Claire Killacky: I discovered a love for BSL later on in my life (BSL)

Hi, I’m Claire I’m 45 and live in Maidstone, Kent. I had meningitis at the age of 9 and my hearing slowly deteriorated leaving me totally deaf age around the age of 13. I wore hearing aids until I eventually lost all of my hearing and so at the age of 15 years old I had a cochlear implant.

I was one of the first to have this done so it was scary and exciting at the same time. The cochlear implant was a huge success. I have had to have the implant replaced a couple of times and now have double cochlear implants.

From the moment I started losing my hearing my parents were told not to let me sign as it would mean that I would be forced to go to a deaf school and therefore only have deaf friends. This meant that instead I had to learn to lipread to fit in with the hearing world.

Life was hard but I managed well, although I missed so much school because back in those days they didn’t really know what to do with me so I spent a lot of time at home. I even remember learning to French plait my own hair at the age of 9 because I was bored, which is when I thought about becoming a hairdresser.

When I was 15 my careers adviser told me that I will amount to nothing as I’ve missed so much education and that no one will want a deaf hairdresser. I didn’t think much of it as I trusted my teachers knew better than me so when they offered me money to not go to college I mentioned it to my mum and she went mad!

She told them that will not be happening and bought me a huge mirror which she placed in our tiny bathroom and each night she sat in front of it so that I could stand behind her and chat to learn to lipread backwards in the mirror.

Still aged 15 I walked around the high street one Saturday and asked every hairdresser if they could offer me a Saturday job ( I think I had only been switched on a couple of months so thinking back this was really quite brave) and after a few rejections I walked into Demaje hair studio and the boss came over and said to hang my coat up and start straight away!

I spent 6 years working there and absolutely loving it. I eventually bought my own salon when I was around 24/25 years old and I now work from home to be around for my 2 children ( Daniel 16 and Lucy 11 ) I love my job and can honestly say no one has a problem with me being deaf.

The reason I recently started learning BSL was simply because I’ve always wanted to. First of all, I decided to start because I wanted to do something for myself. During lockdown I was “teacher” to my daughter Lucy, and well…. All I can say is it was NOT good! I began to feel really, really down. I mean, I was a grown woman who could not help her 8 year old daughter with her school work.

I was chatting to my husband about it and we then found a course for me to do. It was only ever going to be something for me to just say I’ve done for myself but when I started it I soon realised how I have found a real passion for BSL. I hadn’t realised the teacher would be deaf and not talk, I’d never even met a deaf person before and I felt an instant connection to her.

She made me realise that it’s okay to be deaf and how important BSL is. I love my lessons so much. I have just started my level 2 and would love to end up being good enough to fluently have a conversation with someone in BSL. I really really think it’s important to spread deaf awareness and I wish that BSL was taught in schools

By Claire Killacky, a professional hairdresser from Kent.