“When I started teaching them, it had such a huge impact on me.” BSL interview with Rose Ayling-Ellis and Marios Costi about their BBC1 documentary Old Hands, New Tricks (BSL)

Watch Rose Ayling-Ellis: Old hands, New Tricks at 9pm on BBC1 on Wednesday.

On Wednesday the BBC will broadcast Rose Ayling-Ellis: Old hands, New Tricks, a two-part documentary in which Rose Ayling-Ellis and Marios Costi teach a group of retired people aged from 65-95 how to use BSL.

Our editor Charlie Swinbourne sat down with Rose and Marios for a chat about the programme in BSL this morning, watch it in BSL below or scroll down to read the transcript…

Charlie: Thank you for coming here today and making the time for Limping Chicken. It’s really nice to have you both here. Now something exciting is happening this week…you have a documentary coming up, tell us all about it.

Rose: So the documentary is about Marios and I teaching a group of older hearing people to sign for the first time ever in their lives. The reason I wanted to create this programme is because it is a huge problem for older deaf people going to care homes. There are only two BSL accessible homes in the UK, so if some older people can sign, the deaf person going to a care home, they won’t be as isolated if people can sign there. A lot of deaf people go to care homes and they are the only one who signs, so they have to teach the people there and all this takes a lot of time and effort. 

Marios: Yes that’s right. I want to add that in addition to deaf people going to care homes, also hearing people there, a lot of them are hard of hearing or losing their hearing with age. Communication can be difficult for people in the care homes if they can’t hear very well, so they can become lonely and lose their confidence. We wanted to show that both deaf people and hard of hearing people in the care homes can have better communication access via BSL. This means that when older deaf people start thinking about going into care homes, then they will know that some care homes have BSL being used in them and will feel more comfortable choosing them and feel safe there. The present picture in the UK is bleak for deaf people with only two care homes that use BSL, so this documentary will highlight the need for BSL access.

Rose: A lot of deaf people want to be in a care home near their families, but if there are only two BSL accessible homes, they would have to be further away from their loved ones. In care homes, there are not only people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but people who have suffered a stroke, a brain injury or have other health problems which result in them struggling to communicate with others.

Charlie: So in the documentary, there were people who are deaf, hard of hearing or lost their hearing. How did you encourage them? Were some of them resistant?

Rose: I couldn’t have done this without Marios. He was key to them all learning sign through being really enthusiastic, full of energy and really encouraging. They all loved him! I was encouraging too but there were lots of challenges especially that they all tired very easily! 

Marios: When Rose first told me I would be teaching older people, I expected them to be in their 50’s and 60’s! I was told, no a lot older, up to 105! I was thinking, “How!?” It was a big challenge. When Rose and I went and started teaching them, I realised that with teaching handshapes, it was difficult because some of them had arthritis or some of them had strokes so could only move one arm. Some of them had speech issues too due to strokes. So Rose and I had to think carefully about how to adapt to their needs but keep them interested and involved. A lot of planning and preparation was needed prior, some stress but it was wonderful to see them start to open up, show their emotions and creating bonds with us. There were some people who had severe arthritis in their hands but we still encouraged them to do the fingerspelling and handshapes and it was wonderful to see them progress as time went on. 

Rose: One person had arthritis and he said that through the BSL practice, he could feel his fingers were more flexible. 

Charlie: As we know there is signing taught in baby sign classes, (should be deaf children too), but it is interesting that nobody has thought about the benefits for older people too, through flexibility,  visual communication, creating bonds and helping with isolation. Do you feel you want to show to the audience that signing has positive benefits to all ages?

Rose: It’s a good message to show how signing can benefit everyone. If you learn signing as a child, it means that you will always have it with you in your life and you may need it at some point, maybe when you are older and you have a stroke, BSL will be really useful for communication at that point. It’s a fantastic idea. 

Charlie: Did you make good friends with the people? Did you make good connections with them? Any favourites in particular?

Marios: I don’t have a favourite, I loved everyone, their different life journeys, their emotions, their facial expressions, especially one person Pam, remember Pam Rose? 

Rose: Yes her sign name was “face expression” Pam!

Marios: She really encapsulated deaf culture, she understood it and had fantastic facial expressions and influenced the others with facial expressions. Before teaching them, when Rose asked me, I struggled to picture it and wondered if they would benefit from learning BSL or not and would it really be worth it?  But when I started teaching them, it had such a huge impact on me. It was so beneficial to do this with these older people who were deaf, hard of hearing or had physical disabilities because I was gobsmacked at the end of the process about how much they benefitted from learning BSL. It is so important that this is widespread through the UK that these older people with their varying needs should have basic BSL so that they can communicate with each other. 

Rose: We all know how powerful BSL is. I love signing and I think BSL is a fantastic language. When I watched it being taught to these older people, I realised just how beautiful it is and how beneficial it is and the power of connection it has. I feel really privileged to know BSL, how different it is to English, the power of emotional connection, body language, visual and facial expression. Hearing people don’t have strong eye contact but using BSL forces people to look at each other for communication. These older people we worked with, throughout the process, their eye contact with each other really improved. 

Marios: In addition to that, I remember initially throughout the first few weeks, I would work with them one on one and if they didn’t understand me or struggled, they would look to Rose because she could use her voice. I had a chat with Rose and asked her not to use her voice (BSL voice off) so that it would force them to focus and watch carefully. It worked and I saw an improvement in engagement and connection. 

Rose: I realised as time went on, my using my voice was detrimental to the process, because they would make an effort to sign with Marios but not with me which meant I had to work harder to understand them.  It made me reflect and question my own deaf identity. It was a good journey for myself and my relationship with BSL and Marios helped me immensely. 

Charlie: So both of you have had your own journeys in different ways, personal journeys and also a filming journey?

Rose: Exactly that, yes. It made me realise I wanted to sign more, but at the same time, I am who I am, it is not my fault I speak but watching Marios interact with the older people, led to me learning such a lot from him. 

Marios: Really both of us worked together a lot, learning from each other. The more we taught and worked with the older people, there more we had to reflect. We would talk in private about what we were learning and share it with each other. We really helped each other a lot. We also had other assistant tutors helping too which was lovely.

With the older people, as the process moved on, I learnt so much about their life journeys, their emotions and built up a bond with them so much that I cried at least four or five times in the six weeks. Little moments made me well up! It was a beautiful experience having that time with them, really lovely.

Rose: They had lots of stories and it made me realise actually how young their minds were still. 

Charlie: Now the documentary has finished being filmed, are you still in contact with the old people?

Rose: Yes, I’ m still in contact with them. Some great news, they’ve now got a deaf tutor going in weekly to carry on the signing journey which is fantastic. It can happen in TV that they have an initiative, they film it and then it doesn’t carry on after, but this hasn’t happened, they still want to learn signing which is fantastic.

Charlie: Rose, you’ve done a lot of acting on tv and theatre, but this is your second documentary that you’ve made. Is this an area that you would like to continue in, making more documentaries?

Rose: I feel that acting is for me, but making documentaries is a good way of campaigning for the deaf community, getting the message across about BSL and access. I want to make more documentaries, this has only scratched the surface, there is so much more to talk about, discuss and spread awareness. 

Charlie: Marios, I’ve seen you in your football documentary, is this something you want to continue, to do more of in the future?

Marios, Well, I’ve always enjoyed being in the TV environment, being in documentaries and other roles. I want to help people, encourage and inspire and to have an impact to help change people’s lives. That’s my aim. Rose has said that I should be in the acting world, but I’m a bit unsure about that! 

Rose: Yes, he is really natural on TV, he’s got the charisma and is very charming! He’s got everything and is a natural on camera!

Charlie: Maybe he could be the next deaf TV detective or a wrestler or something?!? Maybe you should bring Marios into your next acting project Rose?

Rose: Yes, which role do you want to play Marios?  

Charlie: hmmm maybe a football manager, you are natural at that!

Rose: He doesn’t need to act to be a football manager!

Marios Yes I’m direct!

Charlie: Back to the documentary, what do you hope the audience will feel after watching it? 

Rose: We want them to think about older people – both deaf and hearing. There is a huge problem of loneliness. We hope people watching can understand that sign language can create a community, bringing people together. Maybe they might think after watching, oh I want my grandad to learn to sign, to fight and help us with campaigning and advocacy. We can’t do it alone, we need hearing people to advocate as well. 

Marios: I agree, we can’t just work only with our deaf community, we need to bridge and work with hearing people helping them to understand deaf culture and working together. My hope is that the audience will realise that if hard of hearing older people can learn to sign, anyone can learn to sign. I also hope that the care homes themselves see the positive change from Day 1 of the experiment to the end and realise that this is something that is beneficial for those who struggle to communicate in the care homes. Also, my hope is that in the future, an older deaf person can choose to go to any care homes because they will have people signing in the care homes as a result of the programme and seeing the positive impact. It would be amazing to have more care homes that are accessible for deaf people in their local area. 

Rose: I hope that people realise that not just sign language can help everyone but also deaf people can help too, we can be utilised in a positive way.

Charlie: Yes in our community, we know lots of people whose parents are deaf but if they want to go to an accessible carehome they have to travel so far and live far from their families. This definitely needs to change. Well done for making this documentary. I think it will have a huge impact and it will make a lot of hearing people think and reflect. Are you hoping that all the care homes will have BSL taught in them?

Rose: I’m hoping that people will watch the documentary and think “ I want that”. If there is demand then that will benefit the deaf community! I want to create a bigger demand to learn BSL. 

Marios: I’m hoping that the impact will be that the people watching will realise that they will become like those in the documentary one day. You will be old one day, you will lose your hearing, may have a stroke, may have arthritis amongst other possible issues. How will you communicate with other people at that point?  I’m hoping it will not only impact those in care homes but also hearing people of different ages, realising the potential of BSL. 

Charlie: Yes we need everyone to sign. It will improve eye contact too. Lots of people are looking at phones too much! It will be great for children, for adults. I hope the overall impact will help the audience think about learning BSL. 

Rose: Fingers crossed!

Charlie: Thank you both so much for your time and well done to both of you for making the documentary. It’s an exciting week! Hopefully we can catch up afterwards to discuss the response from the audience. Good luck for the future as well. 

Rose: Fingers crossed, I can’t wait for Wednesday to see the response!

All:  thank you and bye bye.