It was eight o’ clock on Christmas morning, and Uncle Tom said he wanted to listen to the news. My 11-year-old self was wondering why grown-ups would be interested in the news when there were important things to be done, such as handing out presents. However, while I was only half-listening to the radio broadcast, I was confused that I had heard that report earlier.

My older brother, Colin, figured out what was happening. “Pete, it’s a tape recorder! We’ve got our tape recorder!” This was one of those rare moments when my inside gave an involuntary lurch (倾斜). Colin and I had both been blind from birth. In the late 1950s, tape recorders were definitely the top choice for blind kids, especially with the rise of rock ‘n’ roll.

But it wasn’t the first time I had been attracted to a tape recorder. I vividly remember walking into a room when I was four and hearing a child’s beautiful singing. It turned out that my dad had borrowed a tape recorder for preparing his projects. And for the first time, in the same way that a sighted child might react to seeing themselves in a mirror or a photograph, I got the sense of myself as a separate person who existed outside my head and was experienced by other people.

Then I became a broadcaster at school. I would wander around the school with my microphone, recording my thoughts in the style of the voices I heard on the radio. But the biggest challenge was not finding things to do with the tape recorder but taking it away from Colin. His generosity on the first day we got it did not extend to handing it over to his brother at school. “You’ll break it,” he would say.

But ten years later, I drew on the confidence gained from those early explorations of the sound and walked into a radio station, in the hopes of selling myself as a broadcast journalist. Eight years later, I presented my first report for BBC’s Six O’Clock News. I never thought that a Christmas present had changed my life.

Tina Leverton was 62 when she bought her first pair of ballet shoes. She said putting her feet into the soft leather was very emotional. She said: “I’ve waited a long time for it.”

A few days later, Leverton took her first ballet class after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper. It showed older women dancing in a class near Leverton’s house. “As I came in the door, I found a big smile on my face. From the minute I started, I felt like coming home.”

Leverton had longed to dance as a child. Sadly, her parents couldn’t afford ballet classes, for they were first-generation Indian immigrants, struggling to make a living in the UK. Her father was a train driver on the underground in London and her mother held two cleaning jobs. Nonetheless, she harboured her dream of being a ballerina (芭蕾舞女演员).

At her present age, a grand lie-lowering (俯卧撑) to the floor with bent knees-seemed to be out of the question. It took her three months to master the move: leaping and landing on one foot. “I love the struggle and the challenge of learning something new. People in their 60s have a lot of self-limiting beliefs: ‘I can’t do it,’ ‘I’m not good enough.’ And maybe they’re not good enough. But it doesn’t matter,” she said.

Ballet has been transformative. At a medical appointment a few months after Leverton’s first class, a nurse measured her at 163cm, half an inch taller than she had thought. She attributes (归因) the difference to improved posture. Her muscle tone has improved and her lower back pain has stopped. Dancing has also brought new friends. She met a group of older, more independent women and worked together towards a team award with the Royal Academy of Dance. And then, of course, there is the joyful feeling. “Ballet is all the therapy (治疗) I’ll ever need,” said Leverton.

My husband is not a big fan of kids, especially those without manners and those who misbehave.

One of our neighbours has 3 children and the oldest is Jacob. He was 5 at the time. For some reason, he took a liking to my husband. Every time he saw him, Jacob would wave, dash across the street and come to visit. Jacob would always ask so many questions. They would ride bikes together. They really seemed to get along well.

My husband had a sick cat that died at that time. It literally broke his heart and he grieved deeply for so long that even I was getting worried about him. He had no energy, cried and even quit his bike riding.

Five-year-old Jacob immediately noticed and asked me what was wrong. I told him about the loss of our cat and how my husband didn’t want to ride, or visit his friends. Jacob listened carefully without a word and ran back home.

The next day, the door bell rang. There was Jacob and his mum with a huge plate of homemade chocolate cookies. On top of that, Jacob had a huge paper card in his hand. Jacob’s mum explained, “Jacob came home yesterday and told me about your husband’s situation. He wanted to do something immediately to cheer him up and asked me to help him make chocolate cookies with the material left at home.” Jacob also asked his mum to write down a message on a piece of paper so he could copy it in his own handwriting. He drew a picture of my husband and the cat on the card and signed his name.

I gave him a hug before he ran off to find his friend and present his gift. After they left, I noticed tears in my husband’s eyes. Five-year-old Jacob’s thoughtfulness left a great impression on him.