This is wonderful news. Surely there can be no irrational argument put forward denouncing this real and tangible measure of benefit science has been able to achieve.

A relative of mine had one of his eyes shot out at the age of eight by a children's shooting arrow device and so this particular avenue of science would seem blocked to him, unfortunately.

One has heard, however, of the immense strides scientists have been able to make in embryonic stem cell research, which claims to be able to replicate the cells of any and every part of the human body. This line of research would seem to offer more hope of benefit to those whose ocular capacity is forever gone than to those who are suffering the pain and horror of retinitis pigmentosa. Unfortunately, there is for these people a great deal of irrational antipathy for such treatment, based mostly in the tenets of what is called a 'faith' of one sort or another, thereby bringing a virtual halt to such research in those countries where the most gifted would be most likely to shine a curative light on the problem.

My father is 65 now and I wonder if I will ever have the pleasure of looking into his eyes and knowing that he sees me, and the world around him, twice as vividly, because of the unfettered advances of science, than he ever has been able to do in the last 57 years.

Sean Tyrer