Juliet England: Meet the first deaf female cross-channel swimmer Verity Green

When she was a teenager, Verity Green, now 40, was told she was unlikely ever to swim again.

This month, Green, who lives in Catterick Garrison and is an advanced physiotherapist in complex pain management with County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust as well as being an accredited counsellor, swam 21-odd miles across the Channel to France to raise thousands for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, fulfilling a childhood dream in doing so.

Green has been profoundly deaf since the age of one, and is fluent in BSL, despite being told as a child that her mother and sister shouldn’t sign to her.

She started swimming for Great Britain’s deaf team aged 12, which gave her her first exposure to sign language. At 16, and living in Nottingham at the time, she won bronze in the 200m backstroke Deaflympics in Copenhagen – the same summer that Green sat her GCSES.

“Back then, it was unusual to have young people in the deaf team, now it’s normal,” she explains.

From the age of six, Green had dizzy spells, and was diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease aged 11. Throughout her teenage years the condition worsened, and, just a few months after her success at the Deaflympics, was given the devastating news that she wouldn’t be able to swim again after ‘last-ditch’ treatment for her Meniere’s.

“They said treatment has destroyed the balance system in my inner ears, and I wouldn’t know which way up I was in the water, due to the toxic level of antibiotics I’d been given. I had 42 injections in my buttocks, and they hit my sciatic nerve, which still gives me problems today. I had two injections a day over three weeks; it was very painful and I still remember it today. In fact it makes me feel sick remembering them.

“It did stop the dizzy spells, but I had to learn to walk again, and life has never been quite the same since. They said it could take up to six months to teach myself to walk, but I did it in days. The way my eyes see the world is different, because the eyes work with the balance nerve. Every day, I don’t understand the spatial relationships between me and people, the screen I’m working on, the ground.”

Green was also told she’d need a walking aid, but manages with occasionally using a cane for depth perception. The dizziness which would have kept her off school stopped, and she has had to learn to manage the disorientation.

“I have a toolbox just like I teach my patients! That includes a support network, breathing techniques and not being too hard on myself. We all need cheerleaders, not people who pull us down.

“About three months after the injections, I had to try swimming again. I went with another swimmer. But each breath felt terrible. I thought ‘I must push myself and force my brain to learn’.  But each tumble turn was worse … After three and a half lengths, I no longer knew which way was up and was starting to go under water. My friend had to swim over and pull me out – I silently cried and thought the doctor was right.”

Luckily, Green admits herself that she is stubborn – and she persisted.

“It was a struggle but I trained my brain. I swam for Great Britain again in 2001 but was ranked seventh. I beat myself up thinking I was not good enough. I would cry in the changing room before training. Knowing the horrible feeling that was about to come. I now have automatic anxiety going to swimming pool.”

But a chance decision to swim outside changed everything for the better. She still had to be careful, and it was still hard work. But without the visual confusion of lights, tile patterns, and tumble turns, it was easier.

Four years ago, Green took part in a relay swim to see if she could cope with hour-long spells in the water, swimming from a boat and in the dark. Her team of six crossed the Channel in, she reckons, some 15.5 hours.

“It was good! All my toolbox of strategies was coming together. The pilot thought I could do a solo. And I joined a three-year waiting list in January 2018. Eddie Spelling was my pilot – there are two bodies that have a list of pilots you can go with. There was a team onboard and an official observer.”

So, despite the issues of the pandemic, Green set off for France from Dover’s Shakespeare Beach at 530am on 2 August, making it to Cap Gris-Nez in 12 hours and nine minutes, fighting the tide for final last couple of hours.

Rather than cold, jellyfish were more of a problem, as was the salt swelling up her tongue.

When lipreading became difficult, a support swimmer joined Green in the water for the last few hundred metres, when she was guided to land by a dinghy.

 

“All the way, the crew wrote short simple messages to show me about the fundraising total, and threw my drink to me every hour. They also updated my social media.”

Green has now raised (with Gift Aid) around £9,000 for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.

“The swim was hard and exhausting. My balance meant my brain became confused with boat rocking. But I wasn’t allowed to touch it or hold on to it. I didn’t feel like giving up at any point, but I knew when to speak up to the crew and tell them when I wanted them support me more, knowing my mind was finding it hard.

“I didn’t accept I had actually done it until the end, as many people have to give up near the finish. Then I couldn’t stop smiling!

“I was overwhelmed with support, including from Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. I didn’t quite appreciate the importance of being the first deaf woman, until I saw the impact on the deaf community. Open water swimming has grown in the last year with the pandemic, so what perfect timing.”

Green trained in rivers and the North Sea near where she lives, not least because pools were closed in lockdown. This helped her to beat the average completion time of 13 hours 30 minutes.

“It was also down to a mix of my childhood swimming muscle memory, along six-to-eight-hour training swims in the sea around work and my own persistence.”

She is now already looking at even longer swims for next summer, possibly in the Lake District or Scotland, as well as helping others with their cross-Channel swims.