Tom Maley obituary

Other lives: Schoolteacher, computer programmer and braille editor for the RNIB

My husband, Tom Maley, who has died aged 84, combined an exacting professional life in education, computing and braille with a musician’s appetite for company and mischief. Blind since early childhood, Tom refused the role of the heroic “overcomer”. He simply got on with things, usually at speed, with a running commentary that made any room feel more alive.

Tom lost his sight before his third birthday because of retinoblastoma, an aggressive childhood tumour that led to the removal of both eyes. Blindness shaped his methods, but never diminished his curiosity or sense of fun. He was a great raconteur, and his stories, delivered with exquisite timing and utmost relish, were as much part of his social life as his music.

Born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, to Mary (nee Devaney) and John Maley, a postman, Tom was five when he began playing the piano that his parents had bought, by ear. At eight, he received his first braille music book and mastered a second literacy that would remain central to his life.

He attended the Royal Blind school in Edinburgh, then against all odds studied history and music at the University of Edinburgh in the early 1960s. In 1964 he went to King’s College, Cambridge, where he “made much of music” while officially studying for a teaching qualification.

In 1965, Tom went to Kenya, and then Tanzania, with the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, to develop education programmes for visually impaired children. Back in the UK in 1967, he taught history for four years at Dunrobin school, in Sutherland, before moving to West Midlands Gas as a computer programmer, at a time when technology began to offer new routes to independence for blind people, particularly through the production of braille.

After a decade there, he joined the RNIB as braille editor, supervising transcription across publications, ensuring the consistent application of braille codes and contributing to the international development of braille standards; he also taught programming at the RNIB’s Loughborough College in the late 80s.

Following early retirement in 1993, Tom trained as a piano tuner and became a much-loved piano teacher, with about 100 pupils over 15 years. He performed piano concertos with local orchestras, including Beethoven’s Third, Mozart’s 23rd and Schumann’s piano concerto. His favourite party trick, delivered with the confidence of someone who knew how to read a room, was to play while deciphering a braille score with his toes.

At home Tom’s days were filled with music, books, and at various times, six guide dogs and several Siamese cats. Tom and I met in 1997 at the Music Summer School at Hereford – he was on the piano teachers’ course and I was on the solo singing course. We married in 2002.

He is survived by me, and by his son, Sebastian, from his second marriage, which ended in divorce, and his granddaughters, Ruby and Charlotte.