Police Forensics Team Salvage Blind Authors' Inkless Novel Pages

Blind author Trish Vickers wrote 26 pages of her novel's first chapter when her son noticed she was writing without ink. Her manuscript was saved however after they took it to the Dorset Police department. A forensic team there worked on it in their spare time, and after 5 months they were able to recover the lost pages. Vickers said: “I think they used a combination of various lights at different angles to see if they could get the impression made by my pen. I am so happy, pleased and grateful. It was really nice of them and I want to thank them for helping me out.”

Comments

A Blind Eye...

[vAltyR]

Nice to see the police didn't turn a blind eye to a citizen in need.

Used a technique called "rubbing it with a pencil"

[crazyjj]

We're not at liberty to discuss the details of this amazing new forensic technique at this time. But rest assured that the $5 million grant you gave us last year to develop it did not go to waste--and most certainly was *not* just spent on booze, cool new squad cars, and trips to Hawaii.

Honest curiosity

[Anubis IV]

Sorry for the ignorance, but is it common for blind people to write at length using pen and paper? It strikes me as odd that someone would use a medium which they would not themselves be able to review later (excepting cases where review isn't necessary, such as for a short correspondence or the like). I'd have thought that a computer with a screen reader would be the preferred medium.

Re:Honest curiosity

[Kadagan AU]

My sister is blind, and has been for her whole life. She never writes by hand, and even if she writes her name the letters tend to be imperfect and disconnected. No one can fault her for it, but it's a challenge to maintain your place on the page. And she's not even completely blind, she has a very small amount of vision in one eye (she can mostly just see light and darkness).

If this woman is completely blind, I wouldn't expect too much detailed writing per page.. I can't imagine my sister getting more than a paragraph or so on a page if she were to try.

Re:Honest curiosity

[rHBa]

Diabetes sufferer Ms Vickers, 59, lost her sight seven years ago and turned to the world of her imagination for solace.

With a love of English poetry ditties were scribbed to entertain her mother over the years but it is only now she is embarking on her first novel.

However, she doesn’t type or use a computer but has a system of elastic bands that guide her to keep lines.

It appears she lost her eyesight later in life and (I'm assuming) had never learned to type before, she might find it easier to write with a pen/paper.

Re:Honest curiosity

[sunderland56]

She is 59 - so she grew up without computer knowledge - and she can't type. Learning computer skills at 59 while blind is probably a challenge.

If you RTFA there's a picture of her writing setup - physical guide lines on the paper - so her method has been thought out, it isn't just random scribbles.

Re:Honest curiosity

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, old person here. It's still strange She was writing by hand. Long before we had computers to do our writing, we still used keyboards. I know you kids might not be that familiar with them, but we called them 'typewriters'. They have braille versions of them, so a blind person could type pages they could proofread themselves years and years ago.

Good job Dorset PD

[HangingChad]

That was truly an upstanding thing to do.

Good Practice

[ShooterNeo]

Out of all the things the cops could do with their spare time (and I assume a small amount of public resources), I'd say that I fully agree with this one. They helped somebody out, got to practice obviously useful forensics skills, and they were practical actual science. No one told them what the words on the pages were supposed to say, they had to figure them out (with help from the author, perhaps)

First page of the novel

[Anonymous Coward]

Nudedi tecuda giruler debi dir pa felo rum. Hat fohete dano nitimel hen ti tafadis ranaman. Telie itep gacir madacu inominov cotarit tebisi idegu paset ru. Fiegipec hir sarehew xemita ra narop. Nadine tafa esisilo len eyip roco rufogec. Tanayi ricu rileri semec. Isira cetati retiv wi catec arar edadire cemih tetosir nim. Lesipi femap her aricet beter. Rey otinaras ruto sohat pol desa siwal neyatoc go funi. Non nixot aleyed nita. Gubalol leso seliraw wolelef hes otatufe? Wicedis saheco tiqa nariseg eni ro. Iro pep rana minili; nat depe gesiy edomigat. Nu ha alon sutot sociya aboreca somob gag. Oharekag masiede etorinur lu rapiebe hup fopup ahemunef rena rino. Mulewab ton iyecapi inetud irucato rapas? Fav agew piyieno rec def asor.

Re:First page of the novel

[Kozz]

It's clearly a slashdot reference. Just ask Google!

Re:Wait a tick

[blueg3]

Depending on the type of pen and the pressure used, that method may not be sensitive enough for good reconstruction of the data. However, since it's a destructive technique, if you try it first and it fails, you've ruined your ability to try any other techniques.

i hope the taxpayers...

[inerlogic]

.....bought her a pack of fucking pencils.....

Simple to anyone who's watched any dime store

[spads]

detective shows. You just shade over it with a pencil, revealing the indentations. Of course, first you make a xerox copy in case you corrupt the original.

Re:Warning:

[SJHillman]

He meant Mao, but his keyboard ran out of ink before it finished the top of the "o"

Re:Used a technique called "rubbing it with a penc

[SJHillman]

Not to mention how many times she could have revised it in the 5 months it took to recover. A 26 page paper was a lazy week (or mildly stressful weekend) in college.

But the Slashdot editors...

[6Yankee]

...couldn't even salvage the misplaced apostrophe. Maybe we can get Dorset Police to edit Slashdot in their spare time, since they like helping the blind?