How free eye tests and glasses from Specsavers got Paula baking again

Paula Langa is a baker. She learned young, standing beside her mother in their kitchen in Romania, making cakes for neighbours’ birthdays and family celebrations. “When I was younger, me and my mama used to bake cakes for people,” she says. “I learned from her. I liked it, so I keep doing it.”

These days, living in Newport with her two young children, Paula bakes constantly. “I do croissants, chocolate croissants. I do cheesecake, Kinder cheesecake, Raffaello cake. I do a lot of types of pancakes.” Her five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son get through a lot of cake.

“The kids love sweets and chocolate, so I make them. I just watch recipes on my phone and try them. And then I see, oh, I’m good at that, and I try it again.”

Struggling to see

The problem was seeing those recipes. Paula finds them on her phone, but the text is always tiny. For years, she’d have to hold the screen right up to her face, squinting at ingredients and method steps until her eyes ached. “You need to be really close to the phone,” she says. “They write it in very small text.”

She’d been getting severe headaches for five years. Her eyes would water constantly, blink uncontrollably when she tried to focus on a screen. “My eyes were stressed all the time,” she says. “When I’m looking at something very intensely, my eyes start watering, it’s like I’m crying for nothing. And sometimes when I have a big headache, I see double.”

She knew something was wrong, but she’d never had her eyes tested.

Accessing care

Paula sells Big Issue outside Aldi on Newport Road in Cardiff, commuting in by bus from Newport each morning. She’s been a vendor for two and a half years. Like many vendors, accessing healthcare hadn’t been straightforward.

After hearing reports of her crying in pain on her pitch, Big Issue frontline staff asked Paula to pop into a Specsavers pop-up clinic taking place in the magazine’s Cardiff office. The test confirmed what she’d long suspected: she needed glasses for distance vision. Within weeks, she had them.

The change

The change was immediate. The headaches eased. The watering and blinking stopped. And in her kitchen, phone propped up beside the mixing bowl, she could finally read the recipes clearly.

“When I put the glasses on, I could see with so much more clarity,” she says. “I don’t have to squint.”

Everyday moments

It goes beyond baking. Her young son loves music. His favourite thing is to pull up songs on Paula’s phone and sing along with her. “He just puts songs on the phone, and I need to sing with him,” she says. “He loves If You’re Happy and You Know It. He just copies what I do.”

Before her glasses, even finding the songs and reading the lyrics was a struggle. Now she can keep up with a two-year-old who won’t take no for an answer.

The Specsavers partnership

Since November 2022, Specsavers’ partnership with Big Issue has offered all vendors free eye tests, glasses and ear care, with no fixed address required, no paperwork and no cost. Pop-up clinics like the one in Cardiff bring the service directly to vendors who might not otherwise access a high street optician.

For Paula, it means she can do the things that matter most. She can bake her mother’s recipes for her children. She can sing with her son. After five years of headaches, she can see clearly. And that’s something to sing about.