Juliet England: Why I’m sick of being told to pipe down

It’s lunchtime, and I am talking in a café to two people I am rather fond of. There’s just one problem. Every couple of minutes, one of them will adopt a pained expression and move the flat of their hand vertically up and down in that universal expression of ‘Can’t you keep the noise a bit lower?’

It’s the same story once we’re done and are back out in the street. Every time I open my mouth, the same pained expression and hand gesture. Even though who exactly would be offended by the booming in open air is unclear.

These two are not the only ones to tell me to reduce the volume – it happens all the time. (Clearly, it’s only hearing people who do this.)

One friend has an imitation trombone gesture he is fond of using. I think he has an intense fear of the contents of our conversations, so innocuous they are barely of interest to ourselves, never mind anyone else, being broadcast to the world at large.

At least two others I can think of similarly keep begging me to (quite literally) lower the tone, especially in crowded coffee shops and the like.

I know the decibels do creep up if alcohol has been consumed, if I am excited and chattery or with people I haven’t seen for a while. (In short, if I am having a good time.)

Oh and if there’s something wrong with my hearing aids, if the batteries have packed in, or if I’ve come out without them, up the noise level goes.

Clearly, not least in public places, you do not have the right to yell at the top of your voice for minutes on end unchallenged. Yet, rightly or wrongly, I find the whole ‘keep it down’ thing exasperating, on a number of levels.

Firstly, it interrupts the flow of the conversation and the thoughts I am trying to get across. With a hearing loss, conversation can be stop-start at the best of times.

Secondly, it’s frustrating because to me I am in no way talking loudly. I have a hearing loss – how am I meant to know how many decibels my voice has?

Thirdly and fourthly, it makes me feel as if I am different, when I already feel different enough already. And I would even go as far as to say it makes me feel as though I am being told off.

Actually, there are some times when being able to speak loudly can be an actively good thing. I had a small part in a play this month – Frankenstein’s creature, if you’re interested. And I had a couple of off-stage lines, bellowed out with the best of them. No one in the audience could have complained they didn’t hear what I was yelling.

That wasn’t all. I had to shout NO ESCAPE! as loudly as possible during one pair of lines my character uttered. Pause, shout, then drop the voice to a menacing whisper. (Well that was the plan, anyway.) When a fellow cast member reported that my shouting made her husband (not an especially jumpy sort by all accounts) all but leap out of his seat in fear, it was my proudest moment in the whole show.

Equally, if I need to call out after someone to gain their attention, say half way down a crowded shopping street, I’m your woman.

I have been thinking about this issue so much I contacted my mate Kate for an honest view, which I knew she would give. And she did.

“I think it depends on venue and topic of conversation,” she wrote back. “It’s only a problem in public places where there is a general hubbub of noise. It can be embarrassing, depending on what we are talking about, say someone else we know or some medical thing. Sometimes you do catch people glancing over or those that have come in for a quiet coffee and a read of their book can glare in our direction. (Although I don’t have huge amounts of sympathy with the latter group, frankly – we normally meet at lunchtimes and places are generally busy, so the chances of having a quiet read are minimal.)

“I appreciate I find it tricky to talk loudly myself, so my thinking it’s really loud might be me projecting my anxiety and maybe others around me don’t find it as loud as I think. We’ve been friends for some years and I know you do your best. Most of the time it honestly doesn’t bother me. Screaming children in public places can be much worse!”

Another friend, who is hard of hearing herself, wrote: “On the rare occasions I sing in company (e.g. services at school), I am always worried that I’m singing too loudly because I cannot tell in my head!”

Interesting point well made. Not that it’s occurred to me to sing in public since the age of about 12, when I was banned from not one but two school choirs.

So there you have it. Maybe (just maybe) in future I will try and not to deafen people with my booming voice. Unless it’s a theatrical requirement, obvs.

Juliet England is a partially deaf freelance writer