Juliet England: My deaf diary – part 3

Read Juliet’s first instalment here and second instalment here.

Saturday 21 September

Posh dinner at a friend’s Oxford college. With low lighting, the murmur of voices getting louder as the evening progresses (in direct proportion to alcohol consumption levels, not least my own), the thing is a potential deaf person’s nightmare. Oh, and, being Oxford, it’s not like you can chat about last night’s Corrie. Intelligent conversation is required. Luckily, I find myself opposite someone else with a hearing loss, even if we don’t make much sense to each other, and so it all goes off splendidly.

Wednesday 09 October 2019

A letter arrives giving me a date for my first cochlear implant assessment at Oxford. As terrifying as it is exciting. Over the coming weeks I will be consistently impressed by their calm, efficient and above all kind responses to my increasingly hysterical queries.

We agree a date for December, on what, as it turns out, will be the eve of the election. A friend who happens to have an appointment at the same hospital that day has said (wonderfully) she can come with me. Decide to park it and worry about it then.

Thursday 10 October 2019

Email from my local BBC radio station about the audition I did for their New Voices competition last month. I got four out of four ‘yeses’ from the judges for chatting about deafness, with particular reference to the perils of cloth-eared dating.

It seems I haven’t been chosen to progress any further in the contest after all. But they say they want to keep in touch, and hopefully there’ll be a chance to get a deaf voice on local radio at some point.

Saturday 19 October 2019

It’s Super Saturday. To London, to join the march protesting against Brexit. Another potential hearing horror show.

I rarely manage to stay walking with my fellow marchers anyway, and always end up getting separated from anyone I’ve travelled with. So, in defiance of the song, I usually do walk alone. However, this time I manage to stick with an acquaintance, the walk moves at a nice pace and it’s good to have some company, even though I am of course (allegedly) with a million other marchers. It’s virtually impossible to catch a word walking side by side, so I have to do a lot of smiling, nodding and hoping for the best. Luckily, she understands. But somehow it is enough just to be there.

Outside Parliament, there’s a huge crush of people, and a massive roar, presumably because the whole Brexit thing is put on hold … again. I ask someone to confirm that the Letwin amendment has indeed been passed but can’t hear them, so a friend has to Skype me the news.

Time for what any middle-aged person needs at all times as a matter of some urgency. A cup of tea and a nice sit down. Exhausting stuff, this marching business.

In the evening I catch up with a couple of buddies and watch the biopic Judy at a local multiplex. It’s one of those out-of-town cinemas that has chairs more comfortable than my own bed.

Actually, not being able to hear is fine on this occasion. I just wallow in the darkness and the amazing seat after all that walking, perking up in time for Somewhere Over the Rainbow at the end, probably the best and most moving moment of the film anyway.

Thursday 24 October 2019

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on these pages, it makes a huge difference to turn on a TV programme and see, in Channel 4’s The Accident, an ordinary deaf character whose hearing loss is just an unremarkable fact of life. Why do we not see more of this sort of thing?

(At the time of writing, I have just seen Part 2, and the character, Debbie, was woken by a flashing alarm clock. Just ordinary deaf life being portrayed in a way you never normally see in that type of detail.)

Friday 25 October 2019

David my lovely IT repair man swoops to my rescue after I get into a tangle with my laptop.

It’s dispiriting that, even in the quiet of my home, I am struggling to hear him. He couldn’t be more understanding, points to his beard and blames it on that, and writes stuff down for me as he works his magic. He tells me his daughter also wears a behind-the-ear hearing aid, which she recently lost in a nightclub. I realise I can’t remember the last time I was up late enough to go clubbing.

That evening it’s my regular Friday night dance class. I am an improbable dancer, but always maintain that as long as I enjoy it, don’t actually bash into anyone else (always a close-run thing) and keep moving, there can be no harm. I just sit out some of the spinning bits as, possibly because of my hearing loss, my sense of balance is woeful.

I realise I can barely hear the music at all.

Saturday 26 October 2019

Pop over to a neighbouring town for a piano concert – a fine, talented local musician playing some of his own compositions. The acoustics and seating arrangements mean I can hear the music pretty well in this church which makes for a real (and rare) treat.