Hereby was seen for many years Blind Fred. A sunny soul.
{Braille text beneath.}
That antique word "hereby" is the perfect choice to conjure up Blind Fred standing here selling matches to passers-by, in the 1920s and 30s. He's not buried here but we would date the plaque to about the time of his death, the 1930s.
We decided to have a go at deciphering the Braille ourselves. Our photo is not good enough for translation purposes but Tikichris has a good one. We used the British Library Braille alphabet and, after going down some blind alleys (sorry), we also discovered the Braille codes for: number, comma and full stop which enabled us to solve the puzzle. If you want to have a go, don't read any further:
"One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. John 9:25." That's an exact quote from the King James Bible - an appropriate text in more bible-literate times.
It was an interesting exercise and we bet kids would enjoy having a go at Braille. Doing it by feeling the dots would introduce a whole other level of difficulty and we take our hats off to people who can do that.
Site: Blind Fred (1 memorial)
E5, St John at Hackney Churchyard, junciton Churchwell Path/Sutton Place
After two visits we finally found this plaque with some guidance from our Hackney consultant, Hannah Greig. In our photo it is rather lost in the hedge behind the cat, see the cat?
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