A new start after 60: I lost my sight, fell in a canal - and became the writer I’d always wanted to be

Roger Cowell: ‘When I was 10, my teacher said I’d become a writer and finally I have.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

In 2019, Roger Cowell realised he was losing his vision. “When I was on holiday in Japan, one day I woke up and everyone’s faces had no features,” he says. “It was terrifying. As my sight deteriorated, it was like I was sitting in a dark room waiting for someone to turn the lights back on.”

He returned to the home he shares with his wife, Heather, in West Yorkshire and underwent tests to diagnose a genetic condition that was causing his central vision to disappear. By February 2020, he could only see through his peripheral vision and had to rely on help. “I was fiercely independent and I had to try to accept this new world,” he says. “I needed to find a different way to live.”