Alex: This episode we’re hearing a story about first impressions – and why it really matters to look beyond them.

Gavin: They didn't have any of that chance to have the empathy, they didn't have the chance to have the familiarity, but they had a chance to stare. And that's what they chose to do. And it hurt me.

Alex: Growing up, Gavin Neate was the middle of three. He’s got an older brother and a younger sister.

Gavin: We squabbled a lot, we fought a lot. And my mum would always have to sort of separate us and try and balance things out evenly and make sure that we all got something when, when something was being given out.

Alex: Let’s say the kids were getting a chocolate bar – a rare treat in the Neate household.

Gavin: Instead of just breaking it in half and giving a bit to one and a bit to the other, and squabbling over the fact that one of us got a bit more than the other, she would pass the Mars bar to one of us and give us a knife and say, one of you cut it, and the other one, choose which half you want. And that was like whoa, you've never seen two boys measuring a Mars bar as efficiently as we did back then which was like, right, that is right in the middle

Alex: All parents try to instil principles of fairness in their children.

Gavin: But my mother had like, just in gold. And she just, she– everything was about equality and fairness and not just with the children just in her life. My mother is the sort of person that if she had a TV in the house, but no signal, she would still pay her TV licence, because she knows that that money will go towards somebody else's programming.

Alex: Gavin thinks his strong sense of fairness in life might be a mix of nature and nurture.

Gavin: I don't believe in horoscopes but I was always told you're a Libra and there must be this balance in your life – you you you live with balance. Now people who believe in horoscopes would say I'm like this because I'm a Libra and but it may be i i took the idea of being a Libra and went there has to be balance in my life.

Alex: Gavin didn’t know what he wanted to do when he left school. His mum took him to the careers office at the Royal Air Force. The man there asked Gavin if he wanted to become a police officer.

Gavin: And I said, well, not really. He said, Well, what about a police dog handler? Now, dogs. My father was in the mountain rescue team when I was growing up. And we were around mountain rescue dogs, and I loved mountain rescue dogs, and the fact that they were saving and helping people was just brilliant. So I thought, yeah, I could be a police dog handler in the RAF.

Alex: Gavin joined up, did his basic training and then specialised as a police dog handler. He was based in Scotland, but also spent time in Cyprus, Alaska and the Falkland Islands. His last posting was in Fife, aged 27.

Gavin: I kind of knew that I didn't want to stay in the forces. I kind of knew that I wanted to do something that I felt was giving something back or that had more of a social conscience to it.

Alex: He started volunteering at a Guide Dogs for the Blind centre.

Gavin: And it wasn't long before I found that as much as I liked being around the dogs and could train them and knew how to interact with them. I actually found I was drawn towards interacting with people.

Alex: He got a job as a guide dog mobility instructor. He trained dogs to become guides, and he also helped people to work with their new guide dogs.

Gavin: Part of the work as a guide dog mobility instructor is that you go to places that they need to go to. You go somewhere, and you follow behind, and you see how they get there. So how do they get from A to B? And then how do they arrive? And then how do they carry out the tasks that they need to carry out when they actually arrive.

Alex: Gavin had the skills – but the role was still a steep learning curve for him. There was one person in particular who helped him out in those early days.

Gavin: Linda was on reception. And she was gregarious and friendly, and charismatic, and smiley, and probably about 20 or 30 years older than I was at the time, so maybe 50, 55 years old, something like that. And she was just really, really friendly.

Alex: The first time they met, Gavin was worried he would say the wrong thing. He had had very little experience interacting with blind or partially sighted people.

Gavin: I remember Linda walking in the door, and I kind of think just, I felt embarrassed and nervous. And then I felt myself avoiding words like ‘Do you see what I mean?’ Or, or trying not to say things like ‘it's over there’ or, and everything about my natural normal conversation just disappeared, because I realised I was just anxious. And in fact, the truth was that she was more than prepared, and I was less than prepared and she wasn't anxious at all. She was there to help me and I was anxious, needing help.

Alex: Linda put Gavin at ease, and this in turn influenced how he worked with his clients.

Gavin: I interacted with them with friendship, rather than with any feeling that ‘I'm in charge, and I'm an instructor and therefore you're going to listen to me’ it was, ‘how can I help you get the most from this guide dog? How can I train the guide dog for you? And how can I get that dog prepared so that it sees you as its mum or dad?’

Alex: Working at the centre, Gavin also learned that the words we use are really important.

Gavin: Even just calling somebody a disabled person, for me feels difficult because I see the person first and then I see the disability later. I’ve learned a lot more now that I actually will refer to the person as they want to be referred to, not as how I want to refer to them. So if somebody says I'm a disabled person, as far as I'm concerned, you're a disabled person. I don't put my vision of what that is onto the person. I allow them to let me know how they want me to interact with them.

Alex: Over the years, Gavin worked with hundreds of people with visual impairments.

Gavin: And at the very best day of being a guide dog trainer, or guide dog mobility instructor, was the day that the person walked away from you. The day that they walked off down the street with the dog that you had been training for the last six months. And you went, yep, brilliant job done. Right. Where's the next dog? Where's the next client? But it was that moment that they walked off down the street, totally independent and capable of living their own life and doing their own things, because they had this newfound mobility .

Alex: In his job as guide dog mobility instructor, one of the people Gavin supported was a man named John. John lived with a visible facial difference, as a result of a fireworks accident.

Gavin: John was a great guy, and he was actually a professor, very intelligent, cerebral, was able to have fantastic conversations with him when we were training or when we were just having a cup of tea.

Alex: One day, John and Gavin went to a local shopping centre with John’s guide dog.

Gavin: Cos we were going to walk around the Tesco and come out, use it as a training device and then grab a coffee and then come out and then talk about how he could improve his work with the dog or what he needed to do.

Alex: After strolling around the shop, they headed to the cafe. When John paid with his credit card, the salesperson tried to hand his card back to Gavin.

Gavin: And this happens a lot to disabled people. It's obvious, John handed you the card, how could… How could you not want to hand it back to him?! Now, John, being blind, they might go well, how do I know where his hand is? Do I have to touch his hand, they would feel a bit nervous or anxious about making contact… it's ignorance with a small i on their part, they probably don't mean to offend, but they just don't know what to do.

Alex: Gavin decided to ignore the exchange, and the pair sat down at a table.

Gavin: And then I took the tray over to the table show John, where that seat was got the seat out. We were still chatting to John, quite happily sat down, put some sugar in my tea or coffee wherever it was. And notice people staring at John. There was people walking past and staring. There was children staring, there was adults staring.

Alex: People in the cafe were looking at John’s face. Some were whispering to each other.

Gavin: So when you see people looking, and they then whisper to the person sitting next to them, you know that the thing that they're saying, is more than likely something they don't want to say out loud.

Gavin: Even though he couldn't see them staring and he couldn't see their facial expressions, I could. And it upset me that they didn't just see John.

Alex: Gavin was upset – at the card interaction, at the staring – but he was also ,, really annoyed.

Gavin: I'm sitting next to him, or opposite him, and I'm watching people stare, I'm in the zone at that point, and the anger is building up in me. So when a person's discriminating against John, by doing something like handing me the credit card, it's very easy for me to just get the red mist coming down, steam to come out my ears and instantly go to DEFCON five, and go, it's not my card, it's John's card or just ignore the person and just point at John because his card not mine.

Alex: But in that instant, he could see that the anger was part of the problem.

Gavin: Because what that does is it belittles the staff member who was handing me the card, and when I belittle them, I give them a negative association with disabled people.

Alex: Gavin tried his best to see the perspectives of the salesperson and the other customers staring.

Gavin: Instead of going, I’m angry at you. I would go: why have you passed me the card? Why are you staring at John? Why are you not allowing John access into the building? Why have you seemingly discriminated? Why are you treating John badly? Why are you staring at John, rather than you're wrong for doing it. And it was that why that was just constantly buzzing in my head.

Alex: It occurred to Gavin that, before he had met Linda and started working with guide dogs, he had been ignorant too.

Gavin: And it was at that moment that I realised that this was not John's fault. And it wasn't my fault. And it wasn't their fault. There had to be something else at play here. There had to be some other reason that people didn't interact or view other people as they're a person.

And I wanted to find a way to address that because it just felt wrong. And that is pretty much fundamentally what led me to my next career path.

Alex: Gavin spent a lot of time thinking about why interactions like that one with John and the salesperson - kept happening.

Gavin: When it comes to an interaction by a receptionist, or a shopkeeper or customer service representative, it's got to come down to their awareness of disability.

Alex: He decided to launch an app called Welcome. The app allows people with disabilities to connect to a shop or other business and let them know they’re about to visit. Staff then use the app as a training tool.

Gavin: So we'll just imagine Linda with her guide dog walking into a shop. Linda's using that application. And because of that the person in the shop goes right this is Linda, Linda is a guide dog owner. Make sure you introduce yourself. Don't talk to Linda's guide dog, offer Linda your arm, don't take Linda's arm if you're giving a sighted guide. When you're walking away from Linda, make sure you say goodbye and say you're going. Now if you know that an hour before you meet Linda, when you meet Linda, you put them all into practice.

Alex: The app has tips and guidance from different charities so that staff are informed about a range of disabilities. And crucially, it’s personalised to the customer.

Gavin: When you do traditional staff training. If the person puts it into practice, they're not doing it based on your needs. They're doing it based on something that happened years before. Whereas using this system, you get better customer service because you've said this is how I want you to interact with me.

And within our system, you could even say today I want to buy a pair of black work trousers 35 or 36 inch waist and I want a pair of work shoes. When I arrive I need a seat. And it's okay if you take MasterCard. And I could do all that before I arrive. So that when I arrive, the person goes out we've already picked out a couple of pairs of trousers for you. We've got a selection of shoes for you to look at and here's a seat that you can sit out while you're doing it. And by the way, MasterCard’s absolutely fine.

Alex: There are more than 14 million disabled people in the UK right now. Gavin believes his app has the power to make ripples of change in society.

Gavin: Welcome is a product that helps disabled people get better customer service. But it is so much more than that. It empowers the disabled person to be in charge of the relationship, the staff member they meet feels good and confident and less anxious about interacting with the person who's coming through the door. People who watch the interaction see best practice, the staff member goes home that night and talks to somebody else in their family and says, when you meet somebody who's blind, make sure you introduce yourself.

What we are doing when we make sure everybody in our society has access to information is we are changing the way society interacts. Now, this is such a big idea. It's massive.

Alex: The quality that comes through most strongly from Gavin is his empathy. Despite not having a disability himself, he has become immersed in the concerns and challenges that people with disabilities face. He also has a personal understanding of the discomfort able-bodied people may have when interacting with those who have different needs. The ignorance that many people have regarding disabilities often comes from a lack of understanding rather than maliciousness. So it makes perfect sense that Gavin has focused his energies on educating society. The more society understands how to assist those with disabilities, the more open and inclusive society will become.