Juliet England: Meet deaf mum Julie Wixey, who spends up to 15 hours a day making clear masks for lipreaders

An unpleasant incident in a local branch of a national chain of chemists spurred mum Julie Wixey on to setting up a cottage industry making clear face masks so that fewer non-hearing people like her would have to go through what she did.

It’s meant some 15-hour days and even led to a spot on breakfast TV for the 62-year-old furloughed care worker, who lives just outside Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire.

Wixey is married and has two daughters, Michelle, 20, and Emma, 41, a prison officer with a hearing loss. Michelle is hearing and works for the family’s road haulage business while all of them sign, including dad Andrew, who is also a hearing aids user.

Julie herself has been profoundly deaf since birth as she has Waardenburg syndrome. As she explains:

“I am considered high risk because of my condition. I normally work in Leamington Spa, but haven’t been able to be there during lockdown.”

Wixey adds that the incident in the pharmacy several weeks ago left her feeling ‘angry, frustrated and upset. I wanted to rip off the mask of the staff member involved!’

It happened as she came to pay, and had a further question.

“I couldn’t hear behind the assistant’s regular mask – and actually they just ignored me. It was so frustrating. Eventually they went to fetch Michelle, who had already left to go to the car, to come and sign for me.

“Even though one of the staff members did go and get my daughter to help when they realised I was struggling to communicate, it was still a very upsetting incident. You would expect better from this national chain. And it also made me think I almost certainly wasn’t alone.”

But rather than sitting at home doing nothing, Julie decided to take action, setting up a small operation to make clear, affordable face masks to help anyone who needs to lipread.

“I saw them on Facebook and soon realised how useful they could be to deaf people.”

Since then, she has made, she reckons, up to 300 of the see-through facial coverings so far, all run up on her sewing machine at home, and she buys the material from a local supplier. (Julie adds that this fabric is coming harder to come by.) In a typical day, the Wixeys can turn around between 15 and 20 of the coverings.

Michelle and her dad have been roped in to help, along with a family friend, and distribution is via Royal Mail.

Word quickly spread via the Wixeys’ network of relatives and friends, helped by advertising on social media and local noticeboards. Equally, local newspapers have picked up the story.

“It’s not been many weeks, but we’re all amazed at how the thing has taken off. We certainly weren’t expecting this reaction! The days have been long, and sometimes we’ve spent up to 15 hours in one day to keep up with demand. But it’s great that everyone wants them, to help those who can’t hear.”

An unexpected benefit has been working with her daughter – Wixey jokes that they’ve managed not to kill each other yet – and the family hopes to be able to continue the operation.

The story even made the BBC’s early-morning news magazine Breakfast after a researcher spotted one their adverts. Michelle and Julie were both interviewed via video link – with Michelle signing for her mum, bearing in mind that BSL is not something you see that often in TV news interviews.

“That was quite a scary experience! But it was good to do, and we had lots of enquiries afterwards, so definitely worth it.”

There are two types of mask they produce, costing £5 or £7, because one type of material is more expensive than the other. But all the coverings are made from breathable 100% cotton.

Wixey, of course, isn’t the only deaf person to have been adversely affected by mask wearing, which became mandatory in shops last week, and the reality is that anyone with a hearing loss is likely to be finding it disproportionately harder to communicate as long as the pandemic lasts.

But there has been a huge amount of pulling together across the community, with Wixey and others making masks, and others producing badges explaining or facial coverings explaining that the wearer is a lipreader or hard of hearing.

This can be seen with just the most cursory glance of relevant deaf groups on Facebook.

One hard-of-hearing pharmacy worker, replying to a question about communication with GPs, posted in one such group: “I wear a mask in work behind screens. I had a customer the other day who I’d noticed signing to someone in the queue, and when they approached the counter I removed my mask and had pen and paper ready just in case. I have no issues with removing my mask when necessary or using pen and paper, doctors need to think about how refusing affects our self-confidence and self-esteem.”

Someone else posted simply “I have never felt more vulnerable”.

So while the community has come together well, it’s perhaps a shame that not everyone else outside it has always been so thoughtful.