My father, Peter Gosnell, who has died aged 96, spent a lifetime confounding perceptions of disability. He maintained his interest in art, history, music, sport and travel, campaigned in a conservation battle and, while working in government service, was at the forefront of the drive for equal employment rights in the 1950s. Peter joined the civil service in 1951 as a braille shorthand typist in the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government. He had been registered as a blind person two years earlier. He was one of the first six braillists to apply for promotion, of whom three were successful. Peter was the first to be placed in a post as secretary. He continued to blaze a trail and rose to be executive officer in the staff training division. As a member of the ministry’s art club, he had pictures hung in the Civil Service Art Clubs’ annual exhibitions, and his work was also shown by the Federation of British Artists, the Hesketh Hubbard Society and the Pastel Society. With an appetite for study and a love of London and its history, Peter researched topics including lamp-posts, bollards and pub names and, following a move to Woodberry Down, Hackney, local history. He guided friends and acquaintances on tours of London, often with visitors incredulous to find out that he was visually impaired. Embracing early retirement in 1982, he took a correspondence course in American history, then grasped physics and morse code to gain a full radio amateur’s licence enabling him to speak to hams around the world.
In 1985 the New River and Stoke Newington reservoirs were threatened with development. Peter was secretary of the campaign group that fought a long battle to save the system, now forming Woodberry Wetlands, opened in 2016. In 2020, he supported a strong but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to save a local tree from being felled, and his experience was included in the 2023 film The Happy Man Tree. Peter was born in London, the son of Christopher Gosnell, a leather worker, and Grace (nee Wilson), who ran a shop in Fulham – the family lived above the premises. The genetic disorder retinitis pigmentosa caused his sight to deteriorate during childhood, and his minimal schooling included two terms at Ensham school, which had provision for visually impaired children, and a period of wartime evacuation to Chichester. Returning home to Fulham he trained in gent’s hairdressing, and also attended a LCC youth club, where he held his own music appreciation class, gave talks to the thriving local gramophone society and was selected to take part in two BBC radio discussion series, To Start You Talking and Taking It Further. Peter recounted his experiences in two books, Some Sunny Day (1998) and Tales from a Corner Shop (2015), and countless audio recordings, including one for the Imperial War Museum. He had attended Arsenal matches since 1939, and represented disabled fans at Arsenal FC in 2011 when the club received an award for inclusivity. He attended all of the London-based 1966 World Cup matches, the London Olympics in 2012 and 1948. The range of concert artists he saw included Yehudi Menuhin, Louis Armstrong and, his last, in February, Alfa Mist. In 1951 he married June Stephens. She survives him, along with two daughters, my sister Anne and me, four grandchildren and a great-grandson.