Matt Formston is blind, and grew up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. A documentary on his life, The Blind Sea – which builds to him surfing the largest surf break in the world – will open in 100 theatres around Australia this weekend. I talked to him on Thursday.
Matt Formston grew up with Narrabeen Lake as his backyard. Credit: The Blind Sea Fitz: What was your childhood like, and at what point did you realise “I’m going blind”? MF: It was great. I grew up with Narrabeen Lake as my backyard, so my life was filled with swimming, fishing, footie, hiking, biking and surfing.
But when I was five years old at St Joseph’s primary, the nurse took me from the classroom and asked me to describe the pictures on the back of the door. I thought it was some kind of competition, and did my best, but I couldn’t do it. They diagnosed me with something called macular dystrophy, which ended up with me becoming totally blind in my central vision, and about 3 per cent clarity in my right eye and 1 per cent in my left eye, just on the very edges.
Fitz: What approach did your parents take? MF: They never told me I was blind – or at least they never told me I was different. The world was telling them, “Your son’s blind, he can’t stay in the mainstream school, he can’t still play football, he can’t surf, he can’t cycle”, but they insisted I could and would do all those things, and I adapted. In football, I was a very good tackler and when I switched to rugby union, when.