is in the entrance way to the newly regenerated London Road Open Market. I like that too.
The Specky Wren furnished me with the big red specs you see in my picture (look left). I loved them from day one, they had that great slightly mad professor look that goes so well with my mad professor hair.

The trouble is that my reading is now a bit worse, added to which I was struggling in the sun to read even a bus number and certainly couldn’t read anything on my phone.
So now the nice Specky Wrens have furnished me with new specs that solve not only the reading but also the sun problem. They darken in the sun and they get light again very quickly when I go indoors.
My only problem now is that as I write this the rain is driving in off the sea in the most unpleasant manner, especially as it is June. Can you get specs with windscreenwipers, I think you can in joke shops, but The Specky Wren is not a joke, it’s a very nice place with excellent professional advice and a great range of stylish frames at a variety of prices to suit all budgets. I’m no Adam Ant but my Specky Wren specs are pretty cool.
1-2 Marshalls Row, Brighton BN1 4JU, United Kingdom
01273 911191 www.thespeckywren.co.uk

MODO
The frames that I chose were from a range designed by a company called Modo Eyewear. I did a bit of research and discovered the following:
“MODO continues its dedication to social responsibility with our “Buy a Frame Give a Frame” program with the Seva Foundation through Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh (NNJS). For each MODO frame purchased, we will donate a frame to those in need as part of the World Health Organization Vision 2020 initiative.

The NNJS is credited with coordinating 90 percent of all eye care services in Nepal. Of the 2.2 million Nepali people seeking eye care consultations annually, 43% are potentially in need of eyeglasses, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). They specifically target the prevention of blindness and impaired vision due to uncorrected refractive error – simply the need for an eye exam and a pair of glasses. More than 600 million people around the world are blind or vision impaired because they do not have access to the eye examination and glasses they need.
Modo “Buy a Frame Give a Frame” program is a pledge to provide free spectacles to those in need.

We are partnering with Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh to reach the visually impaired in need of help and provide eye exams and proper eye-care.
Modo is eager to help improving the lives of children, men and women with low vision and giving them a chance to look at a brighter future”.
I was impressed by this, impressed by the policy of the manufacturer but also by the fact that the guys at The Specky Wren did not maximise on this excellent policy.